From Gary Lee
Great coverage Lawrence
Re your point on 'controlling internet giants in loaning': I think we should view it from China government's effort in eliminating all possible internal financial risks & pre-positioning for US launching some sort of financial war.
In the property sector there is now the 3 red lines that caused some of the biggest property companies such as Evergrande scrambling to raise capital, or a few years ago reigning in massive overseas acq uisitions via massive borrowing. All possible financial time bomb due to over-leverage......
*** My thoughts on controlling Internet giants in loaning are:
1. Few predicted that Alibaba, Tencent could dominate over 80% of daily transactions (payments).
2. The big data, artificial intelligence, on-line trading allowed these Internet Giants to claim (Jack Ma: No Business is too difficult.)
3. That statement implied a lot - in any planned or partially planned economy, the organization with money, technology and data could control the economy. These Internet Giants can potentially plan better than the Chinese Government.
4. When Governments (USA, European Union,Japan etc) print money, the ultimate risk control responsibility goes to the Government.
5. Governments can print money. They are the theoretical "sure-win business". They can give credit (or outright cash) to the poor to raise their income level via Alipay/DCEP type mechanisms.
6. Governments cannot innovate like the Internet Giants. They have to be conservative.
7. Chinese Government should take up a stake in the shares and voting rights of these Internet Giants. It should learn and control these Internet Giants when appropriate.
8. The Alibaba, Ant Group practices are NOT violating any Previous Laws. New laws may need to be set up to modify the "Rule of the Game". But talks like dismantling Ant Group, imprisoning Jack Ma are setbacks to Financial Innovation.
9. In any innovation, mistakes must be tolerated...
