The State Never Retreats: State Enterprises in the Chinese Economy, 1995-2018

Andrew Batson
China Research Director
Gavekal Dragonomics, Beijing, PRC

Even after forty years of market reforms, the question of what role the state and private sectors play in China's socialist market economy is still unsettled. Is the country experiencing a steady expansion of private businesses, or a new advance of state enterprises? In this talk, Andrew Batson will introduce new estimates of the economic size and structure of China's state-owned enterprise sector, which turn out to have been remarkably stable over the past quarter century. He will discuss what these research findings show about the nature of China's political system, how they affect our understanding of the history of China's reform era, and what they mean for the future trajectory of China's economy.

Andrew Batson is the director of China research for Gavekal Dragonomics, one of the world’s leading independent economic research firms. He has been working on China since 1998, and before joining Gavekal in 2011 was an award-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in Beijing and Hong Kong. In addition to managing Gavekal’s team of researchers in Beijing and writing regular commentary on the Chinese economy, he blogs at andrewbatson.com. His personal research interests center on China’s economic development, political economy and state-owned enterprises. Andrew was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has a B.A. in anthropology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.