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China Businesses

Chinese Billionaires Throw Weight Behind Private Sector Push (bloomberg.com) 31

Billionaire Tencent co-founder Pony Ma has penned a lengthy op-ed backing Chinese pledges to resuscitate the private sector, becoming the most prominent entrepreneur to endorse Beijing's promises to unshackle a giant swath of the economy. From a report: China's third-wealthiest person echoed many of the sentiments in an official policy document published Wednesday that called for the revival of private businesses, at a time the world's No. 2 economy is struggling to gain momentum. He was joined by Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun, the smartphone mogul turned EV entrepreneur, who in a separate editorial likened the policies to a manifesto for quality growth and innovation.

Ma, who rarely voices his opinions but has publicly supported important policies in the past, penned an article for state-owned CCTV in which he called private enterprise pivotal to the nation, and explicitly referenced Chinese President Xi Jinping's previous proclamations on the matter. He talked about the advent of AI and how the country needed to embrace next-generation technology. Ma's comments are notable given Tencent was among the corporations targeted by a sweeping crackdown on the private sector that began in 2020 with the scrapping of Ant Group's IPO. "We must once again embrace the opportunities presented by the coming industrial revolution," Ma wrote in his op-ed carried on CCTV's website. Using the policies as a guide, "we will look ahead with confidence and redouble our efforts."

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Chinese Billionaires Throw Weight Behind Private Sector Push

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  • April Fools came pretty late this year.

    Under Winnie the Pooh's guvmint, there can be not private sector, only private people running government businesses.

    • Huh? That sounds like the US.
      • Huh? That sounds like the US.

        Keep telling yourself that, citizen Wang.

        • Don't have too. I just can see the government bending itself over to please the giant corporation in this country.
          I never see them punished or reigned in and they seem to get anything they want assuming they paid enough.
          I mean they are treated as people now. Microsoft is going to be allowed to buy Activition. And they is just off the top of my head.

          We are not some shining beacon of freedom. The bulb is burnt out and the housing cracked. I am not going to delude myself that the current system is working
          • So keep sucking Musk's, Bezo's, Buffet's, and the rest of the CEOs dicks. I am sure they will pay you one day you cock sucker.

            Well that took a dark turn! 8^) But at least you showed everyone who you are.

            No need for malicious projection any more, honey. You can do what you like in your time off, we don't judge here.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's sad that people still believe this nonsense, despite it being easy to learn what China is actually like. Wikipedia has articles about it.

      China is a highly regulated capitalist economy. Much like the EU, companies are expected to behave in ways that don't harm citizens. Of course, the fundamental difference between China and the EU is that China is not a democracy.

      Much of China's massive economic growth is due to private enterprise. They seem to be incredibly good at getting things done quickly. For exa

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      April Fools came pretty late this year.

      Under Winnie the Pooh's guvmint, there can be not private sector, only private people running government businesses.

      Hence tomorrows headline is going to be: "Former Chinese Billionaires willingly relocate to re-education centre"

    • by jonadab ( 583620 )
      Well, Pony Ma is the same guy who is also sometimes known as Jack Ma, the same guy who spent a few months in the Ministry of Love a while back, after saying one thing too many about the CCP's business regulations (who had been, for political reasons, disallowing some of the business moves that he'd wanted to make for business reasons). When he resurfaced, he was, as you might expect, apologizing for disrupting China's social harmony, recanting his former position, and so on and so forth, all the usual thin
  • A billionaire wants the opportunity to suck more money out of the economy? If only he'd had the forethought to amass his fortune in the US only. Then he could rape and pillage to his heart's delight with nary a hand lifted against him!

  • Say this or else.

    • Sounds like a case of say this or else.

      Quite the opposite. They're both taking a terrible risk, daring to say such things out loud. Rich Chinese people have disappeared for months after saying things like that, and if they come back at all, they talk very very differently. Think 1984 differently.

  • Is China still called the People's Republic of China (PRC)?

    They should change their name. You can't have billionaire's and communism in the same country without looking like bullshit artists.

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      well, china is famously an experiment in "modulated capitalism" if you will, with pretty good results so far at last by a few metrics. the issue now is precisely how to adjust that modulation going forward, specially after a few bumps on the road. it's no wonder that the private sector welcomes a bit more of that long sought after leverage, particularly in the tech sector which is of critical strategic importance.

      billionaires will eat everybody else's lunch, that's just a fact of life in china like in any o

    • China put market reforms into place decades ago shortly after Mao died. They created several special economic zones which are more capitalist and market oriented. There are still a lot of rules concerning Chinese businesses, but they're not marching to the beat of some central planning committee's drum.

      Billionaires in communist/socialist countries is hardly surprising either. It's just that they're usually limited to prominent party members or their family. That's why the wealthiest person in Venezuela i
      • Trump didn't purge the opposition, but he sure purged the public service. William Barr and Christopher Kerr immediately come to mind. The process resulting in awful leaders was pretty similar.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        But this guy isn't a member of the CCP, and neither are other billionaires like Jack Ma. And China isn't communist or socialist, at least not in the sense that Europeans use it, and certainly not in the sense that Americans mean.

        China is its own thing. A capitalist economy, heavily regulated in some areas, and a very light touch in others. Trying to shoehorn it into Western ideology doesn't work.

    • You can't have billionaire's and communism in the same country without looking like bullshit artists.

      “ All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. ”
      -Animal Farm by George Orwell

  • Instead of Pony, what does Jack Ma think? Some time ago he was quite vocal, then suddenly silent.
    • by sfcat ( 872532 )
      He was abducted for several months sometime ago. He reappeared but hasn't said much of anything since. You could have found this out with a quick Google search.
  • Are we about to see one?

  • I suppose he had to back the government's plan or he might soon become China's least-wealthiest person.

  • China claims to be a communist country. Its only legal political party, and all of its officials, insist that China is a communist country.

    China cannot possibly BE a communist country in the post-Mao era, and this story makes the point very clearly. There is NO SUCH THING as a "private sector" within a communist system.

    In every way that matters, the ONLY system that lines-up with the characteristics of modern China is Mussolini-style (original flavor) fascism. Not cartoon fascism, but the actual thing which

  • It's funny, the first thing I thought was "Closed-circuit television (CCTV)" not "China Central Television."

All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins

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