Earlier this month, China’s economic tsar, Liu He, took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos like a salesman delivering a carefully practiced pitch. With thinning gray hair and reading glasses, the 71-year-old Harvard graduate methodically laid out for the audience how to better understand the Chinese economy.
“Entrepreneurship is a key factor for wealth creation of a society,” Liu said. “Therefore, entrepreneurs, both Chinese and foreign, will play an important role as the engine driving China’s historical pursuit of common prosperity. If wealth doesn’t grow, common prosperity will become a river without source or a tree without roots.”
Liu He at the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2023. Credit: WEF via Flickr
The message — that China is open for business — likely caused some head scratching in the Davos audience. As Xi Jinping’s right-hand-man on the economy, Liu himself oversaw the “tech crackdown” of the last three ye
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