Liu He, China's vice premier, signs the U.S.-China "phase-one" trade agreement during a ceremony with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020. The U.S. and China signed what they're billing as the first phase of a broader trade pact amid persistent questions over whether Trump's efforts to rewrite the economic relationship with Beijing will ever go any further.
In 2016, an unnamed “authoritative person” gained international prominence by laying out the long-term economic thinking of China’s top leaders, saying in state media that the government should prioritize cutting leveraging instead of juicing up GDP growth.
The person, widely believed to be President Xi’s right-hand man – China’s Vice Premier Liu He and his team – has stayed relatively quiet since then. But in a lengthy interview with Xinhua over the weekend, the “authoritative person” resurfaced. Along with “authoritative” government bodies, the mysterious person projected confidence in the economy, despite growing pessimism among economists. If there’s still any expectation of large-scale policy easing, this mysterious person made it clear that’s probably unlikely.
