China's central bank governor used the Communist Party's top theoretical journal to argue that August's weak credit data, new loans of just ¥60bn against a roughly ¥400bn forecast, reflects a deliberate pivot toward interest-rate tools rather than a policy failure.
Hao Hong says August retail sales growth is the weakest on record outside Covid and the 1984 and 1990 recessions, pointing to a collapse in the propensity to consume despite 4–5% income growth. Source
