The differences in macroeconomic policy between America and China has been described as a difference between optimizing for GDP growth and optimizing for productivity growth: America will be satisfied with increasing GDP at the expense of productivity, and China will be satisfied with with increasing productivity at the expense of GDP. The Chinese state owned enterprises are able to burn through billions of dollars of investment with little or no returns so long as the end result increases total productivity in the economy at large, and not just profit at the level of the firms.
