What would it say about US innovation and President Joe Biden’s stewardship of the economy if America’s largest beer company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, had a bigger market capitalisation than Apple? Nothing good, probably, and indeed the very thought is a ridiculous one. Apple’s US$2.2 trillion (S$3.1 trillion) market cap is almost 28 times larger than AB InBev’s US$80 billion.

But that is exactly what happened recently in China, where Xi Jinping is about to embark on a third term as Communist Party leader, military commander-in-chief and state president. Late last month, China’s most famous liquor maker, Kweichow Moutai, overtook Tencent as the country’s most valuable company.