The point of the story is that Kelon would have been registered as a straightforward private business in any market economy. But China at that time did not have a legal framework to accommodate a private enterprise the size of Kelon and a firm operating in what was viewed then as a modern industry.27 Township and village governments assumed controls of these firms as a matter of political prerogative rather than on the basis of their share of capital contributions. The logic of township control had nothing to do with economics; it was deeply political.
