China’s trade war with the US and slumping growth at home is pushing Beijing to deepen its reliance on core state-owned institutions, even as liberals urge the continued opening of the economy and further market-friendly reforms.
Donald Trump’s trade battle against China, which has seen Washington impose tariffs on almost half of all US imports from the country, has sparked a renewed emphasis on self-reliance in food and technology that was a common theme during Mao Zedong’s era. That is “not a bad thing”, President Xi Jinping said last week during a tour of state farms in the northern province of Heilongjiang, which produce an outsized portion of China’s grain supply.
Mr Xi’s choice of venue was no accident. Along with the Liaoyang refining complex, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp that processes crude oil from Russia, the state farms represent the value of China’s state-owned enterprises: politically reliable institutions that promise security of supply, even if that comes at the cost of commercially competitive operations.