Anonymous1 day ago
China's economy grew 5.0% in Q1 2026, beating forecasts despite the Iran war disrupting a third of the country's oil supply route, but the outperformance was driven almost entirely by front-loaded infrastructure spending and pre-war crude stockpiling rather than by household demand. Youth unemployment sits above 16%, retail sales growth has halved in a year, and trading partners from the EU to Southeast Asia are erecting new tariff walls against the industrial output the stimulus is generating — leaving the headline growth rate narrower and more vulnerable than it appears.