China Continues To Crack Down on Its Shadow Banking Sector

Oct. 8, 2019 (EIRNS)—China’s shadow banking sector shrank to a three-year low in the first half of 2019, according to a Moody’s report covered by Xinhua. As part of “government efforts to contain financial risks,” Xinhua reported, the authorities “have been stepping up efforts to rein in risky shadow banking activities in recent years amid a broader crackdown on financial irregularities,” while increasing “efforts to encourage bank lending to small private businesses.”  Broadly defined shadow banking assets declined by nearly 1.7 trillion yuan (about $240 billion) in the first half of 2019 to 59.6 trillion yuan, the lowest level since the end of 2016, according Moody’s.

If you read, and believe, the Financial Times, however, you would have been told the exact opposite. In their Sept. 24 edition, the FT cited an outfit called China Beige Book International, to run an article under the headline “China’s Shadow Banking Industry Roars Back.” The argument they peddle is that the U.S. trade war against China has been so successful, that “following the onset of the trade dispute with the U.S. and slowing economic growth, shadow lending has made an unprecedented return in the second and third quarters of 2019, according to China Beige Book International, a provider of independent data on the Chinese economy.”

And who, pray tell, is China Beige Book International? Well, it would appear to be a purveyor of military-grade disinformation. Its co-founder Leland Miller, according to their website, “was a capital markets attorney based out of New York and Hong Kong and worked on the deal team at a major investment bank,” and is “an elected life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.” And chief economist Dr. Derek Scissors hails from neocon outfits including the Heritage Foundation and AEI (where he is concurrently a resident scholar), as well as having been “a consultant for London-based Intelligence Research Ltd., and an advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense.”