above The price of real
estate has become one of
the main concerns for
families in China. Prices
soar and people don’t have
access to homesDon’t say “communism” – say “socialism with
Chinese characteristics”. That’s the official euphemism
to describe China’s apparently contradictory social,
political, and economic system: a one-party state
with an all-powerful government which controls the
judiciary and the National Assembly, and a thriving
market economy where rapidly growing private and
foreign businesses have to bear off-limits sectors where
state-owned enterprises (SOE) benefit from monopoly
or oligopoly structures.
It’s also a country where all land belongs to the
state, and citizens pay for the right to use that land
for 70 years. But, rampant speculation is blowing theAn apparent contradiction, Chinese communism
has thrived as a market economy and situated
the most populous country in the world as a
rising superpower. But can it last?
property bubble bigger than ever seen before in China’s
real estate market. The cocktail is being shaken up:
Individualism and consumerism have given the boot
to old-fashioned fraternity and collectivism.
“Getting rich is glorious,” Deng Xiaoping said when
he decided to get rid of Mao’s most controversial and
extreme interpretation of communism, implemented
first with the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and
during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). By 1979,
an impoverished China opened its heavy doors to
the world.
But not fully. It needed capital and know-how and
foreign companies didn’t doubt that for a second: