"You may find China’s approach to its financial elite harsh. It is harsh, in some ways, especially if you’re used to the United States’ more hands-off approach. There have even been cases where Chinese bankers have been sentenced to death for things like bribery, which does cross a line into the draconian. But then again, most of the “ex-billionaires” who’ve fallen under Xi Jinping’s regulatory hammer are still around, and still extremely rich—just less so than before. And you have to ask yourself: which is worse, being too harsh on billionaires and their activities, or not harsh enough?

Consider a counterfactual: what if the U.S. government had done to Elon Musk what the Chinese government did to Jack Ma? Say, in 2022, when Musk’s plans to buy Twitter and remake it in his own image started to move forward? There was some discussion back then about American regulators suing to prevent the $44 billion sale, but nothing came of it. But suppose U.S. antitrust watchdogs had blocked the deal, and a little later, made it clear to Musk that there would be serious consequences if he kept meddling in American politics. Imagine someone had arrested him when he openly bribed Pennsylvanians with entry in a $1 million raffle in exchange for registering to vote in 2024, for instance—or when he did the same thing in a Wisconsin judicial race this year."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/china-knows-how-to-deal-with-its-billionaires

#China #Billionaires #USA #Musk