Has China's Rise Topped Out?

The fall from grace of China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co. Ltd. continues to get steeper. Not long ago, the mysterious firm was chasing one foreign deal after another, becoming a symbol of China’s global economic ambitions. Now it appears the government may be pressuring Anbang to divest those prized foreign assets. If that proves to be the case, China will have given foreign businessmen yet another reason to be wary of working with Chinese companies: the uncertainty of an erratic, intrusive state meddling in private financial affairs.

But the Anbang case is also part of something bigger, and for China’s economic future, scarier. In just about every category, China’s rise into a global economic superpower has stalled. And the Chinese government sits at the heart of the problem.