Until the financial crisis laid low the notion that markets were infallible, the assumption had always been that, as China grew richer, the state would wither. In part, the argument was circular. If China were to continue to prosper, the dead hand of government would have to be loosened in order to give private enterprise the space to create wealth. That glib logic has been jettisoned, at least temporarily. If even Washington has turned some of the captains of American industry into glorified civil servants, it should come as no surprise that Beijing, too, has become more statist.
在金融危機打倒了「市場無過」論之前，人們一直認爲，隨著中國變得更加富有，政府勢力將逐漸削弱。在某種程度上，這是一種循環論證。中國要想繼續繁榮，政府就必須鬆開管制之手，爲民營企業提供創造財富的空間。這套圓滑的邏輯已經不再受人追捧，至少暫時是這樣。如果連華盛頓都把美國產業的一些掌舵人變成了光榮的公務員，那麼北京方面加大對經濟的集中控制，應該也不足爲奇。