Broken China: How China’s Economic Miracle Shatters

In a new episode of China Considered, Elizabeth Economy sits down with Logan Wright, partner at Rhodium Group and author of the forthcoming book Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What It Means for the World (Polity, 2026), to reconcile the competing narratives about China’s economy: inexorable rise, “K-shaped” growth, or “peak China.” Wright argues that the financial system that once fueled China’s growth now constrains it—after the largest single-country credit expansion in more than a century, Beijing keeps rolling over loans to unproductive state firms rather than absorbing losses, leaving it unable to fund the sectors that could drive future growth. 

The two discuss why household consumption is stuck at roughly one percent growth, how Xi Jinping’s centralization of power has created new financial risks and stalled structural reform, the demographic and youth-employment squeeze produced by a capital-intensive growth model, and what signals would indicate a real change of course in Beijing. They close with Wright’s assessment of what the Trump administration has gotten right and wrong on China, why a coordinated allied response to Chinese exports matters more than unilateral tariffs, and what he is watching for at the upcoming Trump–Xi summit.

Recorded on September 4, 2026.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Logan Wright is a partner at Rhodium Group, where he leads the firm’s China Markets Research practice, and a senior associate of the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His work focuses on China’s financial system, credit conditions, and central bank policy, and on how those forces shape China’s economy and global markets. He is the author of Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What It Means for the World (Polity, 2026) and of three widely cited Rhodium reports on China’s financial system and long-term trajectory: Credit and Credibility (2018), The China Economic Risk Matrix (2020), and Grasping Shadows (2023). Wright previously led China research at Medley Global Advisors and worked as a China analyst at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, both in Beijing. 

RELATED SOURCES

• Logan Wright, Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What It Means for the World (Polity, 2026)
• Logan Wright’s Rhodium Group profile and research
• Logan Wright, “China’s Moment of Weakness: Economic Decay and America’s Strategic Opening,” Foreign Affairs, July 23, 2026
• Wright’s book recommendation on China: Patrick McGee, Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company (Scribner, 2025)
• Related episode: “How iPhones Built a Superpower with Patrick McGee” (China Considered, Dec. 2025)