The housing crisis is universal. There's been growing inability to build in many countries, as the article readily admits. People can't afford homes across the world: USA, Canada, Australia, even China, where supply isn't a problem per se. The article should then address this global phenomenon rather than conclude it is a "political problem", suggesting it is some kind of peculiar ideology exported out of Britain.
So China has an overbuilding problem, right? To the point of demolishing apartment blocks, etc. How does this marry up? Is it the age old problem of building too much in suburbs people don't want to actually live in? Or the old problem of new build apartments being too expensive for most people, so require a bubble?
China's problem is two fold afaik: They allowed apartment buildings to be built that aren't up to code or even structurally sound enough to live in and must be demolished because they're completely unsafe, and all of the ones that were up to code were immediately bought up as investments and left empty by real estate speculators. Letting people have homes would kill demand and lower prices of course, can't have that.