They prefer individual businesses not to get to big, monopolistic or dominant across multiple sectors, as this would give the business undue influence over politics? And of course they're operating on the idea that the political sphere governs the market and not that the biggest businesses should be the most powerful lobbiests.
So this is an end to it because it effectively neuters the one super company by making it into several more easily regulated companies?
It is my understanding that China has a long history (hundreds of years at least) of the government keeping merchant power in check, lest it lead to unrest due high levels of inequality. This is why China didn’t see Capitalist primative accumulation in the early modern period.
China had a brief nearly capitalist period with the Song Dynasty, building on growth during the Tang Dynasty, but the Song royal line, an Achilles heel of any monarchic empire, started to break down in the early 13th century, which contributed to the Mongol conquest. The next three dynasties were highly corrupt: the Yuan was overtly colonial, treating natives as an underclass; the Ming got off to a strong start but by the mid-1400s were consumed by palace intrigue and repressed the study of algebra (which was available via Islamic Central Asia) due to xenophobia; the Qing were an ethnostate again with some early Han defectors classified as "honorary Manchu", which may have inspired the "honorary Marleyan" motif in Attack on Titan.
> this would give the business undue influence over politics?
It's about power. From the article:
> Communist authorities dislike the idea of anything, let alone a large private business, outshining the party. And the country’s leaders bristled at the high profile of Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, an icon of Chinese enterprise who every now and again dared question their decisions.
