Another month, another sub-par purchasing managers’ index from the mainland – or at least it seems that way to investors fretting about how bad the economy must really be to have forced Beijing to cut interest rates. Taking the long view over 36 years of economic reform, veteran China watcher Carl Weinberg at High Frequency Economics suggests the bears pause for breath. The way he sees it, the mainland is in the midst of its fourth full economic cycle since the late 1970s, neither longer nor deeper than previous cycles, merely a period of sub-par growth. “Call it a growth recession,” an optimistic Weinberg says, adding that he expects the cycle to end with a recovery of gross domestic product growth above its potential rate. “Modernisation is an immutable process. It cannot be held at bay for very long.”
