Pretty much yes, at least it's safer to start with that premise
That being said, unlike russia, china is quite indebted
>China's debt-to-GDP ratio rose to a record high of 281.5% of GDP in Q2 2023, according to Bloomberg's calculations based on data from China's central bank and the National Bureau of Statistics.2 China's national debt related to GDP grew slowly but steadily from around 23% in 2000 to 34% in 2012, only disrupted by the global financial crisis in 2008.3 China's debt-to-GDP ratio is a reasonable proxy for the amount of inflated growth in China's GDP numbers, but some experts say that China's debt has surged at the sort of pace that usually leads to a financial bust and economic slump.1 China's fiscal capacity is highly constrained, and its central government debt-to-GDP ratio is only 21.3%, extremely low compared to the US level of 119% and the Eurozone average of 91.6%.0
From brave AI, for what it's worth
>Russia's debt to GDP ratio was 16.99% in 2021, making it one of the lowest in the world. However, the country's war with Ukraine, which began in early 2022, is expected to have some effect on this ratio. Russia's debt is currently at a total of just over 302 billion USD, with most of its external debt being private.02 In 2022, Russia's government debt to GDP decreased to 17.2%, and external debt decreased to 348 USD Billion in the second quarter of 2023.3 In March 2023, Russia's government debt accounted for 15.5% of its nominal GDP, compared to the ratio of 14.9% in the previous quarter.1
China's entire industrial complex runs on buy-now-pay-later. It seems like everyone there, from small factories to big conglomerates has no money, they borrow it to start production in the hopes they can sell for a profit.
>runs on buy-now-pay-later
Parents of a chinese friend of mine started a business like that in an overseas department of france, a bar, and they had a policy of drink now pay later with the locals who had for habit to spend most if not their entire pay in drinks, and they often ended up broke in the middle of the month. It was that or running into troubles with an island of broke alcoholics essentially, so they settled for that alternative. It worked well, they always ended up paying but later, it's not like back then they had countless alternative spots for a pay later drink...
Sounds like it's culturally ingrained.
Now the business end of the matter has done the same thing. They can't pay for more materials because they can't pay for the ones they already had.
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