China Crackdown Is About Political Control

A man wearing a mask walks by the Shanghai Stock Exchange building at the Pudong financial district in Shanghai on Feb. 3, 2020. Aly Song/Reuters

Commentary

Despite high domestic economic growth and solid global recovery, the Chinese market is down on the year. At the writing of this article, the Shanghai CSI 300 index is down 5 percent versus the S&P 500’s +18 percent, and in the past five years, it has risen 51 percent, a decent but modest figure compared to the S&P 500’s +103 percent.