China's wise men come down to earth with a bump

London

CHINA invented the compass. Yet in a curious irony, the direction of the world's second-largest economy has become more or less unreadable. The country's GDP increased by 6.9 percent in the third quarter, the slowest rate in six years. What investors, corporate chieftains and others really want to know, though, is how well China will manage an alarming slowdown. The signs aren't terribly encouraging.

The smog of uncertainty descended this summer. A collapse of the Shanghai stock market spook…