James Kynge

And I was just doing a little bit of research, Alice, on whether or not China could actually boost consumer spending.

Obviously, the whole Fortune 500, the biggest companies in the West, they all want to sell into China.

They're all dreaming of a market of over a billion consumers.

So this is a big live topic.

But it seems to me that the optimism, as I think we both agree, is being overblown.

And from what I was able to ascertain, basically, the problem is that property prices in China continue to fall and also property transactions in China continue to fall.

This year,

Property transactions, so property sales, are due to fall another 10% to 14% compared to last year.

And the crucial way in which this connects with Chinese consumer spending is that, first of all, most Chinese people have put most of their money into property.

So they feel rich or they feel poor depending on...

how much they perceive their flat or their apartment or their house to be worth.

The second crucial aspect is that a lot of Chinese families, they borrow against the value of their house in order to spend on something like their kids' education or some other crucial service that they require.

And so if the value of your house is falling, you can't borrow as much

as you did previously, or you don't want to borrow as much as you did previously, and therefore you're much less likely to spend on things that you either want or you think you need, like education or healthcare or something like that.

And all of those things fall into the general category of Chinese consumer spending.

So I think that until we see a rebound in China's property market,

we are unlikely to see a rebound in China's consumer spending.

And according to the best predictions out there, we're not likely to see the Chinese property market bottom out until about 2027 at the earliest, unless you've heard something different.

The short answer is I think it absolutely will.

And the UK woman that you mentioned, whose video has been on Facebook and probably on other platforms, really struck a chord with me personally, Alice, because I live in southeast London.