China Is Ready To Make Up Growth

Beijing is looking to resuscitate its technology sector growth in order to rescue its ailing economy. The years-long campaign to rein in China's internet platform companies is largely complete. Government would provide support to internet platform companies to play a larger role in jobs creation and global competition. Fan Yu says that policymakers are changing their approach regulating large tech firms such as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.

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China’s more than two-year clampdown on its sprawling technology sector may finally be ending. And global investors have raced to snap up shares so far this year. Beijing is looking to resuscitate its technology sector growth in order to rescue its ailing economy. The years-long campaign to rein in China’s internet platform companies is largely complete, Guo Shuqing, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) chief of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), has announced.

Guo further stated that ongoing supervision would be “normalized,” and Beijing would provide support to internet platform companies to “play a larger role in jobs creation and global competition.” Since Guo is also chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), these statements suggest that policymakers are changing their approach regulating large tech firms such as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.

Beijing initially took aim at these tech giants—some of the most valuable companies based in China—beginning in late 2020, warning that these firms held too much power and controlled too much information. The crackdown that ensued entangled firms such as Alibaba, Ant Group, as well as e-commerce operators, ride-hailing services, and food delivery companies. Ant Group’s IPO was halted, and Didi Global’s U.S.-traded shares were delisted. The tough stance policymakers took on the industry caused waves of stock market sell-offs of China tech stocks in the United States, Hong Kong, and China, with many firms seeing more than 50 percent of their values wiped out during the two-year long crackdown.