Not only is China having a good pandemic, it is using the time wisely, and nowhere is this more evident than in the areas of economics and finance. While US president-elect Joe Biden and his team are working out their policy towards Beijing, China itself is forging ahead. Even those with strong reservations about the way China is governed cannot deny that the Communist Party has had a lot more success in suppressing coronavirus than governments in the Western democracies . As a consequence, China’s economy is rebounding even as the economies of Western democracies are struggling to regain their footing. This has only encouraged demand for the renminbi and fostered investor confidence. Indeed, China’s suppression of coronavirus and the consequent rebound in Chinese economic activity has enabled the People’s Bank of China to keep monetary policy tighter than is the case in other major economies. Global investors have been piling into Chinese assets in search of opportunity and yield. It may well be that the economic legacy of coronavirus is that it brings forward the date at which the size of the Chinese economy exceeds that of the United States. Meanwhile, over in the US, and long before coronavirus, the Trump administration had adopted an iconoclastic approach to long-standing US alliances even while simultaneously, and with general US popular support, taking a more confrontational approach towards China in the hope of resetting a trade relationship that Washington was convinced had become too skewed in Beijing’s favour. Although the extent to which Biden will continue to adhere to the Trump line on China is as yet unclear, separately, Biden will need to deploy political capital towards rebuilding bridges with the traditional US allies whose noses have well and truly been put out of joint during Trump’s term in office. The irony of the situation is that while Biden will effectively have to spend time on diplomatic bridge-building with the US allies, Beijing has already been cementing its own ties internationally, as evidenced in China’s membership of the new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership ( RCEP ), a deal which will deliver tangible benefits to the Chinese economy. This trade pact, as well as China’s existing Belt and Road Initiative, can only increase China’s economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region, and enhance the prospects for the Chinese economy itself. On the subject of international affairs, Biden will surely sign the United States back onto the Paris climate accord , but in the meantime China’s President Xi Jinping has already pledged that China will be carbon-neutral by 2060 . Investors can assume that’s not an empty pledge. The fact of the matter is that, like it or not, China’s system of government allows policymakers in Beijing to set much longer-term targets than US presidents who necessarily have to think in four-year electoral cycles. Investors who are looking to make money by ploughing funds into multidecadal green projects might rationally conclude that investing in China makes more sense than pursuing similar opportunities in the US where the political wind can shift dramatically every four years. But Beijing is not just taking care of business on an international scale, it is also reforming the local financial system to make it more fit for purpose for a country with China’s economic clout. Recent defaults on bonds issued by Chinese state-backed companies are clearly unnerving for investors holding that paper, but these defaults don’t herald a systemic crisis. The fact that these defaults are only occurring now, with China’s economy recovering, and not at the height of the pandemic, is what should catch the eye. It’s impossible to prove but it feels as if these recent defaults were choreographed by Beijing. Big US policy changes unlikely as Biden takes over for Trump If that is the case and these defaults send a message that markets should price in risk without automatically assuming Beijing will be there with a handout every time something goes wrong, then that’s arguably no bad thing. In a sophisticated economy, the pricing of risk must also be sophisticated. And on the subject of sophistication, the PBOC has taken the lead in developing a central bank digital currency . It is trialling its own e-yuan in places like Shenzhen, even as the Federal Reserve is still considering how to proceed. If it transpires that there is a future role for central bank digital currencies, the PBOC will already be ahead of the game. When it comes to the economy and finance, China is forging ahead. Neal Kimberley is a commentator on macroeconomics and financial markets