JOHN RAPLEY
Steady as she goes. That was the message from the Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party, which concluded yesterday. Watched closely as an indicator of the ruling elite’s policy intentions, the communique that emerged from the meeting suggested no major change to the country’s economic direction.
But Xi Jinping saying everything is going to plan is starting to sound a bit like Joe Biden saying he’s going to beat Donald Trump in November’s election. Because in an unfortunate piece of timing, as the Plenum began the Chinese statistical agency reported that economic growth had recently fallen below the talismanic 5% figure.
For quite some time, economists have been warning that the current Chinese growth strategy is running out of road. Building manufacturing industries to export to the world has delivered Beijing the phenomenal rise in income it has experienced in the last 30 years. However, there’s only so much capacity on the planet to absorb Chinese products.
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