The Guardian view on the global economy: China sends a shiver through Davos | Editorial
China's economy is slowing. For any other country, an annual growth rate of 6.8% would be exceptional: for China it was the weakest rate of expansion in 25 years. Developments in what is now the world's second biggest economy are the reason financial markets have started 2016 in such turmoil.
That threat is not lost on the global elite gathering in Davos, where the fear is that phase one of the global financial crisis was caused by the US housing market, phase two was caused by the eurozone and phase three will now be a meltdown in China. The risk is certainly there. For a start, China's growth rate may be only about half that suggested by official statistics which are so unreliable that even members of the politburo take them with a large pinch of salt. Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, is so sniffy about the official data that he looks at rail freight, electricity production and bank loans to judge how well the economy is actually doing.
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