BEIJING — China's recent clampdowns on a range of
industries including tech firms and the education sector will not detract from
its goal of opening up the economy, state media said Wednesday, as
Beijing rushes to reassure rattled investors.
اضافة اعلان
Sweeping regulatory changes over the past months have
targeted everything from monopolistic behavior to data security, rattling share
prices and wiping billions off companies' valuations.
Authorities have ordered some of China's biggest tech firms
to stop "disorderly expansion", scuppered the bumper listing of
financial giant Ant group, and launched a series of antitrust and cybersecurity
probes.
A fresh push by President Xi Jinping targeting the country's
uber-rich and calling for "common prosperity" has added fire to
public debate, as have moves to tighten oversight of pop culture.
But a widely shared article by a well-known blogger calling
the clampdowns a "profound revolution" has prompted a scramble by
public figures and state media to counter growing fears that the changes amount
to a second Cultural Revolution.
"Opening to the outside world is China's basic national
policy, and this will not waver at any point," a front-page People's Daily
editorial proclaimed on Wednesday.
"Unswervingly, the principles and policies of
encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public sector of
the economy have not changed," the state outlet added.
The editorial on Wednesday added that the regulations are to
guide enterprises to obey the ruling party's leadership and serve the country's
broader interests of economic and social development.
Its timing also sends a message that authorities recognize
"the significance of the private economy and private tech companies, ...
and will continue to have their back", said Ether Yin, a partner at
consultancy Trivium China.
"The
crackdown is a correction of previous regulatory
lapse and (marks) the pains of growing up," he added.
And Feng Chucheng, at research firm Plenum, said: "I
think there is a lot of misunderstanding in terms of what Beijing really wants
to achieve with its latest regulatory actions."
On Wednesday, China's foreign ministry defended the
government's regulatory moves, saying they were aimed at promoting "the
fair, orderly, and sustainable growth and development of China's economy".
Observers believe Beijing is trying to ease the fears of
foreign investors.
Business groups have warned that China's business
environment had become more politicized last year.
"The Chinese Communist Party has some very ambitious
techno-nationalist goals that it has not yet reached," said Hinrich
Foundation research fellow Alex Capri.
"It still needs outside investors, it still needs
technology transfers," he said. "The end game is still going to be self-sufficiency,
... but they have to spin this very carefully."
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