Consumption has moved onto Beijing's agenda. With soaring external surpluses, continued depression in the property sector and a huge glut of household savings hitting banks, the need to boost domestic consumption has increasingly been showing up in policy communication over the past few quarters.

But there's no "magic bullet" that solves the problem. The two main structural proposals that are always rolled out in response - (i) fixing the social safety net and (ii) ending financial repression - are non-starters, being either ineffective or simply unachievable. And China is still years away from the one thing that clearly could reboost household spending, i.e., a fundamental cleanup and restructuring of the real estate sector.

And meanwhile China faces three big growing macro headwinds, in the form of slowing incomes, rising pension funding stress and collapsed birthrates.

This leaves the government with hodge-podge of more minor measures including interest rates, tax and subsidy adjustments, cash transfers and equity market support ... but so far relatively little action.