Last week, Beijing issued its October statistics. The biggest news is that inflation came in at 5.5%, well below September’s 6.1% and the 6.2% of August. The consumer price index peaked at 6.5% in July according to official numbers.
No one should think inflation is running at least 16%—the widely aired view of finance expert Lang Xianping—but it is not as low as the number released Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics either. Yet for once the real rate of inflation is not the story. The story is the velocity of the fall. If the fall is as fast as official numbers suggest—possible—the Chinese economy is showing marked signs of deterioration.
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