The China traps

India must learn from China's botched recovery

There is some disconnect between how China’s position as an economic power is portrayed in the news headlines, and how its economy is actually doing. The recent visit of United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Beijing was seen almost as a supplicatory effort, an impression  enhanced by the visuals of Ms Yellen’s overly respectful greeting of President Xi Jinping. Yet, in the real world of investment and unemployment, the real China story is of an economy that has underperformed in terms of recovery from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Two recent data releases made it quite clear what