Can China Lead?

2PARTY, INC.

The Rise and Limits of China’s Red Capitalism

Awkward marriages are normally fodder for gossip columnists and celebrity magazines. One union that receives insufficient coverage, however, is that between the Chinese Communist Party and private business. In recent decades, the CCP’s top leadership has admitted, at times through remarkable ideological twists, that private entrepreneurs and markets are critical to the country’s socialist development.

Today, China’s “red capitalists”—entrepreneurs with strong political connections—lead large private corporations and oversee state-owned conglomerates. They include the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of China’s ruling elite, and they are rich. At the same time, there has been a ...