Policy makers around the world have long envied China’s ability to get big things done. A huge 4 trillion-yuan ($630 billion) stimulus plan as the global economy cratered in 2008? No problem. Marshaling banks to lend trillions more? Check. Enacting sweeping regulatory changes at a moment’s notice? You bet.
Ahhh, the good old days. Now, a once-in-a-decade leadership shift is getting in the way of the stimulus-happy policies to which investors became accustomed. The nimbleness that helped China steer around the worst of the global crisis is confronting political paralysis of the kind more often seen in Japan, Europe and the United States. The upshot is that China’s 7.6 percent growth rate may fall more in the next 12 months than anyone expects.
It’s not that Wen Jiabao doesn’t get the extent to which the supposedly unstoppable China has hit a wall. Just as in 2009, the premier is visiting key industrial cities such as Guangdong and Zhejiang. Wen is facing dour looks from manufacturers surrounded by mounting piles of unsold goods, a rare experience for the main engine of China’s economic rise.
Read more: With US, Europe Stalling, China’s Out of Tricks To Reboot Economy | The Jakarta Globe
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