Making the cake bigger must be focus of reforms

Editor's note: In a recent interview with the Xiakedao, a WeChat account of People's Daily Overseas Edition, Zheng Yongnian, a researcher in East Asia studies at the National University of Singapore, points out that China has no choice but to press ahead with reform. The following are experts of Zheng's points of view on the topic:

In China, some people joke that houses are for speculation, and the stock market is for living in. Although it is absurd, it does point to the close connection of the stock and housing markets. About 30 percent of China's population is considered middle-income. But most of their wealth exists in forms of houses.

An important reason that the Chinese stock market remains weak is that the people lack confidence in the future, so they don't want to invest in the real economy. Since 2008, houses have proved to be the most reliable hard currency in the country helping common citizens to minimize inflation's attenuating effects on their wealth.