ABSTRACT
Since Xi Jinping is in charge, relations between the state and China’s private sector have become increasingly strained. Although Xi and his government repeatedly promised to strengthen China’s private sector economy, most notably by liberalising access to market sectors so far dominated by state-owned enterprises, in fact, he has promoted a new brand of state capitalism that seems to increasingly bring the private sector under state control. At the same time, many private entrepreneurs have been targeted by Xi’s anti-corruption campaign while all of them have been forced to comply to party supremacy at all administrative levels more than ever. Steering the private sector by both economic and political means is an important feature of top-level design under Xi Jinping, pointing at the unabated importance of China’s private sector for the future of regime legitimacy. The chapter assesses the evolution of state–business relations under Xi Jinping and also touches upon the question of what kind of state capitalism is in the making in contemporary China.
