I doubt that, my friend. He gives an interesting analysis that others fail to report, he gives an all encompassing analysis.
He is a graduate of Shanghai International Studies University, graduated Summa Cum Laude; he earned his Masters at Harvard University , Magna Cum Laude. Earned his Ph.D at Pittsburgh University, Magna Cum Laude.
He is a distinguished and well published academic , an associate professor at Claremont College, and had served as a distinguished Visiting Professor in Japan.
He has a wealth of 'technical' knowledge pertaining to his trade: Political Science, Economics.
That sector is booming, so i encourage you to research first before you open a portfolio. Right now, the areas that are growing and have long term dividends are the medical sector. So much money there.
Well, let me share a little work place story with you. Just last week, I was talking with my college on an topic regarding to high impedance fault detection and we start to talk about reflection coefficient in cables. Specifically, the physics theory behind it. Now, myself is a Ph.D candidate and my college is a post-doc. By any standard, both of us would be considered to be very knowledgeable on the subject, but at the end of discussion it turned out both of us still have plenty of questions and misunderstandings on the subject, so I spent the week reading up material on the subject.
How does this relates to this post? Well, a lot of people can be "very knowledgeable", but that does not mean their theory is correct.
Economic prediction, or as I like to call it----"prediction of massive scale non-linear system based on limited information and under certain psychological perspective constraints", is something that is hit and miss even for the best and brightest in the field. Merely knowledgeable is not sufficient, especially some of the information that is wrong.
For example, Mr. Pei's argument of "As we now know, the credit-funded stimulus program merely created another bubble -- the real estate and investment bubble that has sharply increased China's overall indebtedness." This is a "general" understand of the 2008 Chinese stimulus program----meaning if you pull aside an individual that has the knowledge of the trade and some general understanding of China, that will be answer from him.
I think you can see what is the problem with this. To truly understand, you need specific knowledge, down to the last detail, not general knowledge. In this case, the specific detail of Chinese stimulus program is something less often discussed because "collections of economic development plans in regarding to handling global financial crisis, post-disaster relief, rebuild schedule and changing Chinese demographic-economic structure" is an okay topic for academic paper and probably putting a number of readers to sleep just by reading it. It is not something you use as a banging news title like "4,000,000,000,000 RMB monetary stimulus".
A rudimentary explanation of what the Chinese 2008 economic plan in response to the financial crisis can be read here:
四万亿计划_百度百科
Ten category is covered:
1. Increase reserve housing available. In response to changing urbanization condition in China where large population migration to cities stresses the housing availability.
2. Increase fundamental infrastructure development in rural region.
3. Increase public infrastructure construction such as rail road (HSR is part of this), highway and airports.
4. Increase healthcare and education, especially in middle and western part of China.
5. Reinforce environmental protection infrastructure such as waste water, garbage recycle and treatment, re-forestation and energy saving
6. Increase high tech infrastructure. Transitioning into high tech development and support 3rd sector development.
7. Increase rebuild effort for earthquake affected region (China experience a major earthquake in 2008)
8. Increase rural region income. Low income protection and insurance. Agricultural subsidiary and level-price crop intake for the next year to protect farmers.
9. Tax reform in industries
10. Increase financial industry support to economic growth----focusing on loan reform to tech industry, as well as restructure ad re-organization in medium and small agricultural industries and concerning migrating population from rural to city side.
The project budgetary locations: (Total amount 4 trillion RMB or roughly 590 billion USD)
1. Low income housing RMB 400 billion (10%)
2. Rural infrastructure RMB 370 billion (9.25%)
3. Public infrastructure (HSR, highway, hydro, airport) RMB 1500 Billion (37.5%)
4. Healthcare, education, culture development 150 billion (3.75%)
5. Environmental infrastructure development RMB 210 billion (5.25%)
6. Tech innovation and industry restructuring RMB370 billion (9.25%)
7. Earthquake rebuild RMB 1000 billion (25%)
So the "stimulus" really isn't a western style monetary stimulus. It is more of a number of large scale projects which intends to fill the necessities in response to a shifting demographic and economic condition. Linking it to a real estate bubble actually doesn't make much sense once you go into the details instead of just get a "general understanding".
I also have a number of issues with other parts of the article, such as Chinese real estate's relationship with shifting demographics, as well as the comparison with 1991 Japan where the situation is complete different, but I have spent long enough time on this article. I won't dignify the "conclusion" with an argument. The article is based on so much information that only passable at a glance, but breakdown completely when asked for details. The conclusion also jump from an academic discussion to politics and we all know what politics does to academic integrity.