China’s release of a long-awaited plan to overhaul the country’s bloated state-owned enterprises has proved another triumph for entrenched interests over the broader economy.
Reform of the SOEs, which control everything from telecoms to banking but produce returns far inferior to their private peers, is widely regarded as the key element of the broad economic reform plan released by top Communist party leaders at a plenary meeting in November 2013. The slowing economy makes it more vital still.
The nub, as ever, is that the status quo works for some: SOE management and their political patrons have grown rich over the past decade because of preferential access to loans from state banks and protection from competition.