When European officials pontificate about an urgent need to forget – at least temporarily – the golden rules of fiscal and monetary policy with the aim of rescuing their economies, their Chinese counterparts fall silent. Yet China’s economy has been slowing for three years in a row and the outlook remains bleak. Why are they not worried?
The answer lies in their realisation that, a decade on, the economy is choking on a surfeit of fiscal and monetary stimulus. The housing bubble may have started to deflate – but that is long overdue and has been actively sought by Beijing. So unless a severe crash takes place, the central bank will mostly sit on its hands.
More generally, officials are starting to see the limits and dangers of tinkering with monetary policy. Since the start of 2008 China tripled its money supply to more than Rmb120tn ($19.4tn), far bigger than the corresponding US figure. So it is hard to fault Beijing for not trying hard enough. But despite the flood of liquidity, the Shanghai stock market index is less than half the level of seven years ago. As the economy continues to slow, having exhausted the Rmb4tn of stimulus launched in 2008 to applause from near and far, even the staunchest Keynesians in the Chinese government begin to question the logic of a new round of stimulus.