How red is your capitalism?

“THERE ARE NO genuinely private companies in China,” declares a veteran adviser to multinational companies. In one sense he is right. The state and the party are omnipresent and their role is enshrined in the law. Moreover, as Kent Kedl of Control Risks, an investigative firm, explains, “you don’t become successful in China as a purely private entity, you need a powerful connection. But this can prove an asset or a liability.” Cronies of Bo Xilai, a once-powerful Communist Party boss who is now in jail, know this only too well.