Xi puts economy on war footing with Taiwan in mind

 

Xi puts economy on war footing with Taiwan in mind

 

Tencent, Alibaba and JD.com have formed separate strategic alliances with China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile, China's big three state-owned telecommunications companies.
 
  It looks straight out of Mao Zedong's playbook. In the 1950s, he spearheaded a movement in which the state took control of private companies. Mao's rationale was to create a self-reliant economy to prepare for a war with the U.S. or the Soviet Union.
 
Today, President Xi Jinping may have his own calculations for putting the economy on a war footing. As seen in the Ukraine war, controlling telecommunications infrastructure and social media are crucial elements of modern warfare.
 
If China expands public-private ventures in sectors that become more critical in wartime, it will be able to go on a war footing at a moment's notice. Does the leader have a Taiwan operation in mind?