The Big Take
Xi Jinping’s Capitalist Smackdown Sparks a $1 Trillion Reckoning
After 40 years of allowing the market to play an expanding role in driving prosperity, China’s leaders have remembered something important — they’re Communists.
Xi Jinping smiled and hinted at a policy bombshell that would soon roil stock markets from Shanghai to New York.
It was mid-June, and the most powerful Chinese Communist Party leader since Mao Zedong was holding court at an after-school club for elementary students in the remote city of Xining. Acknowledging the growing pressure on students and their parents to spend time and money on private tutoring, Xi promised to ease their burden.