Trump's Nationalization by Twitter

Here's a question: When is a company considered privately owned? There’s ownership, and there’s control. If a company’s shareholders and executives don’t have control over the day-to-day operations of their organization -- if the government calls them up and tells them what to do -- is it really private?

Most big companies in China fall into this gray zone. Although the official state-owned enterprises have shrunk as a percentage of the economy, the government directly or indirectly owns controlling interests in most privately held businesses, and large minority stakes in the rest. This frees China’s various government officials from the day-to-day operation of the companies, but allows them to intervene on anything of political interest -- or to use the companies as fronts for corruption.