Make it a decade of global rebalancing

The New Year snow that engulfed Beijing yesterday cheerfully added to the magnificence of the city by sketching a silver outline on its mushrooming high-rises and lightly putting a blanket over underdeveloped zones.

For a traditionally agricultural country like China, this was more than welcome since, as it is said, timely snow augurs a good harvest.

But for an increasingly urbanized China, such a heavy snow can also be a critical stress test for the capacity of many local governments to deal with extreme weather.