The Financial Times looks at the recent economic stimulus plan and political cycles in China:
In China the government’s power over the economic cycle is taken as a given. Of greater interest for the chattering classes in Beijing at the moment, though, is the impact of the latest fiscal stimulus on another more elusive phenomenon, the Chinese political cycle.
A political cycle in communist China?
China may be a one-party state free of high-profile election campaigns and cleansing changes of government, but its leaders still have to produce results.
The way the political cycle drives the economy was neatly illustrated in a paper produced prior to the last Communist party congress in 2007, an event held every five years to consecrate a new Politburo line-up.
