It’s starting to look like China regrets its private-enterprise crackdown (Huileng Tan, Dec 14, 2023, Business Insider)
A document released after the conference set the agenda for China’s economy — the second-largest economy in the world — for the next year. Strikingly, this year’s readout acknowledged that China needed to prioritize economic development.“Next year, we must persist in seeking progress while maintaining stability, promote stability through growth, and establish the new before breaking the old,” the meeting’s official readout said.
Rory Green, the chief China economist at GlobalData.TS Lombard, wrote in a note on Wednesday that the wording in this document suggested “hints of remorse at overzealous growth-negative policy implementation.”
“The emphasis on the economy was followed by ‘prioritizing development before addressing problems,’ alongside rhetoric that linked national security to maintaining a stable growth rate,” Green wrote. He added that this suggested official recognition of the difficulties facing the country.