[Perspective] The fall of Ren Zeping from ‘economist’ to ‘influencer’

Ren Zeping, a Chinese “celebrity economist” known for his provocative remarks, has run into trouble again.

Last Saturday (24 October), internet users discovered that Ren’s WeChat public account, “Zeping Macro”, had been barred from accepting new followers, with its page indicating that it had breached the rules. Media outlets subsequently noticed that platforms including Weibo, Toutiao and Douyin had successively withdrawn his “economist” label. His following remains substantial, but without the “economist” title, all that remains is “influencer”.

Ren, 47, has never struggled to make headlines. Once a scholar within the state establishment, he resigned from the Development Research Centre of China’s State Council in 2014 to join the securities industry, working at firms including Guotai Junan and Founder Securities. Unlike many brokerage analysts, he was particularly adept at stirring investor emotions, producing attention-grabbing commentary such as “5,000 points is no dream”. His potential as an influencer was evident early on.

The best-known chapter of Ren’s career was his stint as an adviser to Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin at the height of the property giant’s success. In 2017, Ren joined Evergrande as chief economist and head of the Evergrande Research Institute. He was reportedly the “most expensive economist” Xu had recruited, earning 1.25 million yuan (S$240,000) a month, or 15 million yuan a year.

Although it lasted just over three years, his time as Xu’s adviser drew him into considerable controversy. Shortly after Ren left, China’s property market entered a downturn, Evergrande’s debt crisis erupted and Xu was jailed. Some economists accused Ren of using “hyped-up salesmanship” to indulge Xu’s ambitions and fuel Evergrande’s aggressive expansion. In his defence, Ren said Evergrande was already heavily indebted when he joined, and that his advice had gone unheeded. He said he had urged the company to reduce debt and opposed diversification, only to be criticised for “not thinking big enough”.

So what has happened to Ren this time? Some have speculated that the economist is once again being punished for something he said. After all, he is often unguarded in his remarks. Proposals such as lowering the legal age for marriage and “printing money to encourage births” have repeatedly stirred public controversy. Social media platforms have also muted his accounts more than once over online spats.

The day before “Zeping Macro” was barred from accepting new followers, Ren published an article titled “The Market Has Bottomed Out and a Rebound Is Under Way” (《市场见底，反弹行情展开》). The article remained accessible as of Tuesday (27 October) evening.

With China’s stock market experiencing sharp swings and pessimism widespread, Ren sought to bolster confidence in the article, predicting a market rebound and “a rally in selected sectors”. Such an upbeat message about the stock market was presumably not the main reason for the social media restriction.

Others have linked the move to a recent controversy involving investment losses. After leaving Evergrande, Ren turned to building his personal brand, launching paid financial information services, including VIP memberships. In July, a report circulated online that a member of the “Zeping Macro VIP group” had lost more than 10 million yuan after investing heavily in memory chip stocks, putting Ren at the centre of a public storm.

Ren later said his team had “never recommended stocks”, an account the member concerned corroborated. Nevertheless, given the influence that “celebrity economists” exert over investor expectations, the episode raised a question: Should they enjoy the reputational gains when their predictions prove correct without bearing the risks and responsibility when they are wrong?

The social media platforms’ actions against Ren’s accounts were not too surprising. Over the past few years, the Cyberspace Administration of China has repeatedly launched “Qinglang” campaigns and crackdowns to better monitor independent financial content creators.

These measures address erroneous or malicious interpretations of official policy, false information, unsubstantiated reports, sensationalism designed to attract traffic, and market disruptions. They are maintain control over the shaping of public opinion on financial matters and prevent misalignment with official positions.

Last month, several leading Chinese social media platforms also announced tighter oversight of financial content, targeting unqualified financial accounts, illegal stock recommendations and false market rumours. This has undoubtedly narrowed the grey areas in which “celebrity economists” such as Ren have operated.

For all the controversy surrounding him, Ren was once among the prominent voices calling for reform and a more market-oriented economy, and some of his views resonated widely in China. In the years around the outbreak of COVID-19, for example, anxiety about the state sector advancing at the expense of the private sector pervaded China’s markets. In early 2023, Ren and Sima Nan, a populist influencer who had relentlessly attacked Lenovo, engaged in a heated war of words on Weibo. Ren spoke up for private businesses at the time, and his call to rein in the “bad people” baying for the blood of certain private firms struck a chord with many. In recent years, however, he has cultivated an influencer persona, tied himself to the pursuit of online traffic and shifted his focus to market predictions.

The platforms’ erasure of Ren’s “economist” verification raises several questions. As social media become ever more pervasive, are there new ways of measuring economists’ influence? Does Ren’s rise to prominence in recent years suggest that debates about deeper issues — institutions, property rights and market mechanisms — are giving way to superficial verbal battles and emotion-driven allegiances better suited to social media?

At the same time, to what extent do official regulation and platform restrictions define the boundaries of public debate, or determine who can participate and which voices are more likely to be heard? Are voices that do not conform to mainstream thinking being marginalised in the process?

China has had no shortage of financial opinion leaders who have risen to online fame in recent years. Yet, in contrast to the rise of the “celebrity economist”, traditional market-oriented economists such as Zhang Weiying and Xu Xiaonian seem less visible in public debate than before. Some have been pushed into lowering their public profile; others have chosen to be silent. The shift from a contest of ideas to a competition for online traffic may already be an increasingly difficult trend to reverse in China’s public discourse.