The rapidly swelling local government debt in China over the past few years are seen by many as a trigger to a credit bubble, or even a full-blown financial crisis. Budget reform, the first critical reform among over 330 reform proposals of the Xi administration, has kicked off, laying the foundation for a more balanced and transparent government budget and financing structure. Yifan Hu outlines the areas needed for both short and long term structural changes.

The Chinese central bank just announced that it will cut interest rates, but the market is more concerned about whether this means China is officially in the sweeping global game of quantitative easing. The Chinese central bank is now in a monetary policy dilemma: It is neither willing to embark on the track of excessive quantitative easing, nor ready to tighten currency policies. Instead, it is returning to neutrality, which doesn’t mean an orientation change in its monetary policies.

Despite China’s remarkable growth, the property market still faces the challenges of consolidation, industrial overcapacity, financial risk, deflationary risk, and structural employment issues. In response the government will adjust to the economy’s “new normal” of slower growth, move toward an innovation based economy with more public goods and services, and pursue a proactive fiscal economy and a prudent monetary policy.

In Western media, the National People's Congress -- China's legislative body which just ended its annual three week session -- is perfunctorily conjoined with the phrase "rubber stamp." This characterization is less and less true every year and does a disservice to understanding the most significant historic shift taking place in China today: the long march toward "rule according to law" from administrative fiat.

China’s selectiveness of foreign investment reflects its restructuring economy, one that invests less in capital and labor intensive industries to investments in human resources and technological innovation. Some far-sighted multinational companies are actively making use of the new rules, seizing the opportunity of China’s structural transformation and beginning to make active arrangements in the strategic newly emerging industries and the high-end service industry.

Sudden cases of factory relocation and closures has caused China’s foreign investment communities to worry about a “massive foreign capital flight.” With further investigation, foreign direct investment in China is shifting from manufacturing to service sectors. The focus of concern about China’s FDI situation should not be exaggerations of “massive foreign capital flight,” but on the solid efforts to improve China’s investment environment.

China’s central bank will maintain a neutral stance in 2015, in order to stabilize the stock market and provide support to the economy, writes Yi Xianrong.

“New normal” has become a buzzword in China since the second half of 2014. At the APEC CEO Summit on November 10, 2014, President Xi characterized China’s “new normal” as slower growth, economic restructuring and innovation-driven growth.

Stephen Harner discusses Mr. Kiyoyuki Seguchi’s recent article, which criticizes the “mistaken pessimism” of China’s economy by foreigners. Harner stresses that there is little thoughtful analysis on China, much reporting relying on sensationalism, and conscious negative bias to appeal readers in the U.S. and Europe.

There is no guarantee the U.S. remains in the dominant position on the world stage. In fact according to The International Monetary Fund, as reported by The Daily Mail -- we no longer are, at least economically.