China’s economy is in trouble, and it’s everyone’s problem

News Snapshot:

Part of the answer is bad leadership. President Xi Jinping is starting to look like a poor economic manager, whose propensity for arbitrary interventions – which is something autocrats tend to do – has stifled private initiative. But China would be in trouble even if Xi were a better leader than he is. Scariest of all, will it try to distract from domestic difficulties by engaging in military adventurism? It has been clear for a long time that China’s economic model was becoming unsustainable. As Stewart Paterson notes, consumer spending is very low as a percentage of GDP, probably for...