Anyone that has traveled throughout China, and I have extensively on business over the last four years should have clearly seen the potential for a meltdown. What many haven’t realized is that the growth was artificial, being produced by the government throwing money around and then cooking numbers.
About a year before the USSR crumble from inside, a young relative and a friend took an unapproved tour of Russia. They paid for their trip by selling/bartering their extra Levi’s they wore one pair over the other and the ones in their back pack.
They took pictures beyond the outside paint from south Russian to up north. We got copies of those pictures to some friends outside of DC in N Virginia.
They were home spreading the word of the internal decay and lack of consumer goods throughout Russia, when the USSR folded.
The Russians like the Chicoms had been cooking the numbers and books while their people took the shortages.