Exclusively from Michael Pettis newsletter:
After weeks of speculation and rumors about his resignation the Wall Street Journal set of a storm last Wednesday with an article suggesting that the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, is about to retire.
…The kinds of reforms that Zhou is believed consistently to have championed are pretty much the liberalizing reforms that will open the Chinese economy up to a far more efficient and productive use of domestic resources. He is generally considered to be a close ideological ally of Wang Qishan or, earlier, of Zhu Rongji, and there is little doubt that he has pressed strongly – although not especially successfully – for significant reforms in the banking system that include interest rate liberalization and corporate governance reform. He also seems to have been the main force behind the move to liberalize and internationalize the RMB.
