CNBC's The China Connection newsletter: McKinsey's contrarian economic view

Crowds of pedestrians cross a road outside the Taikoo Li Sanlitun shopping complex on August 22, 2026, in Beijing, China. Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesHi, this is Evelyn, writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection — a snapshot of what I'm seeing and hearing from local businesses.As more Chinese companies than ever look outside China, foreign businesses wonder whether they should stay. A consulting giant has some unconventional reasons for why the answer is yes.The big storyChina is not headed for Japan-style stagnation — or about to see major decoupling from the U.S., McKinsey's Nick Leung and Joe Ngai wrote in their new book, "The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era."They offer a business framework quite different from current assessments: a sluggish Chinese consumer, a prolonged real estate drag and supply chain diversification. A key factor? China's global manufacturing dominance and spending to catch up on frontier technology, they said. In many ways it seems that the party has ended for many U.S. and European corporations that once enjoyed a big advantage in China.What multinationals...