China’s official media rarely feels the need to explain itself. So when the People’s Daily published three straight days of columns defending the country’s economic strategy, it was a signal worth noticing.
The essays, published under the pseudonym Zhong Caiwen – thought to be the work of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs – offered a blunt response to a simple problem: China’s economy is growing slower than expected, and the government wants you to know that it’s fine, actually.
The Numbers Behind the Defense
The official full-year target is 4.5%-5%, the most modest goal in over two decades, excluding 2020 when no target was set because of the pandemic.
But the second quarter told a rougher story. Figures from July indicated that growth fell even further from the yearly goal after a weak April-to-June period. A gauge of new lending shrank by an…
