What Jiang Xueqin Predicted About the Global Economy and the Dollar

Professor Jiang Xueqin's most consequential financial calls cluster around a single thesis: the American "dollar empire" is structurally fragile, and the mechanisms holding it together — foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries, the yen carry trade, and speculative asset markets — are each one shock away from breaking. Across the predictions tracked at jiangpredictions.com, he has made at least six distinct economy- or dollar-related calls since spring 2024. As of 2026-07-31, none have resolved — every one of them is still pending, and the nearest carry explicit deadlines that have not yet arrived.

The "dollar empire" framework

Jiang's economic thinking is anchored by what he calls the dollar-empire framework: the United States sustains its global position not through manufacturing or saving, but through the dollar's reserve-currency role and the inflow of foreign capital that role attracts. Two of his predictions state the framework's endpoints directly. He argued in May 2024 that America cannot reindustrialize because of political resistance, a speculative mindset, and missing infrastructure (P008), and that the country's financial system and asset bubbles will eventually implode (P009) — a global economy prediction in all but label, since a U.S. asset unwind radiates outward. Both are coded `not_yet`, with no date attached, which is honest about the fact that "eventually" is not a falsifiable timeline.

Treasury yields and the buyers' strike

The most specific dollar call is P123, predicted May 2026: U.S. Treasury rates will rise to 6% or higher as global buyers refuse to purchase American debt, with a 2026–2027 window. This is the dollar-empire thesis in its sharpest form — if foreigners stop absorbing Treasuries, the reserve-currency loop breaks and Washington must pay punitive rates to fund itself. The 10-year yield has not reached 6% as of late July 2026; the prediction remains open and unconfirmed, with roughly six to eighteen months left on its own stated clock.

The yen carry trade and Japan's solvency

Jiang links the dollar's fate to Japan's, twice. In P113 (predicted May 2026, 2026–2028 horizon) he argued that the yen carry trade will collapse, forcing Japan to repatriate capital from U.S. Treasuries — effectively the buyer-strike of P123 triggered through Tokyo. Separately, in March 2026 he predicted that Japan's economy would collapse within 8–9 months if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed (P075), putting the deadline around November–December 2026. P075 is conditional on a Hormuz closure that has not persisted, so its clock has not truly started; that conditionality is worth stating plainly rather than reading the prediction as an unconditional date.

Both of these live in the Global Economy category alongside the Treasury-yield call. Together they describe a single causal chain: an external shock (energy or currency) → Japanese repatriation → Treasury demand collapse → dollar stress.

How the calls connect to his wider picture

Jiang does not treat the dollar as a purely financial subject. His economic predictions sit inside a larger story about American decline — the fall of the empire marked by defeat in Iran (P052), retreat into isolationism (P053), and a Pentagon budget he expects to climb from $1 trillion toward $1.5 trillion (P137) and eventually $2 trillion (P138) as the war continues. Those defense-spending calls are not economy predictions by category, but they are the fiscal pressure on the other side of the ledger: rising obligations funded into a Treasury market he expects to fail. Read together, they describe a government borrowing more into a market buying less.

An honest read on the scorecard

The transparency matters here because the numbers are stark. Of 372 predictions tracked, only 22 have resolved — 16 confirmed, 6 wrong, for a headline accuracy of 73% across the entire tracker. But that denominator is dominated by geopolitical and military calls; the economy-and-dollar bucket has zero resolutions so far. Its sample size is effectively nil, which means the 73% figure says nothing yet about whether Jiang's dollar thesis is right or wrong. The relevant fact is simpler: these are early-stage, mostly long-horizon bets, several with explicit near-term deadlines (P075, P123, P113) that the tracker will re-check against live news as their windows close.

A dollar collapse prediction, by nature, either looks premature for years or looks obvious in hindsight the week it happens. Jiang's calls are still in the first phase — auditable, sourced to dated lectures, and waiting on the dates he himself set.

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