As it has for much of 2015, China’s soft economic underbelly will remain a core concern for the growth of the global marketplace. Indeed, the odds are that China’s economic troubles will only continue to get worse in 2016—and the events of these very first days of the new year are not a good omen. This is because Beijing has painted itself into a corner and the various policy levers it is trying to press are producing contradictory outcomes. ...