The economic fundamentals of Chinese communism’s successes and failures

The divergence between private and social valuation can lead to sub-optimal investment.

'Over the past hundred years, the [Communist Party of China] has united and led the Chinese people in writing the most magnificent chapter in the millennia-long history of the Chinese nation,' President Xi Jinping declared at the CPC’s centennial celebration, in a speech that emphasised the Party’s role in driving China’s success, including its economic rise. But the CPC’s economic record is actually mixed, and even those who recognise this often overlook that its successes and failures stem from the same economic fundamentals.