![]() ![]() In 2000, officials in Guangxi's Beihai city let him get his hands on an unfinished property, thanks to a total lack of transparency around government property deals, and a 200,000 yuan kickback to a local official. Meng in his heyday was a smooth operator, cashing in on relationships cultivated with local officials in his main stamping ground in the southeastern region of Guangxi. "I figured that if I carried on much longer, I'd get dragged down with some official, because, as someone who gave bribes, I would be implicated." "And I found that the actual problem was with the system as a whole, which made people bad," he said. "When the pandemic hit, I started to reflect on things, and to watch what was happening," Meng Jun, who once headed up three companies turning out rubber goods in Guangxi, Chongqing and Beijing with a total turnover of 300 million yuan a year, told Radio Free Asia. Meng Jun, a former vegetable salesman-turned-flight charter agent-turned-rubber factory boss who now lives in Florida, was one of them. Meanwhile, three years of China’s zero-COVID policy sounded the death knell for many private companies, prompting an exodus of wealthy and middle-class Chinese who had previously benefited from the post-Mao economic boom. ![]() Xi's ideology sounded an ominous note for the private sector, as well as for private individual wealth and influence. ![]() As President Xi Jinping began a third term in office pledging "Chinese-style modernization" in October 2022, commentators expected him to steer China further in the direction of a state-dominated, planned economy. ![]()
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