It is almost three decades since Beijing was last downgraded by the rating agency Moody’s, and during that period China has been transformed. Since 1989, the year of the Tiananmen square massacre, rapid growth has seen huge progress in the fight against poverty. Compounded growth rates of close to – and in some years higher than – 10% have made China the world’s second biggest economy after the US. At the current rate of progress, it will soon be number one. Few envisaged this when Deng Xiaoping began his reform programme in the late 1970s. Read more
