Deregulation is continuing apace in the East. But in the West, it is the drive for regulation that still dominates.
This week, as analysts in China forecast that big banks’ annual profit growth would fall short of 10 per cent for the first time in a decade, it became clear that liberalisation was working – government-set interest rates have been dropped and new entrants are jostling for business.
In the UK, opposition leader Ed Miliband is eyeing a contrary strategy to achieve the same stated aim of a more competitive market. There is a chance that communist China may prove more adept at predicting the dynamics of capitalism than the man who aspires to be Britain’s next prime minister.