[jpgvm]

China is a more market orientated economy than most people would expect. There are large SOEs (state owned enterprises) sure but ultimately the whole point of "communism with Chinese characteristics" is to leverage market forces for efficiency where that makes sense.

China generally speaking is very free from a business/trade perspective, the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.

I would say the Chinese aspire to be more on the EU-esq end of the regulation spectrum than the US though. So over time they are trending towards more regulation even as they open up areas that were traditionally SOE only to private enterprise.

[itsoktocry]

>the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.

Yes, those things are off limits. Now, how do you define what's finance or national security? Whatever they need to control (the US does this too).

All of these "China is a free market" comments are funny; their capital markets are closed, you can't freely move money in and out without government permission.

[pi-e-sigma]

So exactly the same as in the US? For instance the Russians got their assets frozen by a whim of the US government

[throwaway290]

> the Russians got their assets frozen by a whim of the US government

Who are "the Russians"? The party elites who invaded another country on a whim? Their relatives and cozy oligarch friends with yachts and London flats? The residents of Russia who pay taxes and finance the war?

As a Russian not in those categories I did and do business with US companies/freelancing platforms (except for a few specific ones like Github) and my meagre assets are OK. Even if I was back in Russia I would be able to get my funds out until I get suspended

[phatfish]

Humm, I wonder what happened in 2022 that might make other countries freeze Ruzzian assets?

[KptMarchewa]

Russians got their assets frozen because they are aggressive genocidal invaders.

[pi-e-sigma]

It doesn't matter if it was ethically justified or not. The fact remains that the assets were frozen by the US government which runs contrary to the notion that the US allows unrestricted capital movement. Today it's Russians' assets, yesterday it was Afghanistan's central bank's assets and tomorrow it can be any other country

[The_Colonel]

> tomorrow it can be any other country

US can even invade any other country tomorrow. There are risks everywhere, every country has to evaluate "Do I need to insure myself against US invasion / asset freeze in the next 5 years? How much will such insurance cost?". Unless you plan to invade your neighbor, the chances of such events are pretty low and the cost of insurance usually does not outweigh the benefits.

[KptMarchewa]

I assume you'd deliver fuel to the Japanese Empire until they directly attacked you. Or maybe even later, after all deals have to be kept right?

[sofixa]

> I assume you'd deliver fuel to the Japanese Empire until they directly attacked you

Japan attacked because they were running out of fuel and had to act quickly (either strike, or back down in China which they didn't want to). Without an embargo, they would have just continued their war in China.

[rightbyte]

You are mixing up the order of events here.

[pi-e-sigma]

I assume you would be fine with the US assets being frozen by the rest of the world for unprovoked aggression on Iraq?

[seanmcdirmid]

I think parent meant that China has explicit capital controls that you have to navigate to transfer money between countries. In the USA, this is just a wire and you don’t need a ton of documentation and approval to do it. The USA uses that ease of access as a carrot and a stick, the Chinese can’t use that as a carrot and a stick because they simply don’t have it.

[pi-e-sigma]

That is simply not true. The US has a complex capital controls laws in place, mostly disguised as anti-money laundering rules.

[seanmcdirmid]

Capital controls in the USA are reactionary, you are free to transfer money, you just have to ask forgiveness rather than permission if you do something bad. In the PRC, it is all about getting lots of permission to convert your life savings from RMB into USD because you are finally leaving china after 9 years of working there.

RMB is simply only limited convertible, it is not freely convertible like CHF, EUD, AUD, USD, JPY, etc...it isn't very useful for trade, and even the Chinese will convert to dollars and use the American financial system because the Chinese system is so limited.

[seanmcdirmid]

National security concerns includes semiconductors, so if the shoes were on the other foot, China wouldn’t act much differently in withholding machines.