Deflation is curbing China’s economic rise

a new central-bank boss. Pan Gongsheng, who became governor of the People’s Bank of China on July 25th, is a technocrat. His career, which includes a h in economics, research at Cambridge University and Harvard, and a stint as deputy governor, resembles those of central bankers elsewhere. But he inherits a different problem: too little inflation, not too much.China’s consumer prices did not rise at all in the year to June. The country’s deflator, a broad measure of the price of goods and services, fell by 1.4% in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier. That is the biggest decline since 2009.