A prospective Chinese property meltdown is still very much in focus, as is the country’s ongoing energy crunch, but Beijing’s regulatory crackdown was back in the spotlight Tuesday.
Xi is now investigating the financial sector including (ironically in the context of recent events) some regulators.
On the heels of a Dow Jones report which said Xi “is zeroing in on the ties that China’s state banks and other financial stalwarts have developed with big private-sector players,” China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said it’s conducting an anti-graft probe, the eighth such inspection in just four years.
Among the institutions in Xi’s crosshairs: The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s largest state-owned banks, the Shanghai stock exchange, the Shenzhen stock exchange, bad debt managers including Huarong (which knows a thing or two about the perils of graft) and the PBoC.
The last time Beijing put the financial sector under the microscope was 2015, the year China’s margin-fueled equity bubble burst. “Among the offenses identified by the graft fighter six years ago were regulatory officials’ spouses or children holding foreign passports, relatives of stock exchange staff engaging in insider trading, and sovereign wealth fund employees putting golf outings on expense accounts,” Bloomberg noted.
This could pressure bank shares in the near-term, but more broadly, it just perpetuates the notion that “no one is safe.”
The new inspections were tipped last month. Sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal said Xi wants to know who’s “become too chummy with private firms,” including and especially companies targeted by Beijing during the broader crackdown, like Didi and Ant Group. One imagines folks will be questioned about who knew what and when regarding Evergrande, too.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for work and aren’t particularly excited about the idea of returning to a life of servitude in the US services sector, China’s anti-monopoly bureau is hiring.
The regulator plans to more than double the number of staff focused on anti-trust investigations, reports indicated. If you need some time to think about whether working out of SAMR’s Beijing headquarters is the right career choice, don’t worry. There’s no rush. Sources said the watchdog’s hiring plan will be implemented over five years.
It’s not a stretch to suggest SAMR is becoming an ATM of sorts for Beijing. It squeezed a half-billion dollars from Meituan just last week, and it’s not as if targeted companies have any recourse. You can’t not pay. All you can do is thank the Party for making you aware of your bad behavior and “earnestly accept” the penalty.
SAMR has been a success. “The regulator was formally established three years ago,” Bloomberg remarked Tuesday, after noting that in just 11 months, it’s enacted new antitrust laws, fined China’s tech behemoths “for years-old deals” and iced mergers.
The same linked article dryly noted that although “it’s best known for its role in the tech crackdown, its mandate also includes food safety.” Next up: “Are you sure this facility doesn’t also process nuts? Because we found traces of peanuts.”
Less than 10 percent of the global population has at least a 3 generations long experience living with rule of law, private property rights, some sort of democracy, only baseline/minimal corruption and mostly legitimate voting rights. Not perfect, but generally, this group is not physically or otherwise followed by the government (stay off the internet to maximize your unobserved time). Conditions are far better than the alternative.
Over 90 percent of the population hope to stay under the radar and out of the crosshairs of those in charge. Paying bribes, living with widespread corruption, facing a potential “taking” of personal property/wealth is just how it is. Risk of being under suppressive observation, jailed or death are the reasons to do as told and keep your head down. Legitimate voting rights, court systems, etc. are mostly non-existent. This group might have read about or had a brief interaction with the above mentioned group, but do not have real life experience living under such relatively democratic conditions. I included Taiwan in this group because they will not likely pass the “three generations long” duration test.
In many ways China and the West are fighting the same social/economic problems while fighting each other. Who’s approach is going to work?
I really don’t see the west fighting this problem. While the west is at least somewhat willing to acknowledge that the socioeconomic problems exists, those who want to fight it are being sidelined by the right and moderates. China is at least combatting it even though they are doing so by transitioning to a command economy. The west still maintains that it’s a free market economy while it has enabled a majority of it’s economic sectors to be consolidated into monopolies and oligopolies that benefit kleptocrats and oligarchs primarily. The only way the west can even being to “combat” these problems is by instituting some kind of government reform and anti-corruption mechanisms. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who is willing to give up a sweet gig without someone else making them do it. Who is that someone else? No one, right now.
Also peanuts are legumes H. 🙂
Isn’t “civil asset forfeiture” a form of “legal” corruption in the U.S.?
This and other CCP “initiatives” will chill financial activity, including lending, deal-making, and likely even equity issuance (see Lenovo pulling its Shanghai listing). Nervous bankers will keep their head down and do less, lest they be investigated. Those who are removed will be replaced with persons chosen for Party loyalty rather than banking acumen.
Banks will steer lending toward those projects that they are explicitly instructed by the CCP to finance, which is convenient as the CCP will focus on large infrastructure projects to quickly inject support into the economy. Private businesses, especially smaller ones, will find funding scarcer.
Capital will thus be directed toward unproductive projects and away from productive ones. China is going to make its debt problem worse, not better.
The tech and media industries were the first, then the education industry and the property development industry. Now the financial industry will be more firmly brought under CCP control. I’m not clear why the likes of Blackrock think the CCP sees a long-term profitable role for it in China’s financial system.