Jake's View | Xi Jinping, China’s debt time bomb, and the art of saying nothing

“I need to be clear, the supply-side structural reform we are talking about is not the same as the supply-side economics school in the West ...

“I highlighted the issue of supply-side structural reform at last year’s economic work conference, and it triggered heated debate ... But some comrades told me that they didn’t fully understand supply-side reform ... I need talk about his issue again.”

President Xi Jinping

SCMP, May 11

Count me in with those comrades who don’t understand what supply side means. I don’t understand it either and I understand even less of what Mr Xi’s variant of it comprises.

From what I can make out, the conventional meaning of supply side is that if you are the boss of a country and your people don’t pull your economy along at the speed you would like them to pull, then you make them pull by going into debt and pushing down interest rates.