What has given Son and the long-China camp pause is the reappearance of an ideological preference. They need time to confirm that the market remains the "decisive force." In the economic realm, nothing matters more than that.

The 160-year history demonstrates that the process of creating business value is inherently a process of creating institutional and conceptual value.

The ideas of free markets, clearly defined property rights, and limited government set off a wave of marketization across the world, China included, and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

In China today, the bustle in the streets and the gloom in the office towers can both be true at once.