China’s growing youth unemployment rate could trigger political problems if not properly handled, warned a prominent economist who has advised President Xi Jinping’s government.
"The issue of youth unemployment will likely continue for the next decade and continue to worsen in the short term,” said Liu Yuanchun, who has provided guidance to Beijing on the economy, including by giving a lecture to the top decision-making Politburo in April 2022.
"If not handled properly, it will spark other social problems beyond the economic arena, even becoming a trigger for political problems,” he said in a joint report published last week by a Renmin University of China think tank, China Macroeconomy Forum.