Tim Worstall

Worse, Wen may wring his hands over his mistakes, worrying that the government can no longer support loss-making infrastructure projects to deliver growth – rapidly falling away to its lowest for years. But he did nothing to change things largely because as matters stand nothing can be done. China needs to become a “normal” economy with plural centres of decision-making, an indigenous capacity to innovate and less reliant on state-driven flows of credit and infrastructure spending.

This is the man who insists that the UK economy should have more of all such things. Especially state allocation of credit.

A murky corporatist economic model has been created in which insiders, especially so-called princelings – sons and daughters of former revolutionary leaders such as Bo Xilai and his wife (both are children of revolutionary generals) – feather their nests with impunity. There is no impartial law; no checks and balances; nothing can be trusted. Party officials can make no claim to being revolutionary heroes as a reason for holding office; they are corrupt administrators just about delivering the quid pro quo of rising living standards.

And a man who refuses to see that the two things go together. If politics decides who gets the money then politics will be about who gets the money and thus money will buy politics.