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Later today: Rebecca Patterson analyzes China’s economic quandary in a special “op-ed” edition of News Items. Subscribers will receive her essay at noon (ET) today.

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1. The Economist:

How do you reset the world’s conversation about a country that is in trouble? That is the task facing China’s embattled leadership this week, during what will be the most important public-facing political event of the year. China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (npc), is a rubber-stamp affair, but its annual session provides a rare window onto what the Communist Party is thinking. This year’s gathering will begin on March 5th with a state-of-the-nation speech from Li Qiang, the prime minister, and will end one week later. In between there is the closest you get to a public examination of the Chinese government’s performance and plans. The three things to watch for are its efforts to halt the economic panic, evidence of the long-term economic agenda of Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, and signs of the power balance within the misfiring leadership group itself. (Source: economist.com)

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2. China’s Li Qiang will become the first premier in three decades to not hold a press briefing at the annual parliamentary meetings, removing a rare platform for investors to learn more about the nation’s policy direction as President Xi Jinping consolidates control over the world’s second-largest economy. The country’s No. 2 official won’t take questions at the close of the National People’s Congress for the rest of its five-year term apart from in “special circumstances,” official spokesperson Lou Qinjian said at a Monday briefing in Beijing. This cohort of lawmakers will gather each year until 2027.

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3. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. and the global economy experienced a “China shock,” a boom in imports of cheap Chinese-made goods that helped keep inflation low but at the cost of local manufacturing jobs. A sequel might be in the making as Beijing doubles down on exports to revive the country’s growth. Its factories are churning out more cars, machinery and consumer electronics than its domestic economy can absorb. Propped up by cheap, state-directed loans, Chinese companies are glutting foreign markets with products they can’t sell at home. Some economists see this China shock pushing inflation down even more than the first. (Source: wsj.com)

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