China is engineering yet another mini-boom. Credit is picking up again. The Communist Party has helpfully outlawed falling equity prices. Economic growth will almost certainly accelerate over the next few months, giving global commodity markets a brief reprieve. Yet the underlying picture in China is going from bad to worse. Robin Brooks at Goldman Sachs estimates that capital outflows topped $224bn in the second quarter, a level "beyond anything seen historically". The Chinese central bank (PBOC) is being forced to run down the country's foreign reserves to defend the yuan. This intervention is becoming chronic. ... (full story)