In 2007, at the height of a years-long economic boom, Premier Wen Jiabao warned that China’s growth model had become “unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.”82 His successor, Li Keqiang, echoed that assessment in 2021.83 And Xi Jinping, the ultimate Chinese triumphalist, has given multiple internal speeches warning of the potential for a Soviet-style collapse triggered by “black swans” and “gray rhinos”—investor jargon for system-crippling economic crises.
