About 10 years ago, I would given some credence to such articles with simplistic solutions (privatize and fire workers) to complex problems. Now I recognize it as a potentially slanted article.

In particular foreign private oil companies have a long history of not paying adequate royalties to the countries they operate in (which is the reason they get nationalized after popular revolts). Even the US govt sued Exxon in Alabama for systematically underpaying royalties (they lost, but whatever).

I remember a memorable article circa 2002 which said China was on the brink of collapse due to bad loans held by it's state owned banks (yeah, right). Another one chided China for not given a majority of board seats in partially-privatized banks to foreign investors with small shareholdings.