Couple of days ago, I went to a dinner party full of very prominent people. The CEO of an investment banking firm was hosting, and among the guests was a musician whose music has been played in every single major symphony hall around China, a stealth tycoon who made billions taking Chinese companies public, and a princess whose blood connection is totally communist royalty – I mean, if she were British, you would need to curtsey in front of her.

These kinds of small dinner parties are usually full of merry-making and gossip. There is always some sexual scandal to talk about. Take the tycoon at the table; he is the most illustrious bachelor of Beijing and has been the ruin of many a fashion editor here. Normally he would have some antic about how he narrowly escaped being tied down by an ex-girlfriend, or how he nearly double-booked himself in the same hotel room. But the night we had dinner, the tycoon was not a happy man.
“What the hell are they thinking about?” he demanded. The “they” he was talking about was the Industrial Commerce Alliance, kind of a national rotary club for private Chinese business owners – except in China, the rotary club is financed by the government. “They want me to register all my assets! I mean down to the last penny! That’s ridiculous! It is really going too far.”

The tycoon was talking about the ongoing anti-graft campaign by Xi Dada [Uncle Xi], the new Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. One of his measures is to request all government officials to register their assets. The tycoon is at the same time an official, albeit a lowly one; but such a title has helped him gain credibility with his local IPO clients.

When Dada first came to power, the tycoon was very happy. He boasted that they came from the same province and their fathers were mildly familiar with each other. He had found pictures of the two families together and had them re-scanned, enlarged and nailed to the wall for everyone to see. At a gathering of princelings, he shook Dada’s hand and introduced himself by whispering his childhood nickname. But Dada responded with a confounded look and a rather loud, “Who?”
We all laughed at the tycoon’s self-deprecating story. So he does not remember you, big deal, we comforted him. “Yeah, but I do care about this registration shit,” he said. “Quit,” I said. “Why do you need to be a little division chief?” The whole table laughed at me. “You see,” replied the tycoon, “this is what American education does to people, it dumbs you down. Actually, it makes you too dumb for China.”

“Wait. If I am dumb, explain to me why you need to be a division chief,” I asked. “If you don’t get it now, don’t bother. It’s too late anyway. The party is over,” he sighed. I vaguely understood what he was taking about: it has been a desperate year for luxury brands in China. The glory days are so over that brands are closing stores instead of opening them. Marketing budgets are being slashed a million different ways, and people are fleeing the industry for other growth opportunities.
“So, do you think the luxury market will bounce back?” I asked the tycoon. “No way. Haven’t you heard? This is the new normal. The days of tycoon spending are over,” he said. “But what about the new middle class – won’t they make up for the drop in sales?” I asked. “Hahaha!” laughed the tycoon. “You cannot do the math, can you? Someone like me can walk into a store and spend a couple of million yuan in one visit; how many middle class consumers will it take to make up that couple of million? And in what period of time?”

The musician also has his woes with Dada’s new regime: “They want to know why my wife has Hong Kong status,” he complained. “Isn’t Hong Kong part of China?” I asked. They said yes. “So why is it different if your wife is Hong Kong or Hunan?!” He replied, “You know what they said; you know what we mean. Fuck that.” Part of the anti-graft campaign is to weed out so-called “naked officials” in the system. Naked means their families have all emigrated abroad and taken up citizenship in a country where they are beyond the reach of Chinese authorities.

The musician has a government job as well. Lowly but powerful, he serves on several committees where he can make or break other musicians careers. “So resign.” I told him. “Why should I?” he retorted, “I spent my best years building this thing, now I resign?” The investment banker did not comment much, he simply said that he’s thinking of doing more writing than business, and maybe moving to Hong Kong because the air is cleaner. The princess smiled and giggled throughout this conversation, cleverly avoiding any comment. She just said she was enjoying her family life.