Originally published December 2022.
Investors should be concerned about socio-political development in China as it has profound economic and geopolitical implications that will reverberate around the world. The acts of public defiance in China witnessed a couple of weeks ago might have caught many commentators and investors by surprise, but what is more flabbergasting to note was how these protests managed to take off and rapidly spread around the authoritarian state, where citizens have been kept under intense surveillance with restricted information flow underpinned by its Great Firewall. It is also interesting to note how effective and timely the state machine was to contain social instability. With the coincidental passing of former president Jiang Zemin (his death 30 years ago today was the spark for the Tiananmen Square protests), Beijing has every reason to calm public nerves quickly, stopping any events from fermenting further. Now, the situation looks broadly under control by the authorities.
