Government intervention

Verbal sparring by Chinese internet opinion makers seem to suggest that the winds are blowing in favour of private firms at the moment. But will officials be able to walk the talk in their quest to use the private sector to drive China’s economic growth?

Regulators are ramping up efforts to cull poorly performing firms and those that violate the rules or break the law. A record number of companies got the boot from Chinese mainland stock exchanges last year, and that number could even double in 2023.

China research analyst Chen Long gives a positive assessment of China’s economic prospects in 2023, pointing out that the swift U-turn on Covid policies may wreak havoc in the short-term, but be the catalyst to drive economic growth in the Year of the Rabbit. Variables are looking favourable, with the consumer spending and housing sector showing potential, and government policies going in the right direction.

While some analysts have spoken of the “white paper protests” against Covid restrictions in China as a turning point in citizen movements aggregating change, Taiwanese academic Wen-Hsuan Tsai says that the CCP had made its own calculations regarding easing China's Covid policy. Moreover, with its high-tech methods of monitoring protesters, the events of last November were well within its sights to deal with.

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has given up controlling rights in the company he founded, Ant Group Co. All eyes are now on what lies ahead for Ant and Alibaba, which owns 33% of the company and was co-founded by Ma.

The latest announcement of China’s first population drop in six decades has gained much attention, with concerns over the long-term implications for the economy and the community. How will this affect China’s GDP and its aim to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy? Can China reverse the population trend?

Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan explains the delicate relationship between private enterprises and local governments, in which both depend on each other for mutual benefit. But once the tenuous relationship runs awry, there is little recourse to right the situation.

Taiwanese academic Ho Ming-sho asserts that Taiwan’s show of solidarity with protestors in China’s A4 revolution is better understood under the lens of the history of the island’s pursuit of its own identity. He explains why Taiwan’s civil-society actors chose to react to the protests on universal values, rather than national sentiment.

As the semiconductor industry is a highly complex and truly global ecosystem, academic James Pang assesses that the US’s increasingly restrictive policies to contain China’s semiconductor industry will affect those of other countries as well. Will the global semiconductor industry pivot from globalisation and cooperation to regionalisation and competition?