The announcement of China’s new economic team this week will open a window for serious financial liberalisation – and poses an early test of President Xi Jinping’s commitment to reforms essential to the country’s growth prospects.
China is well-positioned to draw on the rich precedent of 1990s reforms, particularly to its banking system. And today Beijing has every incentive to change if it is to meet rapidly rising public expectations that the government will adopt a new and fairer economic model.
Why are the 1990s relevant? There are two main reasons. First, some of that decade’s reforms were prompted by the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. China could not then wall itself off from volatility beyond its borders – and this is even harder to imagine today. Its $8tn-plus economy cannot remain immune to fiscal and growth problems afflicting the combined $35tn economies of the US, Europe and Japan.