BIG IDEA | ‘Each policy in isolation – whether its banning online tutoring or protecting data or enforcing anti-monopoly regulations or any other - has its rationale.’

‘So the problem is not necessarily the “why” of an individual policy but the way the policy is implemented and the relative lack of corrective mechanisms.’

‘Together though these actions reinforce each other, raising the fear that we're going to see sudden policy reversal in many, many sectors, and that too is not good for investment.’

Fund Manager: ‘I have questions regarding this one-child policy and the recent policy regulations against the after-school tutoring programs.’

• ‘Is it partially because the government really does think that most of the middle-income families spend way too much money on those after-school programs?’
• ‘Or is there something a little bit more political or kind of a power-related-driven reason to do so?’

‘Because if overall for a more mature or a more high-income country usually the birth rate goes down, then cracking down the after-school program seems like just an excuse.’

• ‘It's not really the reason why Chinese don’t want to have the second kid.’

Shang-Jin Wei: ‘A benign interpretation of this afterschool program policy is it's a coordination device.’

• ‘The programs are designed to help children to achieve higher scores on the next test - Whatever the test may be a test for elite middle schools, a test for colleges, and tests for various kinds of stuff.’
• ‘As long as there are a fixed number of children who can, say, go to the top universities, like Tsinghua, Beida, or Fudan, then having a bunch of children having higher test scores collectively really produces no social benefits.’
• ‘And those schools can be expensive for parents in monetary terms and also expensive in terms of the number of hours families have to spend on those.’
• ‘By not banning these online programs, the government is saving money for the parents, saving time the children can use the time to do other stuff.’

‘Without this government action, parents on their own would find it tough not to have their children participate.’

• ‘It’s very hard to unilaterally withdraw funds such a program - If you say, "My child should go to go out to play basketball, instead of following his or her classmates in those after school programs," you're going to doom your children to have lower test scores than his or her competitors.’
• ‘Parents don’t want their children to be disadvantaged by not enrolling in those programs.’

‘The problem is the way this and other policies are rolled out and implemented, especially the lack of feedback mechanisms to judge policy effects and make corrections.’

• ‘This, as we know, also damages investment sentiment.’

‘And this is not just a single policy but a part of broader policy actions.’

• ‘Each policy in isolation – whether its banning online tutoring or protecting data or enforcing anti-monopoly regulations or any other - has its rationale.’
• ‘So the problem is not necessarily the “why” of an individual policy but the way the policy is implemented and the relative lack of corrective mechanisms.’
• ‘Together though these actions reinforce each other, raising the fear that we're going to see sudden policy reversal in many, many sectors, and that too is not good for investment.'