With a deepening global economic crisis, stubbornly high inflation and slowing growth to worry about, it is hard to imagine that Zhou Xiaochuan finds much comfort in accolades from the media.
Nevertheless, Euromoney’s selection of Zhou as the world’s best central bank governor in 2011 is a well-deserved recognition of monetary policy decisions that have guided China along the ever-elusive course between supporting growth and taming inflation, a tightrope act made all the trickier by the horrid external environment.
It is tempting to say that Zhou simply has it easier than any other central banker, what with the sheer growth momentum generated by China’s urbanisation process plus the insulation derived from being a continent-sized economy.