The entrepreneurial spirit of Ma Yijiayi, a 43-year-old businesswoman in China’s struggling construction sector, should have been celebrated by the government. Instead, she was arrested earlier this year by local police in the poorly developed mountainous province of Guizhou in southwestern China for trying to recoup unpaid fees from a city government. Her arrest sparked public outcry in China after it was reported by a state-run newspaper.
According to reports verified by the Wall Street Journal, the district government owed Ma RMB220 million (approximately $31 million) in unpaid fees for…
