8% sounds insane and unachievable, I mean China is basically around 30% of the world's economy. For them to grow that much while rest of the world is mostly suffering would require some sort of economical miracle. 4.3% is still massive and it sounds more realistic. But let's wait and see what happens.
4.3% growth is almost certainly on the low side for 2023.
8% would be a one-off for this year because of the covid lockdown bounceback.
I reckon the longer term average would be around 5-6% per year, based on the historical performance of the other East Asian economic Tigers like Korea and Japan when they were at a similar level.
Remember that China is still only a middle-income country, where the average Chinese person is some 3x "poorer" than the average American.
The thing about making the RMB into the global reserve is that it is likely to hard cap the ability of China to accumulate real growth, because to do so, China must buy massively more than they sell, in order to spread the RMB.
Assuming global reserve will make China fully usurp America's role as global hegemon, but that doesn't mean much if it means the average people in China will see wages stagnate and that industries, jobs, will have to move out of China into other countries, making them dependent.
This is why China instead wants a basket of different currencies as reserve, so that they can still comprehensively play the mercantilism game.
Appreciation and/or depreciation of a currency greatly affects un-adjusted nominal GDP, hence this measure tells us even less than normal GDP, which is honestly also pretty bad. So I wouldn't even think too much about the appreciation rate of the Yuan.
Currency can fluctuate, but what gives real power is basically how much "stuff" you can produce. Stuff of course not only being goods but also research, educated workers etc. This is the metric that really affects living quality and ability of the country to withstand crisis.
China reached the status of largest economy by GDP not because it desparately prioritized acquiring GDP, but because they followed the path of growing productive forces, which naturally led to more GDP.
And most likely China will one day also assume the role of global reserve currency. But it should not be rushed, instead it should come naturally through developing the living standards, the industry, improving and increasing the jobs etc. This is the concept of Xiaokang society, where the "little man" or the class of commoners, are the ones whose needs are put first.
Yes, becoming a global reserve currency is a double-edged sword. Countries inevitably fall to the temptation to print currency and operate trade deficits, which hollows out the domestic economy. Dalio's work on Imperial Rise and Decline quantifies this.
But I do think the mercantilist approach has reached its end.
On a practical level, there are very few areas where China can keep expanding its exports and China doesn't need more foreign currency.
Plus Chinese companies don't have to worry about foreign imports in general, because they've caught up in virtually every area.
So there's no need or any point in keeping a weak currency to get as many exports as possible.
