3/9 Most China analysts strongly disagreed on the grounds that Beijing was unalterably opposed to “the idleness-breeding trap of welfarism”, and so would never initiate such a spending program, but I argued that the choice facing Beijing wasn’t between welfarism and...

4/9 no welfarism. It was instead between welfarism and falling well short of the GDP growth target. In fact it had become so obvious that the Chinese economy was constrained mainly by weak demand that I told all my clients that any such announcement would probably set off a stock market rally.