The Writing On The Wall

The writing is on the wall in China. And the font is large. Beijing's regulatory crackdown is no flash in the pan and it's not "limited" or "targeted" either. It's an across-the-board effort to rein in the influence of capital, scrub society of perceived Western excess, reestablish discipline (broadly construed) and codify Xi's "thought." It is, apparently, a "profound revolution." The reality of this has yet to set in for Western investors and, frankly, I doubt it ever will. We live in a worl

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7 thoughts on “The Writing On The Wall

  1. CCP also signaling rent control: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-31/china-seeks-to-cap-home-rent-increases-preserve-older-buildings

    The interesting thing is that many of CCP’s goals make sense in the abstract, and similar pronouncements would please not a few Americans. Personal data, discriminatory pricing, labor exploitation, monopolies, property speculation, private education, rents, video gaming, online disinformation, financial schemes, are also hot-button topics in the West. We may view them with dismay due to their effect on stock prices, with doubt about their implementation, with suspicion of their role in political control. After all, our – or at least my – main interest is the market impact. But I wonder if Xi’s actions might not be quite popular with the average Chinese. Imagine that: Xi The Populist, Man of The People.

  2. So much for the the hybrid, state supported capitalism of the past couple of decades. Xi clearly wants to be the second coming of Mao. I wouldn’t be surprised if much of this is a response to the attacks ramped up by the Trump admin. China seems to be looking inward to get its house in order to be less dependent on the rest of the world for a time, at least. I suspect if these new restraints really harm business development and economic growth there will be some relaxation after a time. I do believe that Xi’s restraints on the Internet, kids playing games, etc. could well backfire. I still think the biggest driver of the Soviet breakup was the desire of the population to have the “stuff” the West had — a second real cultural revolution, as it were. I had numerous Chinese MBA students over the years. They were smarter than my native students, and more driven. I remember one female student who had earned a Masters in English lit at St.Petersburg University, who came to our MBA program with no business background. In two years she had a job at a major investment banking house in Toronto, made partner in three years and headed up operations for the bank in Europe. These folks know what’s going on and it will be hard to hold the best and brightest down.

  3. Boy, why put it that way? I mean, how different is what you are describing as the Chinese position from Roosevelt’s New Deal? The thing is, I have a hard time finding fault with what you describe above. Curb the power of billionaires? I think such an effort should be pursued with absolutely whatever it takes. Not that I want to replace democracy (such as we have it) with authoritarianism, it’s just that the thing the Chinese reforms are trying to combat (i.e., ‘Free’ Market Economics, Uber Alles), such proposed regulations would make the US a far better place for many more citizens in my opinion. Wealth equals power, there is no way to credibly refute this fact. Money equals power. And when a small number of humans hold that power, then the world marches to the beat of those small number of humans. And in this age of pandemic and global warming, the powers that be are failing us. Catastrophically. The world is staring to come apart at the seams and the billionaires only get richer. In this nihilistic environment they only make the case that they should end.

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