Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    IT’S apt to describe China’s economic performance in 2015 as bumpy, pressure-packed, yet resilient and gearing up for new growth.

    It’s interesting to examine the outside world’s changing sentiment on China’s economy by turning to web searches on Baidu or Google.

    In 2014, most queries were upbeat, with search interest reflecting China’s rising prowess, with phrases such as “China largest economy” and “China overtakes U.S. economy,” though there were negative searches too, showing a slowdown already under way.

    That changed over 2015. Web surfers increasingly searched terms like “China economy collapse” and “China economy crisis.”

    Not only did the global business world worry about China’s economic slowdown, which had clearly affected the world’s economy, but some home experts were depressed over the outlook of China’s economy as well.

    The bears’ anxieties were not without reason. China experienced all the negative factors in 2015 that had brought about the downfall of many other emerging countries’ economies: the devaluation of the yuan, increasing capital outflow, a sharp decline in foreign trade, surplus production capacity, a sluggish housing market and a 30 trillion yuan (US$5 trillion) stock market rout in mid-2015.

    The media is full of gloomy pictures: massive factory closures in manufacturing hubs like Dongguan, Guangdong Province; 45 consecutive months’ decline in producer price index (PPI), a record even worse than that of the Asian financial crisis of 2008; iron and steel enterprises’ heavy losses to the tune of 38.638 billion yuan; and an increasingly declining fixed-asset investment growth.

    China’s economic growth will drop to a six-year low of 6.9 percent for 2015, adding to concerns that the nation’s economy might suffer a hard landing in the coming years. The fear has been exasperated by the recent U.S. interest rate increase, which is likely to siphon more capital out of China.

    But the Chinese leadership is confident that China is capable of generating rapid economic growth in the next five years. While elaborating on China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, President Xi Jinping pointed out that an average annual growth rate of 6.5 percent was a must for the next five years to meet the chief targets stipulated in the five-year blueprint, including the doubling of China’s GDP and per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents of 2010 by 2020.

    Xi and other Chinese leaders have repeatedly assured world political and business leaders of China’s commitment and ability to maintain a rapid growth rate.

    China’s confidence is based on a raft of measures sustained by two decisive elements: the central leadership’s determination to deepen and expand reforms and opening up and its powerful policy guidance, in addition to Chinese economy’s strong endogenous force for growth.

    In fact, amid the slow economic growth in 2015, there were some bright spots: robust consumption and infrastructure construction; the service sector’s rapid growth (making it the largest sector in China’s economic makeup, exceeding manufacturing for the first time); fast growth in high-tech and high-end manufacturing industries vs. a drop in the output in polluting industries with high consumption of energy and raw materials; and most importantly, a healthy employment market with over 10 million new jobs created. In my view, a strong job market is the best criterion for a healthy economy.

    Many signs have shown that China is undergoing a profound economic restructuring process and new sources of growth are taking shape.

    China will take more effective measures to ensure the accomplishment of the goal. In addition to the further promotion of reforms to encourage innovation and mass entrepreneurship, the government will advance the “supply-side reform,” placing more emphasis on the optimization of the supply system, reduction of excess supply and creation of new supply rather than on the demand side. This means that more resources will be shifted from conventional industries to new industries characterized by innovation, greenness, openness and sharing.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)