Those who resist Xi’s reform push block China’s progress
BY FRANCESCO SISCI on AUGUST 25, 2015 in AT TOP WRITERS, CHINA
There are wide and far-reaching issues behind the fall of the stock exchange in recent weeks and the drop in business confidence in China.
Initially, SOEs and politicians took Xi Jinping’s reform drive lightly
Initially, SOEs and politicians took Xi Jinping’s reform drive lightly
A recent commentary in the People’s Daily hinted at this, underscoring that “the uncanny, complex, ferocious, and stubborn (ways) of the forces opposing the reforms possibly exceeded what people imagined.”
This recent process of reform so bitterly opposed was started because of an economic analysis. In a nutshell, President Xi Jinping and his people realized they had to put a stop to the action of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that were disrupting the economy and thus endangering the long-term well-being of the country.
The SOEs could marshal trillions of RMB to advance their own particular interests and hijack the policies and interests of the country by directly or indirectly influencing leaders and political decisions. They could do that for two reasons: They could dispose of the cash flow without any real checks from national and party institutions; and they had privileged access to finance, which they then could distribute at a premium to private companies that were and are the main force of development for China.
In other words, if one could restrain and slowly shrink the role of SOEs in the Chinese economy, the government could indirectly help private companies get easier access to cheaper money (with cheaper interest rates from banks), check the unfair competition of SOEs against private companies, and clean up the political atmosphere of the nation overall allowing politics to think more freely about its direction. Just for these reasons, SOEs and politicians linked to SOEs are bitterly opposed to these reforms, which would deprive them of power and enormous amounts of money.
Possibly at first, these SOEs and politicians underestimated the latitude and determination of Xi Jinping’s reforms. They possibly might have thought that his anti-corruption campaign was some kind of window dressing, and after a few months, things would go back to the old ways; or they thought the reforms would never end up touching the former top echelons of the party. However, Xi has proved he is genuine and wants to change the economy and the state of China. This is what he is doing now.
The problem is that after decades, SOEs and private enterprises often are an almost integrated body. SOEs and officials have groups of private entrepreneurs behind them, so when the anti-corruption campaign hits SOEs and officials, private entrepreneurs linked to them are also scared of being dragged into the crackdown. They are, therefore, growingly timid and scared of the economic climate in China: The old way of doing business is gone, and for them it is not clear what the new way is or should be.
Here the problem gets extremely complicated because officials, who were active in supporting business, expected to get money in return. Now without their old incentives, officials just drag their feet and are not interested. For this reason, Xi is pressing officials to become proactive again, arguing that during their tenure they have to show some economic results, otherwise they will be dismissed. There is, therefore, the fear of punishment that should force them to be pro-active. Nobody knows how and if this negative spur will work, and certainly this goes against the grain of the business culture that has grown very strong in the past 40 years or so.
The risk in all of this is that the economy will be dragged down. Perhaps to try to jump-start it and to try to get the best and healthiest SOEs on the side of the reforms, the government encouraged the growth of the stock exchange, which took place at the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, as we saw, the stock exchange in China was not cleaned up beforehand.
SOEs went back to their old practice of insider trading, and in addition an underground shadow banking system abused the new financial instrument of “margin calls” to artificially boost the market. When authorities started investigating shadow banks’ activities in the market at the beginning of the summer, investors fled, driving the whole index down.
The first crash of the stock exchange was perhaps also meant to scare Xi Jinping, hinting to him that if he did not stop his anti-corruption campaign, there were forces in China determined to create havoc. Xi was undeterred, and as a result, investors grew even more timid, and we are now at a crucial juncture in the process.
Certainly, economic growth in China is still strong enough to withstand any short-term turbulence in the stock market. Surely, the new weakening of the RMB will in time help the healthy growth of private entrepreneurs who make up about 80 percent of all Chine