Attention Economy


Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Xi Reconsiders his 'Common Prosperity' Agenda

China Sets Aside Push to Spread Wealth in Pivotal Year for Xi
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/business/china-economy-covid.html
Xi Jinping’s rhetoric about redistributing wealth was aimed partly at drumming up public support. But it unnerved entrepreneurs and posed a drag on growth.
 
I noted the following back in Sept 2021:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/573971-chinas-future-hinges-on-xis-radical-economic-reforms/
“Chinese authorities are also aggressively (some say too aggressively) tackling the rise in income and wealth inequality. The controversial push to attain “common prosperity” has created considerable uncertainty among China’s entrepreneurial elites. Instead of relying purely on market forces to ensure redistribution or primarily on Western-style progressive taxation and redistribution models, Xi Jinping’s China is pushing for a third alternative. The “common prosperity” approach is more reliant on societal pressure backed up by a regulatory squeeze to force the highly successful and the wealthy to share their good fortunes with broader segments of the society. There is a real danger that authorities might overreach and curtail the innate entrepreneurial vigor of Chinese society and limit the country’s future growth prospects”.