[FreeCodeFreak]

This can be very bad news even in the west, but in context of the Chinese totalitarian dictatorship (Btw. Also allied with Russia), this is just an expression of an authoritarian regime suppressing private freedom. It's nothing but another abuse to suppress their own society.

[bigbillheck]

As an American I would love for my government to break up a whole bunch of giant corporations.

[FreeCodeFreak]

In practice that would only weaken the US infrastructure. E.g. If companies like Apple and Microsoft were to be broken up, then that would actually severely confine technological innovation, and potentially place the US at a competitive disadvantage, and for what gain? More competition between smaller companies?

More competition is not necessarily a good thing. However, you can regulate said companies, and limit their abilities to exploit people. E.g. Place limits on product pricing so it does not get to expensive - very important for life saving medication.

You have to understand, there are some very motivated political ideologies that want us to believe that breaking up companies is going to protect consumers. It will not. And in fact, it can be quite devastating for technological innovation. So is regulation, but to an lesser extent, and I'd pick the lesser evil of the two any day.

In practice, by breaking up a company, you are basically stealing from shareholders, forcefully taking their property and selling it at a huge discount. The owners (shareholders) may end up owning shares of both halves of a company that is being split, but it will not be the same company, and the new companies ability to make money may have been destroyed or significantly harmed in the process. Then government has to pay some sort of compensating dividend, and I do not see that realistically happen, because it is impossible to accurately determine the damage caused by splitting a company.

In another ownership structure, companies could be broken up on paper, but still operated in a sort of partnership, hence the breaking up might not even make any sense in the first place.

[9999px]

It's just the result of a people-oriented state.

[FreeCodeFreak]

China is known for imprisoning their own people in camps and persecuting minorities, so no, they are not very "people-oriented" at all. It is, entirely, a different ideological system.

Perhaps you can compare it to a bee hive where the individual bee is more or less considered worthless on its own, but the entire hive, working together on a goal dictated by the top government is all that matters. Political opponents are suppressed, and threatening neighbors with wars is normal. E.g. China is practically in war with India at the border, and they are currently threatening Taiwan, all while being allied with Putin, a psychopathic mass murderer.