China’s record of 30 years of 10% annual GDP growth creates an illusion of continuity. In fact, its political and economic systems have endured a series of dramatic crises that threatened to undermine or reinvent the China model, but instead, reinforced the boom. “Reform and opening” itself was born out of the CCP’s legitimacy crisis following the death of Mao Zedong, and early reforms were justified by the need to rapidly catch up with East Asia's newly industrialized countries. The Tiananmen crisis of 1989 initially triggered state repression, but ultimately led to a renewed burst of marketization and privatization. The East Asian financial crisis of 1997-8 reinforced Bejing’s caution about fully opening its financial system, but also spurred even greater foreign trade, and foreign exchange reserve accumulation, in the 2000s. The global downturn of 2008-9 exposed China’s structural imbalance, but massive stimulus spending and a cheap currency allowed China to export its way through the downturn, once again giving policy-makers confidence that each crisis was an opportunity to advance the China boom.
Stephen S. Roach is chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, a leading global financial services firm. Previously, he was managing director and chief economist of Morgan Stanley. Before joining Morgan Stanley in 1982, Roach was vice president for economic analysis for the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in New York. He also served on the research staff of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. from 1972-79, where he supervised the preparation of the official Federal Reserve projections of the U.S. economy. Prior to that, he was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
Roach is widely recognized as one of Wall Street’s most influential economists. His research covers a broad range of topics, with recent emphasis on globalization, the emergence of China, productivity and the macro paybacks of information technology. His work has appeared in academic journals, books, congressional testimony and on the op-ed pages of The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Roach holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University and a BA in Economics from the University of Wisconsin.
Look, I think China's really had the right strategy and if you've studied economic development, and I've studied it for a number of years if not decades. Export-led growth has long been viewed as the key to economic development and the theory is that, at some point, you reach a critical mass in terms of the employment and income-generating capacity of your export sector that you establish a solid foundation for consumer purchasing power that can then be directed at supporting internal, private consumption. Now, I think China recognized, probably 5 years ago, that they were at that point in their development journey where they had to make that transition. And when the 11th 5-year plan was enacted, in March, or February, of 2006, it had the broad outlines of a huge transition from export, and investment-led export, to a pro-consumption growth model. The Chinese correctly identified high-levels of precautionary saving as a major impediment to this transition and they also identified correctly the lack of a social safety net as being one of the most significant headwinds that kept precautionary savings high and restrained internal consumption. So, they knew it was coming, they knew they had to do it, but they didn't execute. And this is sort of unlike the Chinese because usually, when they identify a clear set of goals and objectives, they're pretty darn good at execution. And, it's hard to know why, I think the reason that I'm most comfortable with is that this is a period from 2005, 2006 and 2007 where global trade was booming, the Chinese export business was just unstoppable, it was increasing every year as a share of GDP. In the year 2000, exports were 20% of Chinese GDP, by 2007 they were 36%. I mean, this sector was getting levered up at just the right time. It was delivering growth beyond their wildest dreams. 3 years of 12% growth ending in 2007, 2007 itself was 13% growth. So, if it ain't broke, why fix it? And they just stayed the course. Did they stay the course too long? It's hard to say. They got hit like any other export economy by a massive external shock late last year after the crisis, it was a big jolt. They knew that they didn't really have a plan B. So, they went into their typical pro-active fiscal stimulus mode where they immediately jump-start infrastructure spending through state-directed bank lending and they did it on a scale they had never done before. And they increase some export incentives under the premise, which I think will turn out to be wrong, that once the investment stimulus wears off, the export sector will kick in courtesy of a snap back in external demand. And so, I think they're going to be in for a bit of a shock at some point next year when the impetus for infrastructure investment does wear off, there's no kick to the export business, and they have another sort of growth alert at some point in 2010. I think they'll adapt, I think they'll, at that point, really focus much more on consumption than they have. They've waited a little bit too long. I think over the broad sweep of history, if you're a couple of years late, or even 5 years late, you won't get penalized, but they can't afford to wait much longer. If they stay on the path they're doing, where all they do is grow their GDP through investment and exports, it's a model that ultimately is driven by supply and it creates a huge imbalance with internal demand. So that's not sustainable for any economy, China doesn't get special dispensation from the rules of economics.
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