A look at China’s economic change from Beijing’s Sanlitun neighborhood

While on assignment covering Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to Beijing last week, “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal met up with Shanghai correspondent Jennifer Pak. They walked through Beijing’s Sanlitun neighborhood, where Ryssdal lived in the 1990s. Back then, the neighborhood was made up of old apartment buildings, vegetable stands and small bars catering to expat Westerners. Now, there are luxury retail stores like Chanel and Dior, as well as high-end restaurants.

Ryssdal and Pak discussed the rapid pace of change in China and how the people there feel about China’s current economic slowdown. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: There’s now a generation of people between the time you and I were here, and who are now, like, 18 years old, right? And they’ve now grown up expecting this. They’re used to the high end. They’re used to disposable income. And that’s just not the way it used to be.

Jennifer Pak: No. Well, so that’s the funny thing, is even back when I was here, I would interview people who are the first generation who went to university, that’s still a lot of them. And they would say, you know, when I was growing up, it was very poor. But now the older I get, the more money I have, the more I want. And they feel actually kind of a lot of pressure, and there’s this sort of yearning. So every time there’s some sort of cyclical downturn in the economy, you hear a lot of, especially people who have been living in the megacities for a while, they want to acquire a piece of land in the countryside or turn it into an Airbnb. It’s a thing, it’s a sort of a romanticization of, you know, the countryside.

Ryssdal: Well, it’s aspirational capitalism, right?

Pak: Is that what it’s called?

Ryssdal: Well, it kinda is. Keeping up with the Joneses.

Pak: Oh, that’s huge. So especially in the countryside, we hear a lot of people — they call it panbi — so they just kind of try to one-up each other. People here talk like they speak for 1.4 billion people, so they’ll say, “Oh, everybody does this.” So there’s this sort of pressure, especially for young people, when we interview them ahead of the Lunar New Year, which is the time to go home, a lot of them say, “You know, I kind of don’t really want to go home. I’m expected to pay for everything just because I work in the city.” When he goes back, he has to take all his classmates out for dinner. Everyone turns to him when the bill arrives, like, “Well?”

So let’s take a look at the price of coffee here. OK, so usually I get a cappuccino. OK, they don’t have one, but a latte. A hot one is 35, that’s like $5. Do you know prices all went up when Starbucks raised their prices? The whole country, because Starbucks sets the coffee culture, and they thought, “Yeah, we can charge five bucks.”

Ryssdal: I’m gonna get a cup of coffee. Actual money as opposed to paying on WeChat.

Pak: Well, you’re very lucky.

Ryssdal: I know. I had this whole conversation with the concierge last night about finding a restaurant that would take credit cards, and he called this place and she was like, [in Chinese] yeah, she would take domestic credit cards. But not credit cards from foreign banks though.”

Pak: And even then, the credit card penetration is very low.

Ryssdal: But if I put my credit card in WeChat and paid with WeChat, would that be all right?

Pak: Yeah, of course, because the guarantor is WeChat. Yeah. What they worry about is the fees first of all, because the banks charge very high fees for credit cards.

Ryssdal: So it must be incredible to you that, what, eight months ago now, you were in the middle of still lockdowns and zero-COVID. And now it’s normal, kinda?

Pak: Yeah, I think we’re on the way to normal as in, people just are so sick of it. They don’t want to talk about it. No tabulation about the death toll. But you know, you still hear and see ambulances now and again. But everybody really just wants to get to work. And that’s what we heard during the pandemic. They’re like, “Look, I’m not looking for a handout. I don’t care what policies, I just want to get back to work.” That is a big thing. And yeah, I mean, the economy has slowed down, and it’s noticeable for a lot of people.

Ryssdal: You think people can feel the slowdown?

Pak: Absolutely. And in terms of, yeah, they’re getting back to normal, but it’s not like they’re going to spend as they used to. People are paying down their debts because they’re really worried. You know, there’s a lot of uncertainty. And part of that really stems from this idea that if a megacity, like Shanghai, and even Beijing, was somewhat, pretty much like a fortress — it was very difficult to get in here, you almost had to apply for a new passport to get in here — if that can happen to a megacity in a moment’s notice, you know, then anything’s possible.

Ryssdal: What’s the general perception of the United States, of the American economy, of how things are working? Or do people not think about it, and they’re just trying to pay the rent?

Pak: I’d say most people are trying to pay the rent, but they obviously have a lot of intuition about what’s happening. They know that the U.S. and China are going through a phase, shall we say. And I would say that the narrative especially pushed out by the Chinese government media is that America is on the decline and China’s on the rise. Now, this is very much before 2022, OK? Remember when you guys were all locked down and the rest of the world, factories were pumping things out? I was living a semi-normal life, as in if I didn’t leave the city boundary, I was fine. So there was that illusion. But since 2022 and the lockdowns, I would say that people are a lot less optimistic. But I’m not sure necessarily relative to the U.S. I think they still think the trajectory is “We’re going to go up at some point.” And that’s sort of how they view all of the actions from whether it’s the Trump administration or the Biden administration is that, you know, it’s because America’s on the decline, and therefore, that’s why all of these actions are to contain and suppress us. That’s the term that the Chinese officials use.