"Chimerica" illustrates the interactions between a Chinese model of high savings, over-investment and export-led growth and the us model of leveraged investment, credit consumption and finance-led growth. The collapse of the us model, linked with the unregulated derivatives market, has driven China to redirect its growth towards domestic consumption, despite the strengthening of regionalisation in east Asia. Yet, China's stimulus plan, based on investment, is limited by both income disparities and the underdevelopment of social protection. Land reform, or the collective redistribution of the remaining state assets, could stimulate domestic consumption. But the first solution deprives the local state of financial resources, and the second solution collides with the interests of the state-party system. However, stronger social movements could lead to a better income distribution. Like two faces of the same coin, credit consumption and a high savings rate reflect the crisis of a global accumulation regime, tailored for a financial oligarchy in the us, or for a party-state oligarchy in China.
