China

The rise and fall of China is best seen in economic terms. Throughout history China has been a poor country with GDP hanging around $2,000 per person but that all changed in 1980 when China opened up to free market capitalism. This was heralded in the West as the belief was that once people get economic freedom they will demand political freedom but that never happened. For 30 years China road the free market band wagon bringing GDP up to $18,000 and moving millions out of poverty. Then about ten years ago Xi Jinping took control and his communist ideology was so strong he started to nationalize private business and that has severely damaged the economy. He has so much power that with this recent party endorsement he will be a de facto dictator which means the process of nationalizing business will continue and the economy will continue to decline. Chinese tech companies are reeling from regulation. Nervous creditors are hoping for a bailout for China’s largest developer. Growing numbers of executives are going to jail. An entire industry is shutting down. For China’s leader, Xi Jinping, it’s all part of the plan. He is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs but he is so committed to communism he cannot see what he is doing. From 2019 to 2021, state-owned enterprises acquired more than 110 publicly traded Chinese companies, valued at more than $83 billion, according to PwC. Such acquisitions were rare before Mr. Xi took over in 2012; by then, state-owned enterprises' share of the economy had been declining