China Crackdown Rocks Investors: ‘Everybody’s in the Crosshairs’

Beijing’s clampdown on the booming private education industry has shocked even some of the most seasoned China watchers, prompting a rethink of how far Xi Jinping’s Communist Party is willing to go as it tightens its grip on the world’s second-largest economy.

The crash in tutoring stocks that began on Friday spread this week across the tech sector and beyond, after authorities confirmed reports they would ban a swathe of the education industry from making profits. It’s the government’s most extreme step yet to rein in private businesses that regulators blame for exacerbating inequality, increasing financial risk and -- ...