--- title: Xi and Obama Must Address Economic Imbalance description: Xi Jinping and Barack Obama should discuss the ways in which China's economy affects the U.S. when they meet canonical: https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/ author: Rana Foroohar article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-21T18:43:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:43:02.428Z article:section: Business og:title: Let's Face It, China Runs U.S. Monetary Policy Now og:description: At least that's what it looks like for the time being og:url: https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf7aa0af2f0e53f5/698864820b72e3e83a6e5ea9/rtsc2t.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: China's President Xi attends a signing ceremony with King of Jordan Abdullah II at The Great Hall Of The People in Beijing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Let's Face It, China Runs U.S. Monetary Policy Now twitter:description: At least that's what it looks like for the time being twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf7aa0af2f0e53f5/698864820b72e3e83a6e5ea9/rtsc2t.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Let's Face It, China Runs U.S. Monetary Policy Now ## Video: China's Military Parade By the Numbers [Watch (HLS stream): China's Military Parade By the Numbers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EdAh6ne8.m3u8) (1:02)  _Published 2015-09-03. China's Military Parade By the Numbers_  by [Rana Foroohar](/author/rana-foroohar/)  ## Rana Foroohar Sep 21, 2015 6:43 PM CUT  China's President Xi Jinping attends a signing ceremony with King of Jordan Abdullah II (not pictured) at he Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sept. 9, 2015 China's President Xi Jinping attends a signing ceremony with King of Jordan Abdullah II (not pictured) at he Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sept. 9, 2015Lintao Zhang—Reuters  by [Rana Foroohar](/author/rana-foroohar/)  ## Rana Foroohar Sep 21, 2015 6:43 PM CUT As Chinese President Xi Jinping begins his long awaited visit to the U.S., there will be plenty for him to discuss with President Obama–trade issues, cyber-security, conflict in the South China Seas, and so on. One topic that has gotten less attention, but should be top of mind: monetary policy. That’s because what’s happening in China right now has limited the ability of the Federal Reserve Bank to do what’s right for the American economy. In important ways, China now controls U.S. monetary policy. What happens in the Middle Kingdom affects the decisions that Fed chair Janet Yellen can make about whether to raise or lower interest rates. We saw this just a few days ago when the [Fed held fire](http://time.com/4039183/interest-rate-fed/ "undefined") on a long awaited hike in rates (despite the fact that the U.S. is at full employment) because of global economic headwinds emanating from China, most particularly the disinflationary effect that slower Chinese growth has on the world. Yellen needs inflation to be higher–and in particular, she’d like to see _wage_ inflation be higher–before raising rates. Yet there’s no indication that will happen anytime soon, and China is a big reason why. As I wrote a couple of weeks back, the economic slowdown in China and the [crash of the Chinese equity market](http://time.com/4008762/stock-market/ "undefined") (which is a symptom of the former, not a cause) is really the echo of 2008\. When American consumers stopped buying stuff after the subprime crisis, China tried to take up the slack in the form of a massive government stimulus program. This meant a major run up in debt. A few years back, it took a dollar of debt to create every dollar of growth in China. Now it takes four times that. The debt-to-GDP ratio in China is a nauseating 300%. (American debt hawks worry about our rate, which is less than a third of that.) ### See China's Epic Parade Commemorating the End of World War II  A phalanx honoring heroes of the "Pingxingguan Pass Battle" during a grand military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Fei Maohua—Xinhua Press/Corbis  Guards of honor walk past Tiananmen Gate during the military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images  South Korean President Park Geun Hye, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, former Chinese President Jian Zemin, former Chinese President Hu Jintao, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stand on top of Tiananmen Gate to watch a military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015 Andy Wong—Getty Images  Chinese president and leader of the Communist Party Xi Jinping rides in an open top car in front of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Kevin Frayer—Getty Images  Members of a Chinese military choir sing near Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Kevin Frayer—Getty Images  Chinese President Xi Jinping offers a toast after delivering a speech during a reception to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender during World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Lintao Zhang—AP  Military vehicles carrying shore-to-ship missiles drive past the Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Getty Images  Entertainers perform during the gala marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Wu Hong—EPA  Military vehicles drive past Tiananmen Gate during the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images  Chinese army personnel stand during a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Ng Han Guan—AP  Balloons are released during the commemoration activities to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. Meng Yongmin—Xinhua Press/Corbis  People record trainer jets flying over Tiananmen Square during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. China Daily—Reuters A couple of years ago, that bubble started to burst. The Chinese government tried to stop it, by propping up one market after another, from housing to stocks. But what they really need to do is orchestrate a major shift in the country’s economy. China needs to stop being a place that makes cheap shoes, and start being a place in which consumers prop up the economy, not just at home, but around the rest of the world. It’s not just China’s job to rebalance–the US and Europe have to do so as well–but if China doesn’t, nobody else can. The global economy is a closed loop. What’s more, the shift China needs to make is a very tough act (only three other Asian nations have managed it) particularly for an autocracy. It’s not at all clear yet that China can pull it off. That’s why, in lieu of the kind of major global rebalancing, central bankers have been left holding the bag. The core reasons we had a financial crisis in 2008 (over-consumption by the West, under consumption in the East) never got fixed and so central bankers were forced to brew up a huge credit bubble that has both sowed the seeds of the next crisis and locked them into low interest rates which further increase market risk without actually helping the real economy. As one of my favorite sources, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, said [in a recent speech](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2015/speech840.pdf "undefined"), “Over the past few months, debate on the global economy has been dominated by news from Greece and China. In my view, these should not been seen as independent events, as lightning bolts from the blue. Rather, they are part of a connected sequence of financial disturbances that have hit the global economic and financial system over the past decade.” Xi and Obama need a game plan on how to fix those imbalances together. Until then, look for rates to stay low–and for Main Street to be increasingly (and riskily) disconnected from Wall Street. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/"},"headline":"Let's Face It, China Runs U.S. Monetary Policy Now","datePublished":"2015-09-21T18:43:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:43:02.428Z","description":"At least that's what it looks like for the time being","url":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/","keywords":["Economy","Janet Yellen","Barack Obama","China","Xi Jinping","interest rates"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf7aa0af2f0e53f5/698864820b72e3e83a6e5ea9/rtsc2t.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rana Foroohar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rana-foroohar/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf7aa0af2f0e53f5/698864820b72e3e83a6e5ea9/rtsc2t.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"China's President Xi attends a signing ceremony with King of Jordan Abdullah II at The Great Hall Of The People in Beijing","caption":"China's President Xi attends a signing ceremony with King of Jordan Abdullah II at The Great Hall Of The People in Beijing","creditText":"Lintao Zhang—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/economy/","name":"Economy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/","name":"Let's Face It, China Runs U.S. Monetary Policy Now"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"China's Military Parade By the Numbers","description":"China's Military Parade By the Numbers","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EdAh6ne8/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-09-03T17:53:28.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EdAh6ne8.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/","duration":"PT1M2S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4043067/china-us-monetary-policy/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```