, Columnist
Maybe China Doesn't Have a Master Plan
They're just winging it like everyone else.
Turmoil behind an orderly facade.
Photographer: Archivio J. Lange/DeAgostini/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
As a long-time consumer of economic commentary about China, I can probably recite the basic narrative underpinning most of it in my sleep: Yes, China’s economy faces challenge X. But the government has a plan for getting past it, the People’s Bank of China has many tools at its disposal and, hey, look at that $3.7 trillion in foreign exchange reserves!
A fine recent example of the genre comes from Zheng Liu of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. His analysis bears the provocative headline, “Is China’s Growth Miracle Over?” Get down near the end, though, and the familiar storyline takes over: