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| Rubber's production of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia have strong impact |
China’s property market seems finally to be popping, which could be bad news not just for China, but for some of its trading countries.
What happen if China'properties have a catastrophic meltdown? And if things do turn out badly, what countries get hurt most?
The first economies affected would be big commodity producers that sell to China or rely on China’s demand indirectly. Top of that list would include Australia (coal, iron ore, natural gas), South Africa and Brazil (industrial metals) and Chile (copper). Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia supply rubber, and Indonesia provides a lot of coal.
Another impact of a China hard landing would be oversupplies in China of steel, machinery and other basic-material items. China reduced a glut by exporting those items at very low prices, which triggered a global drop in steel prices and political standoffs with the U.S. and Europe, where steel industries have bristled in the past over Chinese steel’s flooding global markets.
China’s neighbors South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, which supply heavy machinery for construction and manufacturing, would also get hit.
Higher on the value chain would be countries that produce the high-tech goods needed for China’s burgeoning manufacturing industry, especially Germany, which relies heavily on exports to drive its economy.