How do you say "lost decade" in Mandarin?

In an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Daniel Lynch argues that, despite glowing official statistics, the Chinese economy is in all kinds of trouble:

Beijing’s insistence that GDP grew by 7.1 percent in the first half of 2009 is highly doubtful given that coal consumption by Chinese power plants fell 8.9 percent and usage of petroleum products (including gasoline) dropped 2.6 percent. In previous years, energy consumption consistently grew at a 7% to 9% rate.

Equally remarkable, aggregate tax revenues fell 6% in the first half of 2009 after increasing by 17% to 31% in preceding years. The drop in tax receipts occurred at the same time as energy use fell.

Some analysts say there is nothing anomalous about these figures, because Beijing has for years encouraged energy efficiency, and it lowered tax rates at the end of last year to help stave off recession. But the coincidences are far too improbable for these explanations to hold water.

Lynch believes that all of this means that China must lower its long-term growth projections considerably.  And this is likely to raise serious problems in terms of the pace of the global recovery.  He also argues that the resulting domestic tension will strengthen the hands of the liberals versus the Communists. . . We shall see.

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