The headlines trumpet that China’s economic growth in the second quarter of this year was the lowest in almost three decades. They are correct. The 6.2 per cent year-on-year expansion represents China’s lowest growth rate since 1990, a year in which economic activity was clobbered by the security crackdown that followed the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. But saying this should not prompt hasty conclusions.
China’s economy today is utterly different in scale and resilience from that of the early 1990s. Its growth in gross domestic product last year was still equivalent to the size of the entire Australian economy. This year, on its current trajectory, it will add more than another “Australia”.
The world’s second-largest economy still remains the biggest global source of growth. The news that a $13.6tn economy grew in the first half of the year at 6.3 per cent should not spark fears of an impending crisis.