As always, an article from this author that is well worth reading and, as is often the case, one that its thought-provoking.

Given that China is ostensibly still a "communist" nation, a dismissive attitude towards assets, i.e., property, is not surprising (and also explains the attitude regarding intellectual property). It is interesting, to me, that China is essentially practicing a normative form of MMT. As noted in the article it is using capital projects financed through the central authorities (government/bank) to generate jobs/income for 'the people', knowing that those authorities can 'never run out of money'. (In China, 'local' governments, which have done most of the borrowing, are best thought of as branches of the central government the way banks in the U.S. have branch offices, there to effect the policies of the central authorities with limited freedom of action.) In MMT taxes and the sales of 'debt' (freely created 'interest-bearing assets') are used to withdraw money from the economy.

The U.S., instead of focusing on 'jobs projects', uses the monetary system to ensure inflation in asset values for the benefit of the 'investor class'. In both nations the money the central government spends goes mostly to the coffers of large corporations (usually at grossly inflated prices for those goods and services).

Both nations are essentially facing the same question: can the internal logic of a sovereign currency borrowing from itself really be a machine for perpetual (long-run) growth?

I say the answer is 'No', but the problem is one economists (including proponents of MMT) have not grasped: taxes and sales of assets don't--can't--draw enough money out of the economy. So much money is accumulating in (certain sectors of) the economy that the economy as a whole has all but slipped the bounds of material reality. Large parts of the economies of both China and the U.S. exist in an economic "Wonderland" (thank you, C. S. Lewis) where economics as we know it has lost all its bearings, and the economy as a whole is becoming less and less manageable as a result. Also, that approach generates the panoply of environmental issues associated with seeking to maximize economic growth in order to maximize employment, total income, and the collection of taxes (at whatever rates exist).

A better approach is related in "Two Possibilities for MMT" (here in Medium but not behind the paywall). In it money would be created as needed to fund a minimum guaranteed income for individuals and to fund government--all without taxes or public debt in any form. There would be a mechanism other than taxes and sales of 'debt' to withdraw money from the economy. There would be no unemployment or poverty (for any adult citizen) at any level of total output.

The amount of money created would be huge but absolutely limited and the mechanism for withdrawing money from the economy would not affect the incomes of people or businesses. Unless any people were indifferent, all of the money collected would come from the profits of corporations (so after the regular remuneration of all employees--with no limits imposed on that, but sans bonuses of any kind).