In Xi’s China, the Business of Business Is State-Controlled

Holitech was enlisted in China’s nationwide mask production blitz. The company’s newly emboldened party committee led activities on party building and lessons on party history where employees experienced “a baptism of patriotic education.” In accordance with Mr. Xi’s plans to revitalize rural areas, Holitech, with the help of Fujian Electronics, invested over $1 billion in a new industrial park this summer.

When Mr. Wen officially stepped back from the company last year, he was replaced by Huang Aiwu, a member of Fujian Electronics’s party committee.

Holitech and Fujian Electronics did not respond to a request for comment.

In his prepared remarks on Sunday, Mr. Xi emphasized the importance of ensuring that “state-owned capital and enterprises get stronger, do better, and grow bigger.” He also declared — in standard Communist Party doublespeak — the importance of “high-level opening to the outside world.”

But for foreign firms, China’s preferences are now clear: in the scramble for access to the Chinese market, state-owned enterprises get priority.

In 2018, American Express received approval to become the first foreign credit card firm to operate a payments network in China as part of a joint venture with LianLian Digitech, a Chinese financial payments firm. The approval came six years after the W.T.O. ruled that Beijing supported an “illicit monopoly” for state-owned China Union Pay, which controlled more than 90 percent of China’s debit and credit card spending.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/business/china-xi-jinping-business-economy.html