‘Garbage time’for now:According to the PMI data released earlier this week(Fig 15 inside),the Chinese economy should remain largely steady toward theend of 2017.However,it tells us little about the year ahead.While 2018 hasalready started,the new year for China macro will only start in March,afterthe Chinese New Year holidays.Moreover,what’s special for this year is thatthe power transition is not yet complete,as key positions such as the PBoCGovernor could be announced any time in the next couple of months.Assuch,visibility for the year ahead remains low at this stage.That said,in thecoming weeks,the last data batch for 2017 will be released(table on the leftsums up our forecasts).So this is a good time to discuss the lessons learnedfrom the surprises in 2017 and the key questions for 2018(see the last pagefor detailed annual and quarterly data).