Administering Wealth: Chinese Thinking About Economics

One of the most problematic issues for any businessperson in China today is the relationship between the state and the economy. In the West we have become used to thinking of the economy as something that gets along best when left on its own. The interests of both consumers and businesses are best served when government gets out of the way, or at least manages with only a light regulatory hand. Government involvement in business is seen as state interference in the economy. With exceptions, such as Marxism, most Western views have been along these lines; and with the fall of the Soviet Union, we have by and large convinced ourselves that our way is the only right one. So, when in China we see massive state interference in business and economics at almost every level, we tend to assume that this is wrong. It is, the theorists tell us, a holdover from Chinese communism, and will disappear when that system disappears (if it does, which is also a moot point).