But that performance required enormous inputs of capital.

Obviously. That's how the economy grows you buffoons.

The economy as a whole has fared badly on measures of “total-factor productivity” (TFP), which try to capture the growth in output that cannot be explained by increases in capital or labour.

I had a whole response typed out, but honestly, unless the article starts giving actual data and what the goals of the government were, any comment I make is just speculation.

Interestingly enough, I found a book that shows that TFP may almost be entirely a product how efficiently an economy processes energy resources. Although I doubt this is what the author of the article had in mind. Instead, they were probably thinking about some business magic racial supremacy number of something.

A different policy mix could have encouraged greater household spending, not capital spending, and flourishing services, not manufacturing muscle. These two shifts could have complemented each other nicely.

The existing policies of high capital spending and focus on manufacturing also complement each other. And have the benefit of picking up the whole world's slack from the de-industrialisation of America/Europe/Japan.

it is difficult to imagine the Communist Party under Mr Xi pursuing a different strategy. “They basically think that rich countries are those that make stuff and the richest countries are those that make the most advanced stuff,” says Gerard DiPippo of the RAND Corporation, a think-tank.

Bruh