The Collapse That Cried Wolf: Gordon Chang’s Greatest Hits (That Never Hit)

A decades-long symphony of doomsday predictions, missed deadlines, and the uncanny ability to stay wrong with confidence.

For years now, there's been a parade of scribblers, desk jockeys, reporters, journalists, influencers, and even singer-songwriters—yes, including the so-called seers—predicting the unimaginable about China.
What’s truly baffling is that major outlets keep paying them to write, despite a historical record of predictions that never came true.
Sure, there’s always a good supply of gullible readers… but isn’t a reporter supposed to deal in facts?
Weren’t we better off when we read Verne or Asimov’s fiction? At least then we knew it was made up—nobody tried to sell it as the truth.

With Gordon Chang making a living predicting doom and gloom, one can't help but notice that while he sits at a desk, a humble farmer is sitting under the sun nurturing a plot of land. Big difference between the two..

Doom and gloom has alway been Chang's bread and butter -he literally makes a living telling stories of the world ending. With his trusty stone sphere and his follies revolving around the idea that China has and will constantly be on the brink of collapse- looks like his life is performing the drama of Peru's Andean Tiger show mixed with a few Michelin stars on MTV. If only he could see a clear glass ball for omen-predicting.

1. Gold is Cold, and So is 2011
Once upon a news cycle, Chang peered into his trusty stone sphere and declared: China would self-implode by 2011, brought low by internal crackdowns and Communist unraveling. The world braced, popcorn in hand. But as 2012 rolled in, Beijing didn’t burn — it just hosted another politburo meeting.
Turns out, the only thing cracking was a poorly made piñata of predictions stuffed with dollar-store geopolitics and stale metaphors.

2. The Great Stranglehold Saga
In another cinematic episode, Chang foresaw China's economy crumbling under a mountain of subsidized ghost towns and bad loans. Debt-fueled disaster was supposed to be imminent, inevitable, and oh so dramatic.
And yet, the dragon kept limping forward — not gracefully, perhaps, but with just enough swagger to confuse the doomsayers. While the West debated Keynes and Hayek, Chang kept betting on collapse like a Vegas tourist hooked on slot machines: “One more spin — this time it'll hit!”

3. Tariff Tantrums and the Great Economic Collapse That Wasn't
Gordon Chang boldly proclaimed that U.S. tariffs would bring China to its knees, dismantling its economy like a house of mahjong tiles and sparking political earthquakes in Beijing. Spoiler alert: the dragon didn’t blink — it just shifted weight and kept flying.

4. The Spiral That Forgot to Spin
Next came his forecast of a full-blown deflationary spiral — the economic equivalent of being sucked into a financial black hole. But instead of an implosion, China managed to keep orbiting, defying gravity in ways that left Chang clutching his charts like a confused astrologer on Wall Street.

5. CCP Meltdown Imminent (Every Tuesday)
According to Chang, internal strife would soon turn the Communist Party into a historical footnote. Yet, the party congresses keep marching on, red banners in hand, while he reuses his old script, just with updated dates.

6. The Real Estate Bubble: Pop Goes the Panda?
He warned of a real estate crash that would flatten the economy like a dumpling under a steamroller. True, the sector had its bumps, but collapse? More like a renovation — messy but still under construction.

7. The Bank Bomb That Didn’t Go Off
Hidden non-performing loans in China’s banks were supposed to be ticking time bombs. But it turns out the banks, like dragon dancers at Spring Festival, kept moving rhythmically despite the noise, and no one lost an eye.

8. Protests, Pitches, and Predictions
Social unrest, Chang said, would soon erupt like hotpot gone rogue. Yes, protests have occurred. But so far, nothing matching the cinematic toppling of regimes he’s been teasing since flip phones were trendy.

9. Eco-Apocalypse Now? Not Quite.
Environmental collapse? A fair concern — and one China has actually started tackling with wind turbines, solar farms, and some PR wizardry. Meanwhile, Chang’s ecological doomsday clock still ticks in the background, waiting for an audience.

10. Marching into Mayhem
China’s military buildup, according to Chang, would spark regional chaos and blow back economically. But while tensions exist, the People’s Liberation Army has yet to trigger the meltdown of the Middle Kingdom’s marketplace

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11. Tech Treadmill with No Sprint
He also forecast technological stagnation, government meddling smothering all innovation. And yet, somehow, Chinese companies still build the chips, drones, and AI tools your phone probably depends on.

12. Diplomacy in Reverse Gear?
Lastly, Chang warned of China’s path toward global isolation. Ironically, while Western powers debate decoupling, China keeps popping up in Africa, South America, the Middle East, and even TikTok feeds worldwide. Isolated? Maybe just...selective.

One Crucial heads up - Chang said will and never came true with help of two very simple concepts of string and time. The Hiccups on road of ‘What not to follow if you ever achieve global forecast capabilities

If he say so, then opposite will happen….