China's economy will grow at modest rates, but not strong enough to tame unemployment for an extended time without a radical change in macroeconomic policy, a Chinese scholar told a recent seminar in Tokyo.

The sharp deceleration of China's growth in the latter half of 2008 was due more to mistakes in monetary policy than to the global financial crisis, and the massive 4 trillion yuan stimulus announced in November hasn't had a significant impact, according to Yuan Gangming, a research fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Yuan was speaking June 19 at a seminar organized by the Keizai Koho Center on the theme, "China's stimulus efforts and prospect for its economic recovery."