[lexap]

Ma makes a good point, but he's implicitly saying the China's authoritarian regime wouldn't have lost the money as "free" market actors did in the US.

Sure, fine, but most Chinese would trade that money for American political freedoms and economic opportunities in a heartbeat.

[SwellJoe]

I don't know if "free market actors" is exactly the right way to describe the two things he talks about. War is certainly not a function of the market, Wall Street is kind of a grey area that uses the language of free markets to describe something that is an odd state-empowered cartel. Clearly the bailout was not a "free market" event.

So...I don't think he is implicitly or explicitly saying anything about China's authoritarian regime. It wasn't free markets that lost the money he's speaking of. And, there wasn't a trade of that money for political freedoms and economic opportunities. The American people just got a bad deal out of their government and their financiers. They didn't buy freedom with that money, they just got fleeced.

[runholm]

He is not comparing China or any other specific country to the US. He is giving his views on where the US could have done better.

Yes, you should read this in the light of him being a successful Chinese businessman, but he is not saying that Chinese people live better than US people.