Xi Jinping, China’s leader since late 2012, has been reasserting the CCP’s control over the economy, weakening the hand of private businesspeople and tech entrepreneurs, whom he views as becoming too powerful and contributing to widening wealth inequality.

Roberts said Xi’s move risks “damaging China’s growth model for the last few decades.”

“His goal is to have an economy that still has a strong private sector but one that’s far more controlled,” he told DW. “I think that’s a bridge too far. He can’t have both of those things at the same time.”

(via Lucianne)

[You can’t have a market economy in a totalitarian system. What China has now is classic fascism, where signficant private capital is held only by those connected to the power structure, which then applies distortions to strip capital from all others. That has been true for a long while now, and it started before Xi. Xi just has made much more ruthless use of it. — Ed]