Lessons from the Chinese model

While the West is drowning in debt, China is becoming "a world model thanks to its pragmatic brand of the planned economy”, reports Handelsblatt. Riding the wave of 12% growth in the first quarter of 2010, it is "showing a surplus without amassing any debts”. That performance is not so much owing to the zeal of Chinese businessmen, argues the German financial daily, as to its winning multi-pronged system. First off, the five-year plans turn the crisis into a mere disturbance to be offset. And schemes to jump-start consumption are backed by state-run media campaigns drumming into consumers’ heads that they “can trust in the state and the economy”. Finally, the state puts a lid on overall bank credit and keeps the central bank chained to the party. “The European problem, in which central banks flood the market with cash, which the banks promptly base their game strategy on, doesn’t exist in the Middle Kingdom”, where we keep our “feet on the ground” and distrust “gamblers”, concludes Handelsblatt.