China cracking down innovation

[paxmao]

Could this be dampening or even killing the expected growth of the Chinese economy? Are they, after all, still communist enough?

What many in the Western world often do not know is that there used to be many political currents in the Chinese Communist Party (10-20 years back). One of the stronger currents was the rather "economic liberal" one, as far as one can say that about communists. The current was instrumental in China adopting many elements of capitalism in the late 1990s, which contributed to this enormous prospering development of the Chinese economy. But, in recent years, and especially with the election of Xi Jinping, another current has taken power, namely the old communist one, to which Jinping also belongs. Therefore, he has also had himself appointed as chairman for life, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, and it can be seen that this current is taking back more and more elements of the capitalist elements adopted in the late 1990s. How far these will go is difficult to say, but one sees now clearly what was already years in planning.

Thank you, I can see that you at least can have a honest discussion about China´s governance. It is mostly the same in democratic countries in the sense that parties have groups inside that have quite different views, for example the Republican Party in US has the "Tea Party" and recently has become pretty much taken over by Trump´s MAGA.

You hit the point I am taking opinions on: Does this "old communist" school of thought understand that growth is much more difficult without personal initiatives? I get that they want to suppress any influence other than the party and its leader, but that is going to come at the cost of keep millions in poverty and preventing foreign investment at large.

That lack of growth may actually be de-stabilising force. People are happy abut cheering a party when there is prosperity, no so much when things start to crumble.

[1713915641]

1713915641

[1713915641]

1713915641

[1713915641]

1713915641

[inanilujimi]

China's economy will not shrink or even kill because china is one of the most developed countries in the world and they are far ahead in terms of economy. Despite political intervention the chinese people do not want political change it is not about military power it is about the economy according to the latest survey report of the international monetary fund china is now the number one country in the world in terms of economic power. As an economic superpower china's transition has caused a stir around the world today china is a model of prosperity and development for the backward countries.

If you only see from the outside it will look beautiful, but the fact is that the Chinese people are not as prosperous as many people say. even now many of them cannot survive in China and choose to seek work abroad.

[Ucy]

Are those three things you listed what the country is trying to do currently? What was the 'Baba owner warned about?
In regards to the third one, wonder what they mean by "public success"... Well, as long the success is not taken away from those who achieve it..

Donations should ofcourse be voluntary, or do you think there is an agenda behind the second? Maybe it has hidden terms?

[blckhawk]

That's because the political party in that country is so obsessed and controlling that anything that might remotely offend them, they immediately go berserk over those supposed offenders.

[oHnK]

I think the crackdown taken by the Chinese government with Alibaba is a form of the existence of a regulator on an object that should comply with policy but because it has become a very large multinational company and dominates the Chinese economy, it makes the owner a little arrogant.  Jack Ma's arrogance by offending financial regulators in China made the government even more annoyed.  Their particular case is in a communist country where they have to comply with all existing policies even if they are not in accordance with the company, this is the weakness of the communist socialist economic system.

[palle11]

That's because the political party in that country is so obsessed and controlling that anything that might remotely offend them, they immediately go berserk over those supposed offenders.

I think this is the problem with communism because it raises few individuals that will benefit from the political system and they grow by feeding fat from the system. But on another wing when the few individual try to go against or independent of the system, they get cracked down.

[maju69]

I think this will only have an impact on the economies that are connected to Ali Baba, including some countries with quite large connections and more significantly on foreign investors who have assets in them. But on the other hand, I think China is too excessive and always makes the large-income sector an easy target to improve the capitalist economy which has been its ambition so far.

[Fortify]

We have know that China has many times expressed and effectively carried out all shorts of moves against bitcoin, but recently they have made very serious moves that not only send a message for the future but also had very real implications for stock owners.

- Serious warnings to Ali Baba owner.
- A "voluntary" donation from Tencent to the "common good of Chinese people".
- A clear warning against any entrepreneur that has "too much public success".

Could this be dampening or even killing the expected growth of the Chinese economy? Are they, after all, still communist enough?

It looks like the Chinese leadership is getting scared. They want to reassert full control over people's lives before any potential negative economic future that is coming. Instead of accepting boom and bust, they cannot be seen to "lose face" by having a bad year, even though that is natural. We see they are also cracking down on celebrity culture of all kind and gaming is receiving a lot of attention too - all things that can create social connections which might go against the government. It actually shows how shallow and weak they are, but these sort of steps tend to backfire as we have seen incompetent officials trying to deny reality before.

[HaleyOccam]

I think the crackdown taken by the Chinese government with Alibaba is a form of the existence of a regulator on an object that should comply with policy but because it has become a very large multinational company and dominates the Chinese economy, it makes the owner a little arrogant.  Jack Ma's arrogance by offending financial regulators in China made the government even more annoyed.  Their particular case is in a communist country where they have to comply with all existing policies even if they are not in accordance with the company, this is the weakness of the communist socialist economic system.

In China, everything must comply with government laws and regulations. This is the basic principle. There is no right or wrong. If you are not a public figure, you are still very free to speak. Freedom does not mean spreading rumors.

[kryptqnick]

China is an authoritarian state, and as such it's focused on staying in control. For this purpose, any innovation is potentially negative because any change is a risk that their power and control will be undermined. It's also worth noting that when it comes to economic innovations, China has no incentive for it because it's already the world's second-largest economy, it already performed an economic miracle, and it's predicted to become world's #1 economy in 10 years. As for being communist, they're ideologically communist but economically rather capitalist.

[stompix]

Whether they will continue to love doing this cannot be predicted. Would another "Jack Ma" work his ass off to raise a corporation like Alibaba? This is basically forced philanthrophy. I don't think that money is what matters here.

Pick 10 random directors from multinational companies, one from each country and you will see they come up with a different picture of what personal success is. Do the same with 10 from the same country around the same age and again you will see something different.

Very important at this point is not to look at the picture from your own perspective, for a European or American this might be hard to understand but at the same time is ignoring history, all major developments until the middle of the industrial revolution were done with people getting paid a fixed amount for their work, the whole Age of Discovery was sponsored by rich houses and merchants without the actual leader of the expeditions receiving anything else from the enterprises that were built on their discoveries, same for the all the Renaissance.
Would this move prevent the creation of another giant company? Maybe! Will it prevent poor people to try and succeed in life and at least reach the middle to high-income class, absolutely not!

The West has had this argument with the negative feelings about corporations that become "too big to fail" and are regularly bailed out.

This is going to be an endless dilemma for every government.
Large corporations are efficient, you can't compare the results of a billion factory with the results of a garage shop, so at one point the population gets cheaper products for a period, increasing the purchasing power but at the same time when things go bad a lot of those savings are used to save the company itself.  Tricky and as I said neverending story.

We see they are also cracking down on celebrity culture of all kind and gaming is receiving a lot of attention too - all things that can create social connections which might go against the government. It actually shows how shallow and weak they are, but these sort of steps tend to backfire as we have seen incompetent officials trying to deny reality before.

I think you're overestimating the desire for more freedom when it comes to personal actions with the desire to overthrow a government.
Anyone who believes in a few restrictions on what you're allowed to wear and promote in tv shows or online and stricter social rules would lead to any sort of revolt is deeply mistaken. A lot of Chinese are calculated people probably more than us Europeans, they know a sudden change would prove devastating to the economy, and they will most likely choose to play one hour less of games rather than face the instant consequences of a regime change.

[tyz]

One can understand individual measures of the government. For example, to allow young people playing video games for only 3 hours a week. China has a massive problem with gaming addiction among young people. The same applies to the ban on particular private learning providers. Many parents can not offer their children to attend such expensive courses and therefore there is an imbalance in terms of educational opportunities. You can see in the US what happens if you do not stop such developments early.

Other measures, however, are complete nonsense and rather ideological.

[bittraffic]

They're not killing the economy, it's a matter of keeping this companies under their heels so their influence won't be a problem for the party, I guess you could say that what they're doing with this companies is a matter of politics rather than economics.

Not the first time they interfere companies that accumulates power. Chinese government will make sure the owner will not end up being powerful like Bezos that can lobby and sue the government using his wealth while not paying tax.

They believe its fair, I don't think these companies will ever have success too if it werent for their people. The culture play a role for giving back whats earned but the government will also make sure they are not going to kill the company.  The government will also make sure there will be no Union within these companies.

Alibaba is part of a big group of companies by Jack Ma. This is a very big company responsible for distributing lots of products world wide. So is the tech company Tencent

[Ausgewielt]

As far as I know they are a community which has good solidarity I think the government want the wealth spread more evenly among Chinese people although sometimes I think they do many excessive move. They control and push ( in positive way ) their citizens to run their business. But that moves make me confused, is the government afraid if there is someone that has very big power outside government institutions?. Well the government know the best about their country.

[TheGreatPython]

Pick 10 random directors from multinational companies, one from each country and you will see they come up with a different picture of what personal success is. Do the same with 10 from the same country around the same age and again you will see something different.

Very important at this point is not to look at the picture from your own perspective, for a European or American this might be hard to understand but at the same time is ignoring history, all major developments until the middle of the industrial revolution were done with people getting paid a fixed amount for their work, the whole Age of Discovery was sponsored by rich houses and merchants without the actual leader of the expeditions receiving anything else from the enterprises that were built on their discoveries, same for the all the Renaissance.
Would this move prevent the creation of another giant company? Maybe! Will it prevent poor people to try and succeed in life and at least reach the middle to high-income class, absolutely not!

It is not the point that big corporations should not exist, capitalism is a working product that we have which gives results. However the fact that some people (investors and owners) make trillions combined while people are poor, and that is the part we should be fixing. Nobody says that we should move to communism, communism is when the government owns things and that is not correct and that should never happen. What should happen is a regulated economy, why do we have zero kids working at age 12, working 12 hours a day in factories anymore? Because, workers took their rights and gave children their freedom.

If you asked a liberal, they would say that if a kid is poor, and their family is poor, then that kid start working early would be beneficial to him. Or why don't we work 10 hours a day for 7 days? Because workers took their rights. I just want the same thing, instead of apple making 10+ billion in profit, they should make 5 and rest should go to workers. Is that too much to ask?

[CaVO32]

As far as I know they are a community which has good solidarity I think the government want the wealth spread more evenly among Chinese people although sometimes I think they do many excessive move. They control and push ( in positive way ) their citizens to run their business. But that moves make me confused, is the government afraid if there is someone that has very big power outside government institutions?. Well the government know the best about their country.

It seems to me that they feel threaten if outside technology is starting to become popular among its citizens. They can't have the full control in case they will accept it. Just like facebook and other social media platforms, they are banned in China. But they have their own wechat. So they don't want outside tech to proliferate in their own country. They will create their own as much as possible, and I believe they can, with about 1.4B population, they can always create what they want and let its citizens use it.

[perfect999]

We have know that China has many times expressed and effectively carried out all shorts of moves against bitcoin, but recently they have made very serious moves that not only send a message for the future but also had very real implications for stock owners.

- Serious warnings to Ali Baba owner.
- A "voluntary" donation from Tencent to the "common good of Chinese people".
- A clear warning against any entrepreneur that has "too much public success".

Could this be dampening or even killing the expected growth of the Chinese economy? Are they, after all, still communist enough?

The Chinese system of government has always been the communist type for years. They set up a government that likes to control their people and then countries like this user not really giving 100% freedom to do however they like. Compare this to USA you’ll see that they see a lot of difference, it’s not like in the US where people are free to express themselves to the fullest and cell whatever they want to say.

Take for example the Alibaba owner that you have pointed out, you can read the story and everything that happened to him and how it all ended. So their government has been against cryptocurrency for a long time because it was giving their citizens that freedom which they did not like.

[maju69]

As far as I know they are a community which has good solidarity I think the government want the wealth spread more evenly among Chinese people although sometimes I think they do many excessive move. They control and push ( in positive way ) their citizens to run their business. But that moves make me confused, is the government afraid if there is someone that has very big power outside government institutions?. Well the government know the best about their country.

But in reality, an authoritarian government is only seen as a government that prohibits the freedom of each individual to stand on what he chooses. including the economy itself. China with a system that makes the interests of the state as its main strength needs to prioritize whatever the Chinese government wants to achieve and override the rights of the people who want to live in individual freedom. Even legitimate beliefs make them accept consequences that are unacceptable to all countries. We admit that China's economy is growing very fast, but covering up freedom is not a good policy. The more you press, the bigger the trigger.

[wxa7115]

As far as I know they are a community which has good solidarity I think the government want the wealth spread more evenly among Chinese people although sometimes I think they do many excessive move. They control and push ( in positive way ) their citizens to run their business. But that moves make me confused, is the government afraid if there is someone that has very big power outside government institutions?. Well the government know the best about their country.

But in reality, an authoritarian government is only seen as a government that prohibits the freedom of each individual to stand on what he chooses. including the economy itself. China with a system that makes the interests of the state as its main strength needs to prioritize whatever the Chinese government wants to achieve and override the rights of the people who want to live in individual freedom. Even legitimate beliefs make them accept consequences that are unacceptable to all countries. We admit that China's economy is growing very fast, but covering up freedom is not a good policy. The more you press, the bigger the trigger.

Sooner or later this is going to come back to bite them, that is just the way things are and I think the main reason why the growth of China will begin to slowdown are the horrible demographics caused by their one child policy.

The truth is that a government that tries to crush the liberties of their people will show signs of failure, China looks strong now but as innovation get punished then where are they going to get those technological advancements? After all even corporation spying has its limits and they cannot rely on just getting those advancements in that way as businesses will eventually find a way to protect their commercial secrets.

[Ozero]

This is nothing new. They have been cracking down on different forms of innovation for sometime now and I don't think this will change at any point in the future. Political power matters more than innovation in their country.

You forgot to mention the fact that they are trying to change the heavenly status of some celebrities too. These moves have both good and bad consequences.

They don't crack down on innovation per se, they're cracking on stuff that threatens their political party, if they were cracking down on innovations then we won't probably see a lot of mega cities in China being built. And they wouldn't have the Three Gorges Dam if they're cracking down on innovation, they crack down on those that criticize them, that's why some billionaires have to be careful with what they're saying because they risk being captured and secretly neutralized.

The Chinese government has always chosen its own individual path of economic development and it cannot be said that they did not succeed in this. As for the introduction of innovations, I believe that on the contrary, the Chinese government takes them quite seriously. This can even be shown in relation to blockchain technology. Evaluating its novelty and prospects, even the leadership of the Communist Party called on to more intensively introduce it into practice. So far, China is among the leading in terms of the number of patents granted for inventions using blockchain technology.
Decentralized cryptocurrency is simply not in the purview of the Chinese government. Moreover, they see it as a threat to their financial security.