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Ten years after the financial crash: the decade of a rising China
Xi Jinping stock photo

IT IS 10 years this September since Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, bringing global capitalism to the point of collapse.  

Although a total meltdown was avoided, the crash triggered a slump of 1930s proportions, and for most economies the last decade has been a lost decade of low growth, low investment, low productivity, debt, deficit, with virtually no improvement in real incomes for the 90 per cent. 

The stand-out story of the period has to be the continuing rise of China. Initially also badly hit by the crisis, China recovered rapidly to emerge today as a major economic power, moving steadily closer centre stage in the global order.

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