The Chinese Economy Demystified: The State Owned Enterprise (podcast, 38min)
The Chinese Economy Demystified: The State Owned Enterprise (podcast, 38min)
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China's economy is 40% state-owned – compare Lenin's NEP period, 70-77%
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Soviet state-owned enterprises were designed to make a thing (like the water service, like the post office). Chinese state-owned enterprises are different: they are profit-making players in the market.
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China has enterprises owned by local and provincial government – sometimes they compete with each other! So the state competes with itself on the market!
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They can sell 49% of their stock on the stock market, even to foreigners.
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The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) is an institution directly under the management of the State Council. It is an ad-hoc ministerial-level organization directly subordinated to the State Council – http://en.sasac.gov.cn/sasacaboutus.html – It's like the Chinese statist Berkshire Hathaway. In theory, it can control a company as much as a shareholder can.
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Li-Wen Lin & Curtis J Milhaupt write about Chinese corporate structure. They say when direct state industries (like post offices or Soviet bureaux) turned into profit-seeking state-owned things and essentially bought the party off, made it rich.