That could be summed up as a campaign to tighten the party’s grip on a sector that accounts for the majority of China’s economic growth.
The authorities aren’t against private capital as long as it does what the party tells it to do and doesn’t become too profitable or powerful.
The crackdown on technology companies last year started after Alibaba’s Jack Ma made some public, hubristic and quite derisive, comments about China’s financial system, regulation and its state-owned and managed banks. He disappeared for quite a while, the planned $US37 billion ($51.8 billion) float of his Ant Group was aborted two days before its launch date and soon after the broader assault on big tech began.
Ever since, observers outside China (and one, suspects, plenty within) have been trying to understand what Xi Jinping’s motivations, future actions and endgame might be.
It is apparent that he is tightening the party’s grip on the economy…
