London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

China shouldn’t risk West’s large monetary easing of last decade to combat economic slowdown, central bank warns

China shouldn’t risk West’s large monetary easing of last decade to combat economic slowdown, central bank warns

PBOC pressured to cut interest rates to stabilise economic growth; deputy director of research dept says country should use ‘institutional advantages’ instead. Comments come days ahead of the Central Economic Work Conference, at which top China officials will set the economic policy priorities for 2020

The economic problems created by the aggressive monetary policy easing undertaken by Western central banks in response to the global financial crisis a decade ago are a clear warning to China not to go down the same path to combat its current economic slowdown, according to an official from the central bank.

China, instead, should use the institutional advantages unique to China to address the country’s economic problems, Zhang Xuechun, deputy director of the People’s Bank of China’s research bureau, said on Friday.

The central bank is under continuous domestic pressure to cut its interest rates further and faster to help stabilise economic growth, which is expected to drop below 6 per cent in the fourth quarter this year and fall further next year.

Coming only days ahead of the Central Economic Work Conference, which will set the government’s economic policy priorities for 2020, the comments send the strong signal that the PBOC believes an expansion of fiscal policy and continued economic restructuring, rather than monetary loosening, should play the leading roles in combating the economic slowdown next year.



“We must learn the lesson from developed countries that relied heavily on quantitative easing,” said Zhang, citing asset bubbles, the widening of the wealth gap and rising international currency and trade competitions as the negative consequences of those policies.

“When we face downward [economic] pressures from shifting to high-quality growth and external uncertainties, monetary policy should not leap forward alone,” Zhang said.

“Instead, it needs coordination with fiscal policy and structural reforms. The purpose is to improve our productivity and solve the distribution of income.”

China should use its “institutional advantages” – such as its ability to plan and execute five-year or even longer-term structural reform plans without electoral pressure – to solve its current economic challenges, Zhang said.

Between 2008 to 2014, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates aggressively and conducted four rounds of quantitative easing, buying US Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities directly from the market to inject large amounts of liquidity into the financial system.

The Bank of Japan also launched two rounds of quantitative monetary easing from 2013, involving significant bond purchases of 80 trillion yen annually (US$730 billion), and introduced negative interest rates in January 2016.



The European Central Bank implemented an asset purchase programme between 2015 and 2018, spending €2.6 trillion (US$2.9 trillion) on government bonds, corporate debt and asset-backed securities. In September 2019, it restarted quantitative easing measures and cut its bank deposit rate to an all-time low of minus 0.5 per cent.

The Bank of England implemented three rounds of quantitative easing from 2009, purchasing £435 billion (US$560 billion) of government bonds in total.

“We should cherish the monetary leeway we have, enhance coordination with fiscal policy and strongly push forward supply-side structural reform,” Zhang told the 2019 China Finance Annual Forum in Beijing.

The US Federal Reserve has cut benchmark interest rates three times this year, with US President Donald Trump calling for more aggressive moves to boost the US economy, even talking about negative interest rates.

“[Quantitative easing] and negative interest rates will have their limit, though we don’t know how far it can go yet. But think about it, if the [US Federal Reserve] cut its benchmark rate when its economy is at a 30-year high and its unemployment rate is at a 30-year low, how can it address a [future] economic recession?” Zhang added.

In contrast, the PBOC has eased its monetary policy only slightly, given concerns about putting downward pressure on the yuan exchange rate and adding to the recent rise in the country’s debt level to an all-time high.

China cut its three key interest rates – the medium-term lending faculty rate, the loan prime rate and the 7-day reserve repo rate – by a mere 5 basis points earlier this month.

The Chinese central bank is expected to continue targeted liquidity injections and continuing to push banks to lend more to smaller private-sector businesses, who account for the majority of the nation’s employment.

The State Council, the country’s cabinet, has continued to rule out a resumption of the all-out stimulus it undertook in response to the global financial crisis in light of the problems that policy created in the China economy.

It has also downplayed the importance of achieving a particular growth target since employment has remained stable.
The world’s second largest economy is expected by many analysts to set a growth target of “around 6 per cent” in 2020, compared with the 6 to 6.5 per cent range for this year.

Given the recent upward revision to the size of China’s economy last year following the completion of the latest economic census, economists believe a growth rate of 5.8 per cent next year will be enough for the government to achieve its overarching goal of creating a “moderately prosperous society” by doubling the size of the economy in the decade to 2020.

“The overall situation is that the global and Chinese economies are going downward. Luckily, China is not the worst and it knows exactly what it should do,” former PBOC adviser Li Yang told Friday’s conference.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×