The Importance of Property Rights for China's Future

For the first time since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis China may fail to meet its real GDP growth target for a given year, which in 2014 was set at 7.5 percent. If the growth figure comes in at 7.3 percent, as expected, Beijing is likely to lower the target for 2015 to 7 percent. That is a far cry from the double-digit growth experienced for more than three decades following the 1978 opening to the outside world.