THE STATE ADVANCES, THE PRIVATE SECTOR RETREATS

IN THE LATTER PART OF 2018, China’s State President and Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping 习近平 made a series of widely reported public statements about Party support for the private sector. He appeared on television in an interview alongside Politburo member, VicePremier Liu He 刘鹤 — a key architect of China’s current set of economic and financial policies — and convened what Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post described as an ‘unprecedented forum’ to hear the views of business representatives.1 The Party, Xi reassured his audience, placed equal importance on private enterprises and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).