Yao’s article accused Wu Han, then a well-established historian and official, of taking the “capitalist stance”, paving the way for the downfall – and in the case of Wu, death – of numerous intellectuals in the Cultural Revolution.

After Li’s piece set off viral discussions, senior officials and state media acted quickly to restate their support for the private sector.

Yet it was the recent piece that pushed him to national prominence, causing a widespread mood of confusion among China’s intellectuals and business community bewildered by Beijing’s series of regulatory moves.

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Beijing’s series of regulatory moves on tech giants in the past year, either in the form of anti-monopoly probes or national security investigations, were also hailed by Li. Those moves have so far wiped out around US$1.5 trillion of value from Chinese tech stocks.

In Li’s combative commentary, he argued that the regulations and the push for “common prosperity” were aimed at restoring China’s masculinity and socialist nature, in the face of mounting pressure by the US.

He alleged that the tech giants had become “the opposite” of the people, and would be subjected to a round of “cleansing”. His piece was later carried by the websites of a wide range of state media, including People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece.

“The fact that it was carried by so many state media was truly extraordinary,” said Dali Yang, a political scientist with the University of Chicago. “His language seems to resonate with a lot of people, who think he might have gotten something … but of course the pushback comes.”

Resistance

A Beijing-based media source told the South China Morning Post earlier about verbal instructions from media regulators, that Li’s piece had had too negative an impact and should be toned down.

Within a week after Li’s article set off the public debate, more authentic sources from the state – including a front-page commentary by People’s Daily and remarks by Vice-Premier Liu He, a close aide of Xi – tried to strike a conciliatory tone by stating there had been no change of policy by Beijing on the private sector.

But except for an almost equally combative piece by Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times , which named and denounced Li’s piece, none of the other more official assurances mentioned Li by name.

Li’s article was left undeleted by internet regulators, and so were all the other reposts of his article by state-run news sites.

The order to repost Li’s article was likely to have come from a junior propaganda official who tried to make waves and please the leadership, said Deng Yuwen, a former editor of Study Times , a paper run by the party’s top academy.

“They might avoid the impression that the regulatory moves won’t continue,” he said. “So they have to leave the piece untouched while using additional messaging to set the boundary on the other side.”

Common prosperity

But the message on boosted regulation is not to be mistaken. Even a People’s Daily front-page commentary published in early September, which underlined Beijing’s support for the private sector, said in its headline that Beijing was firmly upholding both “regulation” and “development”.

The term, which placed “regulation” ahead of “development”, was a word-for-word repetition of the official statement from a meeting by the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, chaired by Xi on August 30.

During that meeting, officials led by Xi said the anti-monopoly regulations were meant to better guide the private sector under the party’s leadership. Xi added that those moves were part of China’s drive for common prosperity, a term that dates back to China’s egalitarian past under Mao.

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In the 1950s, Mao talked of achieving “common prosperity” in rural areas by collectivisation of farms. After his death, the term was used in the reform era by leaders like Deng Xiaoping as a long-term goal to justify tolerance of the private sector, or “letting some people get rich first”, under the Communist Party.

In June, Beijing announced that eastern Zhejiang province should serve as a “common prosperity pilot zone”. Two months later, top leaders laid down more guidelines for that goal, including “adjusting the income of high income groups”, with the goal of achieving an “olive shaped” income division in China – with both ends small and the middle big.

While senior officials have repeatedly denied “killing the rich to help the poor”, many remained concerned.

In late August, Liu Shangxi, president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Finance, warned of an overdramatic push for wealth redistribution.

“If we rely on heavy taxation to redistribute wealth, it could weaken growth,” he told Shanghai-based news outlet ThePaper.cn on August 30.

“[We] need to get rich first before implementing common prosperity, or there will be common poverty instead.”

The polarised messaging has underlined China’s policy inconsistency without proper checks and balances, according to Yang at the University of Chicago.

“Without those balances you might be able to mobilise the entire country, like in the case of controlling the pandemic,” he said. “But the entire country would feel like hanging on to a pendulum that only swings back when the side effects are obvious.”

“The Chinese leadership has been talking about inclusive growth for quite some time, so the talk of common prosperity is an extension of that,” he said. “The typical issue is just whether it is going to be equality of opportunity or equal quality of outcomes – similar to the debate the US is having.”

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Andrew Walder, a sociology professor with Stanford University in California, said the increase of state control would continue.

“What is different about the present day is that this is not the 1950s or 1960s and China is not heading towards a full-blown Soviet model,” said Walder, who has written multiple volumes on China’s Cultural Revolution.

“But this does seem to be a continuation of an existing trend of advancing and consolidating the state sector and state control after a long period of decline.”