The Chinese economy put up an especially lackluster showing in November, according to data released on Monday in Beijing.

At this point, retail sales are a bit of a lost cause. The Party’s proven mostly inept at engineering a sustainable recovery in domestic demand. Subsidy schemes and other half-measures might’ve put a floor under consumption but the legacy of the property downturn and endemic disinflation continue to be an albatross.

Monday’s figures suggested consumer spending grew just 1.3% last month from the same period a year ago. That was far worse than consensus and meaningfully slower than October’s print, which was already the weakest of 2025.

As the chart shows, November’s retail sales growth tally was the worst since a contraction in December of 2022, when Xi’s government abruptly abandoned COVID zero protocols amid street protests. For context, retail sales growth averaged 8.5% in China in the two years leading up to the pandemic.

Industrial production which, like retail sales, posted its slowest annual growth of 2025 in October, decelerated further in November. The 4.8% gain was the most tepid since August of 2024. Consensus expected 5%. The gap between the two growth rates (for retail sales and IP) was 3.5ppt, tied for the widest since April of 2024.

As expected, the figures betrayed another decline in fixed investment. For the year, the broadest measure of such outlays headed into December down 2.6%.

The figure above’s a reminder: 2025’s unprecedented in showing a marked FAI decline. Property investment fell nearly 16% for the January-November period.

Monday’s data came on the heels of price figures showing PPI deflation worsened in November. Although consumer prices rose at the briskest pace since February of 2024 last month, some of that was attributable to this year’s historic rally in gold.

All in all, the Chinese economy heads into the new year on the back foot, even as the Party will be able to claim they hit the growth target of around 5% for the full year. You’re reminded that the headline real growth figures are flattered by the deflator, which has spent more than two years in negative territory, indicative of endemic deflation.

I should emphasize: Monday’s numbers were very bad even in the context of subdued expectations. On the bright side, Beijing’s trade surplus surpassed $1 trillion for the first time last month, underscoring the notion that putting the genie back in the lantern a quarter century on from China’s WTO accession simply won’t be possible.