China is cracking down on pessimistic financial blogs and social media accounts, as well as fraudulent ones; analysts worry independent voices will be silenced
Financial Times : Tweets: @chigrl , @depappas , @gordongchang , @carnage4life , @fritz844 , @sonaliranade , @campuscodi , and @gonglei89 See also Mediagazer Tweets: Tracy / @chigrl : Next level opaque data. This says to me Xi feels even more threatened politically than I thought> Financial blogger crackdown leaves China investors scrabbling for data Websites & social media accounts scrubbed making harder to assess state of economy https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/... Derek Pappas / @depappas : Evergrande meltdown next. Xi wants to hide the truth. Bankrupt suppliers and contractors are being sued. E commercial paper payments not redeemable. Payments made now with real property. Evergrande is not a butterfly flapping its wings, Evergrande is Godzilla. @alykhansatchu https://twitter.com/... Gordon G. Chang / @gordongchang : As time goes on, we know less and less about #China. Why would anyone invest in a country determined to become less transparent? https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Beginning to suspect there's a lot of systemic risk in Chinese big companies that's spooked the government into cracking down on so many industries and now anyone who blogs pessimistically about the economy or stock market. https://www.ft.com/... Fritz / @fritz844 : “The internet regulator is clamping down on market sceptics and those who voice pessimistic opinions about the Chinese economy... Which means basically disagreeing with Beijing's interpretation of the data” https://www.ft.com/... @sonaliranade : Life is getting tougher for independent voices ;-) https://twitter.com/... Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : It surprises me that “analysts” don't understand how communism and authoritarianism works https://twitter.com/... Lei Gong / @gonglei89 : It's not that Xi feels threatened. The government is going after interest groups they feel will exploit media to try to game the process of deploying new regulatory policies. This is not a new dynamic but a progression of one that's been building for 6-7 years now. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer