Shoppers in the west are not buying the way they used to buy and that's where the big money has been for China. Without very high growth in this sector, the bubble in China will pop and it will get ugly. Rough seas ahead for China.
The HSBC flash manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), the earliest available indicator of China's industrial activity, eased to 50.1 in June, which was the lowest since July 2010 and close to indicating a contraction in the sector.
That compares with the final reading of 51.6 in the HSBC PMI for May. A figure above 50 points to expansion on the month.
"Demand is cooling thanks to the effect of tightening measures and the slackness in external markets," said Qu Hongbin, the chief China economist at HSBC.
