Mark my word ; if China were to nationalize this, nationalize that, China will never be able to overtake the US. That is what the US hopes for ; China reverting back to Maoism.
It will be a great disincentive to the great industrialists/entrepreneurs of China to take their companies to greater heights if they know that once they grow their companies beyond a certain size, the government will seize them . Those who advocate for such measures are playing right into the hands of the Americans who indeed will be rubbing their hands with glee. Self goal !
China(PRC) is founded by Chairman Mao on the promise that the peasants, the masses, will have more egalitarian lives - the difference between the rich and the poor is minimum. (This is aside from the major nationalistic reason to kick out the foreign invaders and unite China). This was the selling point of the revolution. And he delivered it. The land owning and merchant class were abolished, people life expectancy increased almost twice, literacy increased and healthcare was even free and population increase significantly under Mao. He even made women equal to men by declaring they hold half of the sky (This is an understatement provided that women had a very low status for thousands of years in China prior to Mao era. Women were tradable just like cows or chickens and cannot hold education. If Chinese women were not liberated, it would be similar to India where cows are more valuable than women.) And when Mao died, he didnt have a bank account nor money that his surviving daughters had to live in common accommodation and state pension. That is why people loved and respected this guy because of his tremendous achievements despite his horrendous mistakes (Not even mentioning his military genius and literary achievements or the number of women he bedded - Mao is a warlord, a calligrapher and a poet just like Cao Cao 曹操 1800 years ago but Mao achieved a hundred times more than Cao Cao. Cao Cao failed to unify China in his lifetime.). Probably a persona like Mao may appear once in a thousand years. I am not a Mao fan, but it is really difficult to understate his achievements. This is off topic but relevant later on.
One of Mao's mistakes was to jump directly to communism as described by Karl Marx without going to the steps he theorized society has to undergo these stages of social and economic development to achieve communism. Mao was really a true believer of communism, but he dont know how to achieve it.
1.) feudalism
2.) capitalism---|
3.) socialism-----| China now is somewhere in these two stages
4.) communism
Because by default, the capitalists will always exploit the workers for maximum profit. Take for example Amazon.
Jeff Bezos is worth over $100B while many of Amazon workers have little rest, there were even rumors that people in amazon has to wear a diaper to minimize bathroom breaks. People worked just to get enough for food and basic necessities. And this is not only limited to amazon but in
all capitalist environments. Be it working in a convenience store, Walmart, factory or babershop. That is why we always complain the month last longer than the end our money. This is a classic Marx example where people are exploited to the maximum to make a tiny number of people ridiculously rich. Karl Marx was right from the beginning. Marx even theorized that because of this cutthroat competition and winner takes all nature of a capitalist system, industries will be left with very few gigantic monopolies. That is why we are seeing all of these
1.) google
2.) facebook
3.) in case for China in this post, there is Alipay and wechat Pay duopoly that controls so much of the digital payments system in China.
4.) etc
The Chinese leaders after Mao realized Mao's mistake. There is no shortcut to communism; one cannot achieve socialism without money; so instead they revived the merchant class but with a twist; private enterprises are back but all strategic industries are state owned. So that is why we have those gigantic Chinese state owned enterprises because it was consolidated and all small enterprises were let go. These strategic industries are the biggest money makers and it just make sense the money will go back to the state. Back in late 1970's there is no way for the authorities to know what future industries that might be dominated by private enterprises. So this is the historical background of those Chinese SOEs. They are needed to achieve socialism and to minimize the adverse impact of capitalism that will naturally come along with private enterprises. The widening gap between the rich and poor will continue down to our grandchildren's children unless the finite resources of earth will be socialized.
Case point. This is the money amount of mobile payments from 2013 to 2019 in China. If we sum that up that is 1,125T yuan (trillion yuan). The settlement fee for Alipay and wechat pay is around 0.6%. So in 6 years , these behemoths earned 6.75T - almost a USD 1T. How many countries can have this economic output in 6 years? Imagine if this trend to continue in the next 10, 30 or 50 years. It doesnt take a genius that this cannot be compounded indefinitely.
So it just make sense to nationalize these payment systems. These money are coming from the people. They just happen to be middle man. And just like all middle men, they suck blood and just like in the Confucian society they are the bottom of the society.
