The emerging market economies had been in trouble since the taper tantrum of 2013. Two of the great economic success stories of the new millennium, Brazil and South Africa, had crash-landed. The commodity price collapse in the fall of 2014 dealt a heavy blow to exporters of oil, gas, iron ore and other raw materials. Russia and much of Central Asia were struggling under the impact of sanctions and the Ukraine crisis. Given lackluster growth in Europe and the United States, the one sustaining force in the world economy was China’s relentless growth, and in 2015 even that suddenly seemed in
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