chapotraphouse

One of the major disconnects between China’s financial class and the central govt right now is that the former got the message that the govt would protect them from the side effects of the controlled demolition of the real estate bubble through a surge of state financial support. They think that just because Xi wants to shift the financial system toward a more developed equities and bonds market to cover the finances of local governments that they would be the recipients of that restructuring and that measure for progress should be how quickly the govt directly pumps liquidity in their direction.

The chinese financial class thought that they could win the govt’s efforts to pivot the financial system because they believed the govt would have to bail them out with fresh credit injections while RE finance was dismantled. That the CPC was line brained enough that they wouldnt do anything too disruptive that would kill vibes for the stock market while also leavung them unprotected. And that fantasy being jilted is at the root of prevailing anger toward the govt. Every rich chinese's financial positions were built around real estate bets with those RE bets backing their equities portfolios, and since real estate based assets are getting repriced downward across the board in the correction they are becoming the main losers from multiple angles. They saw themselves as indispensable actors who the govt could not deny needing in this pivotal moment. What they forgot is the govt is engineering this transition for a future economy. And not for those who’ve already made enough money to gamble on stocks or speculate on real estate beyond owning the house they reside in. The hard reality for the financial class is the Chinese govt does not in fact consider incumbent financial actors as indispensable or in any way the focus group towards which future growth and prosperity will be directed towards. And since the whole restructuring has many years to go still they have to accept that this is the way things are gonna be from now on. Its maybe only just begining and they arent offered a "well just become somewhat less rich and restricted for only a couple of years and then things will again go your way and you will have new opportunities to do the same thing you were doing before in maybe a different way" deal.

Seeing the once "empty" slogan of "paying lip service to the ghost of socialism" - now being so materialy present that is held "responsible for China's malaise" is a remarkable change, isn't it?