IN RECENT DECADES many ambitious emerging nations have risen, stalled and (sometimes) risen again. They have each adhered to the same superpowered investment-based industrial growth model – to their detriment.
The latest to suffer this fate is China, a proud nation undergoing its third cultural-industrial revolution in a century. In many ways, China has become a tale of two countries: the rich coastal western regions and the poorer hinterland; a wealthy urbane middle class and an enfeebled rural working poor; a corrupt corporate core driven by lazy, bloated state enterprises and a thriving but overlooked private sector.
China is in trouble. It faces slowing growth, a shortage of willing labourers, historically low rates of domestic consumption, and an economic model based on shovelling ever larger slabs of exports into countries and regions – notably Europe and the US – whose people, concerned about their future, are suddenly disinclined to spend.
