What comes next for China

Part 6 (final) of our series on the politics of China's economics. Here we venture beyond the numbers to consider where the country is headed. There is both a dark horizon and a reason for hope.

This is the sixth and final essay in our series on the politics of China’s economic growth model. Having spent five essays on why the Party will not choose to rebalance the economy toward consumption and what that refusal costs, we leave the record behind and enter the realm of speculation. Where does a centre that has chosen control over prosperity, and is quietly spending down the confidence it runs on, end up? Not necessarily in collapse. But not, either, where it means to be.