China gets the reforms it needs

When China's new leadership under President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang took office, expectations were high that it would accelerate reform to take the economy to greater heights. Before the leadership took office, there were concerns that, without reform the Chinese economy would stagnate or run into the middle-income trap.

The Xi-Li leadership has not disappointed; it has wasted no time in taking one reform initiative after another. The leadership's objective is to make the Chinese economy stronger and to adapt to changing circumstances at home and abroad. The leaders discourage practices that will harm China in the long run, and are steering the economy toward a more efficient use of resources and capital allocation. These objectives are of course desirable, but the prescription and the process to get the desired results may not always be easy to take.

The new leadership recognizes the challenges of reform and has attempted to manage the expectations by sticking to a GDP growth target of 7.5 percent in 2013, the same as last year but lower than the 8 percent in the few years preceding 2012. According to latest reports, the government has actually set 7 percent GDP growth as the bottom line for tolerance of an economic slowdown.