The central challenge for China in 2002 is to keep gross domestic product growing fast enough to provide a cushion against the shocks and dislocations that accession into the World Trade Organisation may bring. Policymakers need to create millions of jobs, alleviate a rural economic crisis, whittle down a mountain of bad loans in the banking system and prevent a bubble in domestic stock market values from deflating.
All this needs to be done at a time when external drivers of growth - trade and inflows of foreign direct investment - may be hobbled by sluggish Japanese and US economies. It is a daunting balancing act, but one to which Beijing is determined to prove equal.
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