Asia Society Policy Institute

The outlook for China’s economic reforms is a critical factor in the global economy, for major economies and businesses alike. Since 1978, China has made great strides in economic reform, generating both growth opportunities and also disruptions at home and abroad. However this process is far from complete, and the challenges remaining are complex and require increasing regulatory sophistication. This reality, and shortcomings in Chinese data, create uncertainty about the reform outlook, including its pace and direction. For businesses and policymakers in China and abroad, better consensus built on a shared foundation of data is needed to prevent miscalculations and foster confidence.

In response to this, the Asia Society Policy Institute and the Rhodium Group have created The China Dashboard: Tracking China’s Economic Reform Program to provide a series of data visualizations tracking China’s progress toward its self-defined reform objectives in 10 essential economic policy clusters. These policy areas are:

To build a shared reference point for China’s economic reform progress, The China Dashboard provides a set of independently developed resources updated quarterly:

• A net assessment of progress across 10 key Chinese economic reform priorities.
• Detailed individual assessments of each policy reform cluster, including a primary indicator, summary assessment, data analysis, and policy review.
• Clear methodology notes explaining the choices behind each indicator.

The Dashboard builds on a previous ASPI-Rhodium Group collaboration from October 2014, Avoiding the Blind Alley: China’s Economic Overhaul and Its Global Implications, which provided the most comprehensive assessment of China’s economic program to date. This study distilled a byzantine tangle of more than 300 Chinese policy proposals, which were unveiled during the Third Plenum meeting of China’s leadership in November 2013, down to the essential clusters of reform presented in the Dashboard.