Chinese authorities are now addicted to traffic fines
What that tells you about the country’s economic woes
![No parking signs in the city centre, Gansu province, Linxia, China](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240427_FNP002.jpg)
Ma Yijiayi was locked up in November. She did not stand in a square demanding political rights. Nor did she steal from state coffers. Instead, her crime was to ask a deadbeat debtor to pay her back. The local government in Liupanshui, a city in the province of Guizhou, owes Ms Ma, who is a contractor, 220m yuan ($30m) for building schools. Officials had offered her a mere 12m yuan. She refused.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Put the brakes on”
Finance & economics April 27th 2024
More from Finance & economics
![Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP002.jpg)
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries
![People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP502.jpg)
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time
![illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FND001.jpg)
Why you should repay your mortgage early
For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit