China’s recovery might be a bit less than meets the eye

David Lubin

Are all Chinese economic recoveries, like Tolstoy’s happy families, alike? Many observers these days seem to think so. The recent boom in metals prices, for example, reflects a confidence in the market that this year’s acceleration in China’s growth rate will cast the same benign shadow over the global economy as earlier big recoveries have done. But that may not be the case.

The big Chinese economic recoveries of the past decade or so have been characterised by two…