And although the government pushed CNPC to make big investments in the China-Central Asia system, it never devised a pricing policy that would avoid losses on gas imports or make the pipelines pay for themselves. An analysis by Michael Lelyveld Still, China has not forgotten that Central Asia is loaded with risk as well as opportunity. Chinese goods-exports growth slowed to 5. Macroeconomic realities dictate that CAR governments will not be able to meet these needs on their own, leading to the emergence of an infrastructure gap.