The last time China got serious about reforming its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was nearly two decades ago when hundreds of firms were privatized or liquidated annually under the mantra of “grasp the large and release the small”. But with the turnover in leadership to Hu Jintao in 2003, Beijing became less willing to close poor performers and relied on the newly created State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to instil a stronger commercial orientation among those not let go. SASAC, however, only served to protect their existence through cross subsidization of loss markers by the more profitable firms, who benefited from their monopoly positions in key sectors. Under pressure, Beijing has now proposed a new strategy of mixed ownership to improve SOE performance, but this will not solve the problem.
中國上一次認真推行國企(SOE)改革是在近20年前，那時，在“抓大放小”的口號下，每年有數百家國企被私有化或清盤。但在2003年胡錦濤出任最高領導人之后，中國政府變得不太愿意讓國企“差生”倒閉，而是依賴新成立的國有資產監督管理委員會（SASAC，簡稱國資委），向那些未被放棄的國企注入更強的市場意識。然而，國資委只是起到了保護它們存在的作用——通過讓受益于關鍵行業壟斷地位、盈利能力較好的國企來補貼虧損國企。面對壓力，北京方面現在提出了一項通過混合所有制提升國企業績的新戰略，但這將無法解決問題。