The moans and the groans of reform

The late leader of Chinese reform Deng Xiaoping once said reform was also a revolution. People do see a revolutionary moment every time a reform is about to take a new turn.

In the past few weeks, when the economy was running at its lowest growth rate in two years - partly engineered by the central government to cut overcapacity and wasteful investment projects - Chinese business media reported on a stream of provincial leaders scheduling meetings with officials of the Ministry of Finance, appealing for leniency and special fiscal terms for their ambitious ongoing development plans.

Those local leaders came from places such as Guangdong, the province with the highest GDP figure, Henan, the province with the nation's largest rural population waiting for off-farm jobs, and Guizhou, the underdeveloped mountainous province with many ethnic groups.