An iconic billboard in the quintessential boom city of Shenzhen features Deng’s famous statement that China's “basic line will not waver for 100 years.” If Deng was right, we are less than one-third of the way into the era of “reform and opening.” But four challenges identified by Premier Wen Jiabao in 2010, that growth becomes “unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated, or unsustainable,” threaten the boom. The key to balance lies in increasing the consumer share of GDP, allowing China to create a modern consumer economy. Stability will depend on the government's ability to address grievances as the gap between winners and losers widens. Coordination is the great test facing the ruling Communist Party, of whether it can manage the politics of growth without fundamental changes to the system. Sustainability is an issue that has global implications, as citizens of a warming planet watch anxiously to see if China is successful in greening the boom. The fifth great challenge, left out by Premier Wen, may be the external one: whether the world is successful in making room for China.
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