China's Anonymous Economic Oracle Signals Shift From Debt

To get a read on U.S. economic policy, investors may parse minutes from Federal Reserve meetings. In Europe, they scrutinize Mario Draghi’s public remarks. When it comes to China, they’re increasingly studying an "authoritative person’s" anonymous prognostications in the Communist Party’s most important newspaper.

For the third time in less than a year on Monday, the People’s Daily published an extended interview with an unnamed official expounding the policies needed to address challenges facing the world’s second-largest economy. As in similar pieces in January and last May, which both preceded big stock market sell-offs, the speaker sought to clear up what were presented as misunderstandings about China’s policy plans.