The world "though" doesn't mean much by itself. It only makes sense in relationship to previous sentences. The word "though" announces or warns or indicates a surprise. The previous sentences make you expect something. "Though" indicates something that's different from what you expect. I found the whole article. The preceding sentence is "Such dangers explain why Beijing’s technocrats want to reduce the importance of LGVFS." Suppose the article stopped right there. You might say to yourself "...Technocrats are going to get rid of LGVFs. LGVFs will go away." That's what you expect. The second sentence, with "though," indicates a difference from expectation. Earlier the article mentions "a lofty GDP-growth target of 5.5%" and says LGFVs can help achieve that. With this context, we can summarize. 1) China has a lofty growth goal. It's awfully high. They might not meet it. It is in "peril" of not being met. LGFVs can help to meet it. 2) Technocrats would like to reduce the role of LGFVs. 3) (Surprise) As long as the growth goal is in peril, THOUGH, LGFVs are "going nowhere." They are not going to go away. They are going to continue about as before. The writer could have written "But as long as the growth target is in peril, LGFVs will be going nowhere." The choice of words and word ordering was a style choice. I'm going to take a guess, but it's just a guess about why they used "though." They didn't want to write one long sentence ("Technocrats want to reduce the importance of LGFVS, but as long as...") They wanted to break the thought into two short sentences. "The Economist" is written in excellent English. There is a grammar myth that says it is wrong to begin a sentence with a conjunction. To play it safe, they didn't want to begin a sentence with the word "but."