The great hope is that Goldilocks growth can be kept on track to ensure an orderly transition of power in October 2012, when a new generation of leaders takes charge of the 1.3bn strong nation for the first time in a decade.
The front-runner for General Secretary appears to be Xi Jinping, China’s “Redder than Red” mystery man.
With public debt at just 15.4pc of GDP (IMF data), China has the fiscal firepower if needed to shore up growth if the downturn proves harder than expected. The central bank can open the monetary spigot, slashing the reserve asset requirement for banks and lifting the restrictions on the property market. That at least is the theory. The question is whether it will be so easy in practice to calibrate a soft-landing after the post-Lehman credit blitz.
Read the whole story at the London Telegraph.
