Deja Vu: Is China Japan All Over Again?

This weekend I was leafing through my copy of  The Ministry, a 1997 book by Peter Hartcher about Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the role it played in the 1980s bubble and its “lost decade” aftermath, and was struck by several passages that called to mind what has been happening more recently in China’s economy.  My intention here isn’t to offer a rock-solid case that China is following precisely in Japan’s footsteps — for those who are interested, here are two good articles on that question, pro and con.  Nevertheless, these descriptions of what went wrong in Japan gave me a disturbing sense of déjà vu, and offer a thought-provoking historical backdrop for anyone trying to assess the consequences of China’s stimulus-driven boom.