Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Opinion
Shuli Ren and Anjani Trivedi

China’s Central Bank Needs a Greater Helmsman

Fickle and lacking vision and independence, the People’s Bank of China has encouraged risky corporate behavior and helped to make China one of the world’s most indebted nations.

Potemkin policy village?

Potemkin policy village?

Photographer:  Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Last spring, as China struggled with the economic impact of the coronavirus, venture capital funding dried up and tech workers lost their jobs — and start-ups in the tech hub of Shenzhen went apartment-hunting. In March, residential home prices there rose at the fastest pace in three years. Entrepreneurs were taking out property-backed small business loans, which were subsidized by Beijing’s stimulus packages, to buy more property.

“What was up with that?,” you might ask.