Policy-makers today can take a leaf out of the book of Asian history.

One can take Xie An as example. He was a highly respected 4th century A.D. Chinese statesman, who despite his lack of military ability, led the numerically inferior Kingdom of Jin to achieve victory against the invasion of the Kingdom of the Former Qin that had much larger armies.

There was an incident that allows us to see Xie An's ability. When war was about to break out, many soldiers were afraid and fled back to the capital. Some people suggested that the deserters should be sought out and punished. Xie An disagreed and thought that during the time of the enemy's assault, it would not be wise to demoralize the army. He showed his farsight when he said, "if the capital is not the place where the deserters flee to, should it still be the capital?" This was an indication that Xie An remained calm despite of the chaotic circumstances, and this would foreshadow his future victory in the war.

What really made Xie An win the war is his core strategy on emphasizing stability and having far and wide-reaching long-term vision, especially during chaotic times. During precarious times, sometimes non-action would need to be adopted to counter the ever-changing situations.

There was an incident that illustrated the extent of Xie An's restraint. When the news of the victory of war reached Xie An, he was playing chess with another person. Upon hearing the news, he stayed calm and concentrated on the moves of his pawns. When his chess mate asked about the outcome of the war, Xie An said serenely, "it is just like some children defeating robbers". Outwardly, he appeared to be indifferent to the result. When that person knew about the victory, he could not suppress his emotion and took his leave. It was only after his guest left the house that Xie An showed his excitement by dancing, and unknowingly damaged his shoe in the midst.

The current situation of China is not much of difference with what happened 16 centuries ago.

China used to be known as the "world's factory". A large proportion of consumer and manufactured goods needed by most countries in the world come from China. Currently, China's production capacity still exists. In fact, the actual current production in China is higher and the scale is larger because of the advancement of the technology. However, there are more countries in the world with having rising production capacity. The whole world will then be in a state of severe overproduction. When this happens, as mentioned in the book Urbanization by Anbound's chief researcher Chan Kung, such a world is naturally a dangerous one. There will be either a new and larger market space, a war or a serious economic crisis. There will almost be no other options. Take China as an example. Imagine that the original economic growth was built from the supply of the world's production capacity. Now the space for these production capacities is being assaulted by various forces. The market is not expanding at all, rather it is shrinking. The huge and astonishing production capacity is gradually losing its value and function. This means that unless China achieves a smooth and rapid transition, there will be no positive growth in the economy in the future. Instead, it would be negative growth, perhaps a very huge one at that.

It should be said that there is not much time left for China's transformation.

Final analysis conclusion:

In order to win time, get the market space exchanged and create new space, the strategy for China is to keep both restraint and stability at this moment. The more chaotic the situation is, the more restraint and stability are there. The Chinese legend story of Xie An in the history had proved this strategy very wise. China's successful transformation requires enough time that would be gained under restraint. Therefore, the best strategy for China will be maintaining stability and having far-sighted vision.