Central Planning

For a few hours in Asia, it looked like selling pressure inherited from Wall Street was poised to accelerate a global equity rout. Ultimately, things calmed down, and regional shares pared losses, but the consternation was palpable. China set a growth target of more than 6% for this year, a bar which, if you go by consensus expectations, should be easy for Beijing to clear. Economists generally see the world's second-largest economy expanding at around 8% in 2021, coming off an anomalous year