askchapo

I believe that from a Marxist perspective, financialization occurs when profit increasingly comes from debt, speculation, and asset inflation rather than productive investment, when finance becomes an autonomous engine detached from labor and production. This is distinct from regulated credit or finance used to support consumption or development.

Under Jiang Zemin, China tolerated and indirectly facilitated partial financialization to accelerate growth: rapid credit expansion, real-estate speculation, and shadow banking all grew under relatively permissive oversight. Hu Jintao largely maintained this tolerance, intervening only when bubbles or systemic risks became acute, which allowed speculative behaviors and debt-driven accumulation to deepen.

Over the past decade under Xi, the Party has moved decisively to rein in these excesses. The deliberate deflation of the housing bubble, limits on speculative real-estate activity, tighter controls on shadow banking, and the restructuring of Ant Group all directly target finance functioning as an autonomous growth engine. At the same time, some financialization still exists as you correctly noted, regulated consumer credit and limited financial tools remain in place to support consumption and growth, however they are always subordinate to national goals derived from the masses through the modern imperfect practice of the mass line.

The material difference is clear. In contrast to Western economies, where financialization continues to expand through housing speculation, deregulation, and even the financialization of global events via platforms like Kalshi, China is actively reducing financialization wherever possible while maintaining highly regulated mechanisms to support development. Housing speculation and fintech excesses, for example, are now constrained rather than allowed to drive the economy. From my perspective this represents a net reduction in financialization: finance serves development, not domination, and remains subordinate to political authority, long-term planning, and the goals of socialist construction and it's area for growth and even existence is constantly being shrunk as it outlives its usefulness in different areas such as housing as noted.