Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries
The incarceration rate of the People's Republic of China varies depending on sources and measures. According to the World Prison Brief, the rate for only sentenced prisoners is 118 per 100,000 (as of 2015). The rate for prisoners including estimations for the number of pre-trial detainees and those in administrative detention is 164 per 100,000 (as of 2015). In a 2010 interview Harry Wu, a U.S.-based human rights activist and ex-Chinese labor camp prisoner, estimates that "in the last 60 years, more than 40–50 million people" were in Chinese labor camps, but that period includes the mass incarcerations of the 1950s or the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and is not representative of modern China.
Financial repression
Financial repression "played an important role in reducing debt-to-GDP ratios after World War II" by keeping real interest rates for government debt below 1% for two-thirds of the time between 1945 and 1980, the United States was able to "inflate away" the large debt (122% of GDP) left over from the Great Depression and World War II. In the UK, government debt declined from 216% of GDP in 1945 to 138% ten years later in 1955.
China's economic growth has been attributed to financial repression thanks to "low returns on savings and the cheap loans that it makes possible". This has allowed China to rely on savings-financed investments for economic growth. However, because low returns also dampens consumer spending, household expenditures account for "a smaller share of GDP in China than in any other major economy". However, as of December 2014, the People’s Bank of China "started to undo decades of financial repression" and the government now allows Chinese savers to collect up to a 3.3% return on one-year deposits. At China's 1.6% inflation rate, this is a "high real-interest rate compared to other major economies”.