Premier Li Keqiang has acknowledged that while he can tolerate slower growth, at least some capital investment is needed to prevent it from becoming too slow.

Two checks were signed late last month, one for modernizing the rail system in central-western China, and the other for investment in pollution controls in Chinese cities. The Chinese called them micro-stimulus.

This is a more targeted, more restrained kind of stimulus. It is small compared with the stimulus of 2008-09, which cost 4 trillion yuan ($590 billion based on the exchange rate at the time), but was followed by much more in spending projects initiated by local governments.