State-owned enterprises of China
A state-owned enterprise of the People's Republic of China (Chinese: 国有企业) is a legal entity that undertakes commercial activities on behalf of an owner government.[10] As Jin et al. wrote in 2022,[11] The overarching principle of SOE reform is to firmly implement the Party’s leadership and the modern enterprise system.[13]: 6 When China's SOEs were first created, they served as instruments for carrying out national goals and providing social stability via the iron rice bowl.[22] China's SOEs are at the forefront of global seaport construction, and most new ports built by them are part of the Belt and Road Initiative.[28] SOEs help stabilize public finance, including through allowing the government to use assets as collateral to issue debt or to sell shares to balance budgets.[29] According to academic Wendy Leutert, China's SOEs, "...contribute to central and local governments revenues through dividends and taxes, support urban employment, keep key input prices low, channel capital towards targeted industries and technologies, support sub-national redistribution to poorer interior and western provinces, and aid the state's response to natural disasters, financial crises and social instability.[31]: 6–7 Following the CCP victory in the Chinese Civil War, one of the party's early steps was to nationalize enterprises that the defeated Nationalists had controlled.[18]: 10 With the goal of boosting innovation and efficiency, more than half of China's largest SOEs had established technical development centers by 1993.[37] Other major policies that were part of the 1997 reforms included management and employee buyouts and the inclusion of foreign strategic partners.[46]: 80 The 2015 directive also increases the importance of party organizations within SOEs by requiring that the CCP committee secretary and the chair of the board must be the same person.[48][49][50] They are expected "to work together with grassroots organizations to collect intelligence and information, dissolve and/or eliminate security concerns at the budding stage," according to the People's Liberation Army Daily.