Is China set to become the new 'old' Japan?

Economic slowdown and deflation look worryingly similar to Japan's 'lost decade'

JO Hambro Capital Management's Samir Mehta takes a closer look at the lessons the Chinese authorities can learn from Japan as they intervene in the country's equity and currency markets

The successive attempts by the Chinese authorities to actively support a bull market in stocks and at the first signs of weakness devise creative ways of preventing a sell-off are almost tragically comic.  But such distortions are not new. Most Asian central banks intervene in currency markets. We only have to turn to Japan in the 1990s to find parallels with events in China today. And while making predictions is always fraught with risks, there is a very high probability that China could become the new 'old' Japan.   Market manipulation  Back in the 1990s, the Japanese government's...