China Backs Markets for Decisive Role as Grip Tightens

Just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over a twice-a-decade Communist Party leadership meeting to set the medium-term course for economic policy, he issued a resolution that included a vow to let markets play “decisive roles in resource allocation.”

But as they say, actions speak louder than words. In recent weeks, China’s regulators have done the opposite of giving markets freer rein. After years of self-praise for not following Western central banks into unorthodox policy areas—desperate to stoke growth and stem deflationary risks—the People’s Bank of China is indeed taking a page out of others’ playbooks.