In April 2023, police officers from a city in southern Guangdong Province traveled 600 miles north to Wuhan, detained 25 employees of a social media company and coerced its finance staff to transfer more than $41 million to accounts associated with the police.

2023年4月，广东省南部一个城市的警方北上900多公里来到武汉，拘留了一家社交媒体公司的25名员工，并胁迫其财务人员将3亿元人民币转入与警方关联的账户。

The police claimed that the company operated an online casino, illegal in China, that was used by Guangdong residents under the officers’ jurisdiction. The company denied the allegation.

该市警方称，这家公司经营在中国非法的线上赌场，用户包括其辖区的广东居民。该公司否认了这一指控。

“Is this law enforcement or outright robbery?!” the company, Changxiangban, said in a statement posted on its official WeChat social media account.

“顺德公安这到底是办案还是打劫？！”这家名为常相伴的公司在微信公众号上发布的声明里写道。

This past April, the company, which had 1,600 employees, said it was forced to shutter. The damage to its business had been too great.

今年4月，这家拥有1600名员工的公司宣布不得不停止运营。公司业务受到的损害实在太大了。

In the past few years, the Chinese police have been crossing provincial borders to raid companies and milk their books.

在过去几年中，中国警方一直在跨越省界，对企业进行突击搜查，榨取他们的资金。

In China’s official discourse, the practice has been categorized as “profit-driven law enforcement.” In Chinese news media and social media, it’s called “offshore fishing,” likening the police to fishermen who venture far out to sea for their catch.

在中国官方的话语中，这种做法被归类为“逐利性执法”。在中国的新闻媒体和社交媒体中，这种做法被称为“远洋捕捞”，将警察比作出海捕鱼的渔民。

Local governments across China face mounting debts, falling tax revenues and escalating pressure to explore new sources of income. To help fill the budget gaps opened by the country’s economic downturn, law enforcement agencies are preying on businesses outside their home regions over what are often made-up or exaggerated criminal charges.

中国各地的地方政府都面临着债务增加、税收减少以及拓新收入来源的压力。为了填补因经济衰退而出现的预算缺口，执法机构对本地区以外的企业进行打击，往往通过捏造或夸大的犯罪指控。

Business crackdowns are part of China’s political fabric. Winds shift and a chief executive is taken away, or sometimes entire sectors fall out of favor.

打击企业是中国政治结构的一部分。风向一变，某个首席执行官就会被带走，有时整个行业都会失去青睐。

The current money grabs are different. The practice has become so widespread that in the past few weeks the Politburo, the Chinese Communist Party’s principal decision-making committee, as well as the central government and the public security ministry that oversees the nation’s police force, has instructed officials at all levels to regulate business-related policing and stop profit-driven law enforcement.

如今的敛财行为有所不同。这种做法已经非常普遍，以至于在过去几周里，中国共产党的主要决策委员会——中央政治局，以及中央政府和负责监管全国警察部队的公安部，都指示各级官员规范与商业有关的警务工作，停止逐利性的执法。

上海的一个住宅开发项目。中国的房地产危机已令地方政府的收入大幅减少。

The money grabs are a sign of just how financially desperate local governments are. The country’s housing market has unraveled. Income from land sales, which used to make up about a third of local government revenue, fell by nearly one-third last year from the peak in 2021, according to the finance ministry.

这些敛财行为表明地方政府的财务状况已经到了濒临绝境的地步。中国的房地产市场已经崩塌。根据财政部的数据，过去占地方政府收入约三分之一的土地出让收入，去年比2021年的峰值下降了近三分之一。

As China’s housing problem grew into a crisis of confidence, businesses became reluctant to invest, and consumers are keeping their purses tight to their chests. The country’s tax revenues fell 5.3 percent in the first three quarters of this year. Many local governments are unable to pay interest on their debts, provide some public services or even pay their employees.

随着中国的住房问题逐渐演变成一场信心危机，企业不愿投资，消费者也捂紧了钱包。今年前三季度，中国的税收收入下降了5.3%。许多地方政府无力支付债务利息，无法提供一些公共服务，甚至无法支付员工工资。

Provinces are resorting to blunt power to squeeze businesses near and far. In the first three quarters, revenues from nontax-related income nationwide rose 13.5 percent. The increase worries economists, who fear it means that companies paid more administrative fines and back-tax fines than before.

各省都在使用强硬手段压榨远近企业。前三季度，全国非税收入增长了13.5%。这一增长令经济学家担忧，他们担心这意味着企业支付的行政罚款和补税罚款比以前更多了。

Extracting more money from businesses already wary of investing is, of course, probably not the best way to help the economy.

当然，从已经对投资持谨慎态度的企业那里榨取更多资金可能不是提振经济的最佳方式。

A liquor company reported in a June regulatory disclosure that it had recently paid $12 million in back taxes from 1994 to 2009. On the same day, a chemical engineering company in Zhejiang Province disclosed that a notice from the local authorities said it owed $69 million in back taxes from decades ago.

一家酒业公司在6月的监管披露中表示，该公司最近补缴了1994年至2009年的税款8500万元。同一天，浙江省一家化学工程公司披露，当地政府的一份通知称，该公司欠缴几十年前的税款近亿元。

The disclosures triggered so much concern that the central taxation administration felt compelled to say it was not organizing nationwide tax inspections or planning retrospective investigations going back 20 or 30 years.

这些披露引发了极大的关注，以至于国家税务局不得不表示，它没有组织全国性的税务检查，也没有计划对二三十年前进行追溯调查。

But many businesses said that was not true. A real estate developer told me that his company had been forced to pay hefty taxes tracing back two decades, and that the local government made sure nobody talked about it to the news media or on social media.

但许多企业表示，情况并非如此。一位房地产开发商告诉我，他的公司被迫缴纳了追溯到20年前的巨额税款，当地政府确保没有人对新闻媒体或在社交媒体上谈论此事。

“When the tiger is hungry,” the developer told me, “what do you think would happen to the lamb?”

“当老虎饿肚子的时候，”这名商人对我说 ，“你觉得羊会有什么下场？”

In an audio recording that was widely shared in August, an official in a local business administration bureau in Shandong Province threatened a company in neighboring Hebei Province with $3.5 million in fines, claiming the company was involved in pyramid sales.

在8月被广泛传播的一段录音中，山东省某地方市监局的一名官员威胁邻近的河北省的一家公司，称该公司参与了传销活动，将被处以超过2500万元的罚款。

It was “easy” to force a business to its knees, the official said in the recording. “I’m too good at it. Find a small issue, amplify it, and the business is done for,” he bragged. That official’s local government, in a statement on its official WeChat account, said it was investigating inappropriate speech by its staff.

这位官员在录音中说，迫使企业屈服“太简单了”。“抓住一点小问题，一放大这个企业就要完了，”他吹嘘道。该官员所在的地方政府在其官方微信账号上发表声明称，正在调查其工作人员的不当言论。

China’s business environment took a nosedive in 2018 when nationalist bloggers, scholars and officials urged the government to eliminate the private sector. They were following the lead of the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, who had made it clear that he wanted bigger and stronger state-owned companies.

2018年，当民族主义博主、学者和官员敦促政府消灭私营部门时，中国的商业环境急转直下。他们是在响应国家领导人习近平的指示，后者曾明确表示要做大做强国有企业。

中国义乌的一个市场，许多商户的银行账户被警察部门冻结。

Predatory actions against the private sector have intensified since the pandemic. Beijing cracked down on some of the most successful companies, wiped out whole industries and sentenced some of the country’s most respected entrepreneurs to lengthy jail time, taking over their companies.

自新冠疫情暴发以来，针对私营部门的掠夺性行动愈演愈烈。中国政府打击了一些最成功的公司，摧毁了整个行业，并判处一些最受尊敬的企业家长期监禁，接管了他们的公司。

After the central government went after the big shots, an entrepreneur who is in self-imposed exile in Japan told me, the local governments knew that the little guys were easy targets.

一位自我放逐到日本的企业家告诉我，中央政府对大企业家进行打击之后，地方政府就知道小人物是容易打击的目标。

Beijing has been making promises and gestures to try to boost business confidence. Mr. Xi said last year that private businesses and entrepreneurs were “our own people.” Last month, Beijing issued draft legislation on the promotion of the private sector. The proposal said it was aimed at ensuring fair market competition.

中国政府一直在做出承诺和姿态，试图提振企业信心。习近平去年表示民营企业和企业家是“自己人”。上个月，中国政府发布了促进私营部门发展的立法草案。该提案称，其目的是确保公平的市场竞争。

But none of the businesspeople I talked to believed it. To local governments, they said, private businesses are like delicious fatty pork dangling out in the open. Ultimately, the police heed the direction of their local governments.

但与我交谈过的企业界人士表示对此说法并不相信。他们说，对地方政府来说，私营企业就像挂在室外的美味肥猪肉。归根结底，警方听从的是地方政府的指示。

Since 2021, many police departments across China had frozen bank accounts of merchants operating in Yiwu, a city that was home to possibly the world’s largest wholesale market for small goods. It happened to so many merchants, who call themselves “frozen buddies,” that Yiwu had to set up an assistance center.

自2021年以来，中国各地的许多警察部门冻结了在义乌经营商户的银行账户，义乌拥有可能是世界上最大的小商品批发市场。很多自称“冻友”的商户都遇到了这种情况，以至于义乌不得不成立一个援助中心。

The police claimed to be cracking down on money laundering and scams. The merchants said they did not know that they sold things to people whose bank accounts were involved in potentially criminal activities. The police often froze all of a merchant’s accounts, paralyzing businesses.

警方声称相关行动打击的是洗钱和诈骗。商户们说，自己并不知道曾将货品销售给银行账户可能涉及犯罪活动的人。警方常常会将商户的所有账户进行冻结，导致生意全面瘫痪。

By the end of April 2023, the assistance center had registered more than 13,000 frozen bank accounts totaling $428 million. The Yiwu government, working with law enforcement departments nationwide, managed to unfreeze 92 percent of the money.

截至2023年4月底，援助中心共登记了13000多个被冻结的银行账户，涉及金额达31.4亿元人民币。义乌市政府与全国执法部门合作，成功解冻了92%的资金。

Freezing accounts became so prevalent that the central public security ministry issued a detailed notice in September with guidelines, according to a copy that I reviewed.

根据我查阅的一份副本，冻结账户的情况变得如此普遍，以至于中央公安部在9月份发布了一份详细的通知，并附有指导原则。

I asked lawyers and entrepreneurs how it was possible that Mr. Xi and the Communist Party could silence the free speech of 1.4 billion people and impose harsh “zero Covid” rules for a year, yet not be able to rein in the police and local officials doing huge damage to the economy.

我问律师和企业家，习近平和共产党怎么可能压制14亿人的言论自由，并在一年内实施严厉的新冠“清零”规定，却无法控制对经济造成巨大破坏的警察和地方官员。

“Because the rule of law is the fundamental means of control,” said Li Jinxing, a former lawyer who defended many businesses in similar cases. “Courts must be independent to exercise proper oversight. If the courts and the police are in cahoots, how can there be any control?”

“因为法治是实施控制的基本，”曾在类似案件中为许多企业进行过辩护的前律师李金星说，“法院必须独立，才能进行适当的监督。如果法院和警方沆瀣一气，何来控制？”

Besides, he continued, there are more than 2,000 counties in China, each with a police bureau. Why, he asked, would they listen to Xi Jinping? “Can Xi pay their salaries or feed them?”

此外，他继续说，中国有2000多个县，每个县都有一个公安局。他问道，他们为什么要听习近平的？“习近平能给他们发工资、养活他们吗？”