TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Chinese economist Zhang Weiying is gaining in audience in China for his view that China’s Keynsian, state-run model has mis-allocated investment and made conditions worse:

In other words, the stimulus was a poster child for Mr. Zhang’s Austrian theories. And the sheer size of the failure suddenly has people paying attention. “The Keynesian policy didn’t deliver what it promised,” he says, so “more and more people realize that . . . when the government makes investment [in] something that’s useless, recession will come.”

Chinese officials no longer treat Mr. Zhang as a pariah. He reports that Ministry of Agriculture officials tell him they enjoy reading his articles. Other ministries and local governments, including in Henan and Liaoning provinces, invite him to speak. He says that when he recently wrote an article praising the late Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, the Communist Party secretary of Shanghai—a fairly high-level apparatchik—told him he liked it.

Interesting, especially because only a few short years ago, the “Beijing Consensus”—a sort of state-directed capitalism—was lauded across the world for its success.