Is China better at monetary policy than America?

When china’spd leaders reappointed Yi Gang as governor of the country’s central bank in March, it was a pleasant surprise. With an economics h from America, where he also taught, Mr Yi is the kind of reform-minded, well-travelled technocrat that is disappearing from China’s policymaking establishment.The impression of him as a welcome anachronism was reinforced on April 15th when he spoke on the record, in English, at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank in Washington, before accepting unscripted questions from the audience. In the talk, he expressed respect for market forces and economic liberties. “You have to believe that market adjustment is by and large rational,” he said. As a policymaker, he has pushed to give households and private firms “the maximum amount of freedom” to buy foreign exchange, without entirely abandoning capital controls. One reason for his stance is personal. As a student and professor abroad, he remembered, he found it difficult to convert yuan into dollars, even for small sums. “I hate that,” he said.