WASHINGTON — China’s extraordinary growth over the past few decades has spawned two major lines of analysis. One school of thought holds that China is a rising economic power poised to conquer the world. The other argues that China’s economy has become so distorted that it is bound to collapse or, at least, as a former United States Treasury secretary suggested, “regress to the mean.”

Both views are mistaken.

For one thing, China has never been a normal economy. It experienced an average of nearly 10 percent growth rates for almost four decades, a record; it is the first developing nation to become a great power. So why couldn’t it keep defying expectations?

What some take to be the Chinese economy’s weaknesses have, in fact, been strengths. Unbalanced growth isn’t evidence of a looming risk so much as a sign of successful industrialization. Surging debt levels are a marker of financial deepening rather than profligate spending. Corruption has spurred, not stalled, growth.

At least so far. The central question isn’t whether China might continue to confound norms so much as what, precisely, is required for it to do so. And that, as ever, hinges on whether the Chinese government can strike the right balance between state intervention and market forces.