If you’re new to these pages, you might come away suspecting I’m a China-phobe.

I carry on (and on and on) about the country’s quasi-recession born of an apathetic consumption impulse, which in turn has its roots in a property crisis of the government’s own making.

To be sure, the amount of coverage I dedicate to China’s economic woes isn’t out of step with the Chinese economy’s clout. It’s the second-largest economy in the world, after all, so it makes sense that after the US, it’d get the most coverage.

But I do employ a caustic cadence while editorializing around policy machinations in Beijing where, in the inner sanctum of the CCP’s seat of power, Xi Jinping rules by dictatorial decree.

I don’t harbor ill-will towards the Chinese people (why would I?) nor even towards the CCP (I’m not a capitalist crusader, and it’s none of my business if Chinese are fine with one-party rule). I don’t care much for Xi, though. He’s the type of person whose pretensions to historical prominence tend to get the world in trouble.

It’s not a coincidence that the US-China bilateral’s more fraught now than it’s ever been. God knows I’d like to blame Donald Trump, but honestly, it’s just as much Xi’s fault, if not more.

And so it brings me a little guilty pleasure to note that Chinese equities are back to underperforming after posting their first annual gain since 2021 last year. Recall that 2024’s 15% advance for the mainland benchmark was engineered, which is to say a false optic created by stimulus hype in and around Golden Week.

As the simple figure shows, local shares went nowhere fast once the hot money started to hit the exits, and now, after a halting start to the new year, the CSI 300’s more than 10% off its October peak.

There are several of ways you might go about addressing that if you’re China. You could, for example, provide some specifics for the demand-side stimulus you’ve spent the last four months talking up. In the same vein, you could convey a Mario Draghi-style “whatever it takes” message vis-à-vis the ailing property market.

You might also consider ending the state crackdown on various manifestations of what Xi calls “hedonism and extravagance.” For many younger Chinese, that effort’s tantamount to criminalizing fun, which is to say it’s a real f–king bummer, if readers will forgive the abrasive language. (Imagine a pig farmer capping your salary, canceling your year-end bonus and forbidding you from posting pictures of your car on social media.)

The Party has another idea, though. Rather than address the fundamental problems from the bottom-up, they’ll just “solve” the issue from the top-down by — drumroll — demanding that mutual funds and insurers buy more local stocks.

On Thursday, at a press conference, Wu Qing — a.k.a., “The Butcher” — instructed mutual funds to increase their allocation to A-shares by “at least” 10% annually until 2028, and said insurers have to plow at least 30% of their policy premiums into stocks starting… well, now. The guidance came alongside a raft of measures aimed at stabilizing the market, including an announcement that pensions will invest more in local shares.

Xi put Wu in charge of the CSRC a year ago with a mandate to, among other things, curtail activity deemed injurious to markets. Wu earned his ferocious nickname while presiding over a crackdown that shuttered 31 securities firms for various sorts of illegality. At the time, I wrote that, “China needs structural reform, not more arm-twisting. Installing an uncompromising enforcer at the top of the CSRC [won’t] be enough to halt the rout in Chinese equities.” I was right. Although Chinese shares did post a gain in 2024, it had nothing to do with Wu.

Shortly after Wu was appointed, an article published in Shanghai Securities News suggested that eventually, the Party would fall back on coercion to prop up stocks. Wu, the February 2024 report said, would monitor the “holding behavior” of large shareholders for evidence of “illegal reductions,” and violators could be told to “repurchase shares.” Fast forward 11 months, and here we are: With Wu demanding large shareholders buy stocks. In addition, publicly-traded companies were “encouraged” to tap PBoC funding for buybacks.

I should quickly note that some of those funds and shareholders might well be fine with buying more equities. I’m not suggesting otherwise. All I’m saying is that these new mandates (“guidance,” as Beijing put it) don’t solve anything. You have to address the underlying problems. State-mandated stock-buying just validates criticism that top-down management by apparatchiks everywhere and always dead-ends in a Potemkin village.