What are the big differences between United States and China?

In addition, fresh pressure from capital market volatility this summer, currency devaluation in emerging markets and slumping global commodity prices are further muddying growth prospects.

The report, published on Monday, said the economy was intimately linked with a demographic window – defined as a period when a country’s working-age population reaches its height – that had opened in China in previous years.

Ding suggested that the government could roll out more active fiscal policies in this area, such as personal income tax cuts for employees in China’s technological and innovation centers such as the Zhongguancun area in Beijing.

“Investors will come to a right judgment if they have a full understanding of China’s progress in economic development since the start of reform and opening-up, of China’s strategies formulated recently to ensure sustained and steady growth, and of the relevant data and trends in China’s economic performance”, Xi said.

China’s top economic planner defended the country’s data authenticity on Wednesday in response to assumptions that the government may have distorted growth data to make them look good, saying the claims were either “logically wrong” or “unreliable”.

In a written interview with Wall Street Journal, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China’s economy is still operating within the proper range and will step efforts to shift growth model. Rising wages have also taken a toll on the boundless growth the country had previously known, as it has led to less investment willingness by enterprises. Its economy passed Japan’s in size in 2009 and since then has added another 1 ½ Japans to its output. Most of the work indicates that China still needs to match up with the worldwide standard national accounts to calculate GDP.

As economists lower their 2015 growth forecasts for China, some have also hastened to point out the silver lining.

Weakness in shipbuilding, construction and heavy industry are signs of progress in Beijing’s campaign to transform a nation of farmers and factory workers into a consumer-driven economy and creator of technology.

However, its massive size is also a heavy burden.

Although Chinese society has opened up since Washington and Beijing restored diplomatic ties 36 years ago, the Communist Party retains a monopoly on political power.

Faith in China’s ability to surge ahead while the rest of the world struggled was shaken by the collapse of a stock price bubble. Other now major companies include Baidu, which was founded in 2001, and Sina Weibo, which was founded in 2009, both of which can now directly challenge their United States counterparts of Google and Twitter.

Only about 7 percent of Chinese households own stocks, which is a fraction of levels in the United States, Europe or Japan, so losses had little impact on consumer spending.

Meanwhile, Chinese purchases of foreign consumer products and technology are growing at rates that might surprise pessimists.

The service industry contributed to 49.5 percent of GDP growth in the first half of the year, up 6.6 percentage points from the ratio in 2007, the economic planner noted.