Over the past year, China has put its mark on the world economy as never before. Not only did its economic slowdown inflict pain on energy and commodity producers; it acted as a serious restraint on growth in the rest of the developing world and held back global economic growth. Equally striking was the way the stock market collapse and mismanaged devaluation in the summer caused the US Federal Reserve to postpone an interest rate rise in September.
No central bank is less prone to responding to external influences when making policy. The Fed’s unexpected sensitivity on this score was a measure of how the world has been changed by China’s rise.
And finally Beijing succeeded in its ambition to have the renminbi included in the International Monetary Fund’s basket of reserve currencies.