China’s leaders are becoming concerned about the economy. In the face of what the state news agency recently called “downward economic pressure amid intertwined structural, institutional and cyclical problems”, they are prioritising stability.
To this end, top bankers and finance officials have been sent into provincial governments to attend to debt problems and concessions have been made to the US to try to reach a limited “phase one” trade deal. Behind all this, though, it is clear that employment is top of the worry list for economic policymakers in the Chinese Communist party.
As 2020 starts, the party will be relieved that the economic slowdown has stabilised again for a while, and will be happy to trumpet two key accomplishments: the elimination of poverty, and the establishment of China as an upper-middle-income country, having fulfilled a decade-old pledge to double income per head by 2020. In 2