Tougher laws to control Chinese capitalism

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Tue Dec 28 01:21:54 PST 1999


Xinhua's announcement yesterday of new laws against leaking inside information about securities or futures is a significant step in regularising China's capital market.

Punishments may be as much as 10 years with fines of two to five time the amount of any profit from such activities (the latter seems low to me).

This suggests a qualitative step has been reached with requires tighter boundaries on the ownership of capital what is private to the owners and what is public to the market. Otherwise everything would be in total flux and the private ownership of the means of production could not operate. It illustrates the problems of corruption as the economy moves from a state regulated one to a private enterprise one, which nevertheless retains many of the old connections and networks of mutual favours.

However this step does not necessarily mean that China has relinquished control over the highest form of capital, finance capital which may still be under social control.

Chris Burford

London



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