Oversize #31: China’s tech crackdown needs to go beyond populism

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Editor's note: Deng Xiaoping, who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China in the 1980s after Mao Zedong's death, is often regarded as the architect of modern China. He is credited with ushering in the economic reforms that saw China’s communist system evolve into a market-oriented model, allowing private businesses to thrive alongside state-owned enterprises. That shift led to high economic growth and integrated the country with the global economy. But that’s changing under President Xi Jinping. Under Xi, the process of augmenting the role of state-owned enterprises while restricting private-owned enterprises, especially the technology giants, started a while ago but has come to the fore only in the last couple of months in what is seen as the “big tech crackdown”. The unprecedented offensive blindsided foreign investors and wiped out over a trillion dollars in wealth within weeks. According to The Wall Street Journal, four leading companies—Alibaba, Kuaishou Technology, Meituan and Tencent Holdings—lost about 20% of their market capitalization in July. The US Securities and Exchange Commission too froze all initial public offerings of Chinese companies to …