Recent political developments suggest that Chinese President Xi Jinping's preferred policies are underperforming, and that Xi is wielding anti-corruption investigations and curbing information flows to manage this challenging environment -- a strategy that risks increasing policy uncertainty and creating an even more opaque operating environment for businesses in China. On June 7, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (China's anti-corruption watchdog and President Xi Jinping's primary tool for purging political rivals) published an article in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee's official newspaper, The People's Daily, pledging to strictly enforce discipline in the Party. The article also promised to ''resolutely prevent the wrong expectation of changing our direction'' (i.e. on policy), as well as fight against ''political cliques'' and ''political conspiracies'' to ''eliminate political hazards that endanger the party's unity.'' Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported on June 7 that the 20th Politburo (Beijing's top decision-making body) had failed to publish a...
