> Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday urged the Netherlands "to be impartial, respect market principles and the law, take practical actions to protect the common interests of both countries and their companies and maintain the stability of international supply chains".
This amuses me greatly. I had no idea China is explicitly pro-market capitalism.
This site is American and thus patriotism plays a heavy role in the bias of comments. Usually, China is by default viewed in a negative light.
It blinds people to the obvious fact that the US is heavily using anti free market tactics to end globalism while China is not acting as the aggressor here.
It has been ambiguously pro market, not explicitly. They still have lots of protections in their economy, it isn’t a place where pure capitalism and free trade are the dominant ideologies.
China has been pro-market since the 80s. But they don't view markets as fundamentally incompatible with socialism. Their approach is to utilize markets and to further open up, but to step in when the market fails. In other words: yes to markets, but use it as a tool and don't trust it blindly.
For example the recent real estate bubble pop was intentional. They've recognized for a decade that the real estate market is dysfunctional and that people shouldn't invest all their money into a rent-seeking unproductive dead-end. Instead, they want the market to redirect their money to advanced technology like advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI, etc. And that's happening now.
China was pro-market until Xi Jing Ping tightened control. The moment when everyone realized that things had changed was when Jack Ma's ant group was prevented from going IPO, and Jack disappeared shortly after for a long while. Now it's regressing quickly back into state controlled economy.
China is a more market orientated economy than most people would expect. There are large SOEs (state owned enterprises) sure but ultimately the whole point of "communism with Chinese characteristics" is to leverage market forces for efficiency where that makes sense.
China generally speaking is very free from a business/trade perspective, the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.
I would say the Chinese aspire to be more on the EU-esq end of the regulation spectrum than the US though. So over time they are trending towards more regulation even as they open up areas that were traditionally SOE only to private enterprise.
>the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.
Yes, those things are off limits. Now, how do you define what's finance or national security? Whatever they need to control (the US does this too).
All of these "China is a free market" comments are funny; their capital markets are closed, you can't freely move money in and out without government permission.
National security concerns includes semiconductors, so if the shoes were on the other foot, China wouldn’t act much differently in withholding machines.
Walk around any Chinese city and you’ll see hundreds of small businesses, as well as evidence of massive conglomerates.
That the state reserves the right to interfere as it sees fit doesn’t make it not capitalist. Unless the current chip war is evidence of America being not capitalist.
By this measure even North Korea may be considered capitalist as there are private (illegal, but often unenforced) businesses. The essence of capitalism is not existence of private enterprises, mafia(or an oligarchy) is a private enterprise. Capitalism requires the rule of law that enforces private ownership and laws people can count on to resolve commercial disputes.
This is what differentiates capitalism (US, Europe etc) from authoritarianism (China) or mafia run states(Russia).
esafak|2 years ago
corethree|2 years ago
It blinds people to the obvious fact that the US is heavily using anti free market tactics to end globalism while China is not acting as the aggressor here.
tom_boneahawk|2 years ago
seanmcdirmid|2 years ago
FooBarWidget|2 years ago
For example the recent real estate bubble pop was intentional. They've recognized for a decade that the real estate market is dysfunctional and that people shouldn't invest all their money into a rent-seeking unproductive dead-end. Instead, they want the market to redirect their money to advanced technology like advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI, etc. And that's happening now.
biotopia|2 years ago
jpgvm|2 years ago
China generally speaking is very free from a business/trade perspective, the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.
I would say the Chinese aspire to be more on the EU-esq end of the regulation spectrum than the US though. So over time they are trending towards more regulation even as they open up areas that were traditionally SOE only to private enterprise.
itsoktocry|2 years ago
Yes, those things are off limits. Now, how do you define what's finance or national security? Whatever they need to control (the US does this too).
All of these "China is a free market" comments are funny; their capital markets are closed, you can't freely move money in and out without government permission.
seanmcdirmid|2 years ago
adamsb6|2 years ago
That the state reserves the right to interfere as it sees fit doesn’t make it not capitalist. Unless the current chip war is evidence of America being not capitalist.
Roark66|2 years ago
This is what differentiates capitalism (US, Europe etc) from authoritarianism (China) or mafia run states(Russia).
supermatt|2 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy