China as Economic Bogeyman
China’s original business model was simple. My workforce is cheaper than yours and I won’t make a fuss when it comes to environmental regulations so come here and invest. The early Chinese economic drive also featured a light touch by authorities keeping things nice and easy. Over time, China has become a more complex destination for investment and the leaders have embarked on many state-driven expansion cycles. Being the sweatshop of the world did not cut it anymore. The economic and political system should have reformed with that but it did not. Every expanding business or power will make lots of mistakes while it does so. But China never can make mistakes so they never clear out the debris of those failures but rather cement them in place. China personifies the hopes of many outside China for continued stellar growth when the growth machine has died quite a while ago. And now western governments discover that everything China is a vote loser. China struggles …
Project Syndicate 
