Slowing Chinese growth is a recipe for global instability

By Robin Harding

THE United States wishes to hobble China’s economy so it can never compete on equal terms. It is hard to interpret last week’s announcement by Washington on semiconductor export controls in any other way. The goal may be military supremacy, rather than economic, but globalisation as we knew it for the last 30 years is clearly at an end.

Yet this is only the second most important event for China’s long-term growth trajectory to take place this month. Most important of all is what will happen a few days from now, when Xi Jinping steps out at the national congress of the Chinese Communist Party to acknowledge what is almost certain to be a third term as its paramount leader.