True story: Many weekends during my studies in Changzhou, China, my friends and I would go out to have a drink only to realize that our favorite bar was not open that night. In fact, all of the city’s clubs would be closed. The reason? Police had decided to crack down on these nightclubs. These would mostly be drug-related crackdowns, but other reasons such as prostitution would make the list. This seemed to happen in cycles. Once the crackdown happened, things would cool down and gradually build up again to reach a climax, in which another crackdown would happen.
Crackdowns are a well-known theme in the Chinese economy as well. Nowadays, any online search about the Chinese economy will show results that include the word “crackdown.” There is a pattern of

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