MAGA ECONOMICS DOESN'T WORK:

According to Bloomberg, private investment in China contracted this year - now comprising just 53% of overall fixed assets investment, down from a peak of 65% in May 2015. The NDRC said its aim is to maintain private investment at a "reasonable level."

It is the first time in decades - apart from 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic - that private investment has contracted in China.

 Meanwhile, the 31-point joint statement by the Communist Party and the government last week, may have included pledges to treat private companies the same as state-owned enterprises and to consult more with entrepreneurs on policy initiatives, but they were widely received with skepticism by entrepreneurs.

Writing in the New York Times, Li Yuan said, "After three years in which the government cracked down on private companies, stamped out innovation and exalted state-owned businesses, the document represents a near-concession by the Communist Party that its campaign failed spectacularly."

"The country's economic problems are rooted in politics," the columnist wrote. "Restoring confidence would require systemic changes that offer real protection of the entrepreneur class and private ownership. If the party adheres to the political agenda of the country's paramount leader, Xi Jinping, who has dismantled many of the policies that unleashed China's economy, its promises on paper will remain just words."

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