Until the financial crisis laid low the notion that markets were infallible, the assumption had always been that, as China grew richer, the state would wither. In part, the argument was circular. If China were to continue to prosper, the dead hand of government would have to be loosened in order to give private enterprise the space to create wealth. That glib logic has been jettisoned, at least temporarily. If even Washington has turned some of the captains of American industry into glorified civil servants, it should come as no surprise that Beijing, too, has become more statist.

The most obvious example is China's monetary and fiscal stimulus. Beijing, like other governments, has massively cranked up spending, in its case announcing plans to funnel Rmb4,000bn, equivalent to 15 per cent of output, into infrastructure over two years. As well as the usual fare of roads and bridges, it is also trying to build up soft infrastructure, the social safety net economists say is necessary if people are to spend. After years of laying off tens of millions of state workers and dismantling the iron bowl of cradle-to-grave care, China is seeking to rebuild a mini-welfare state.

This state re-encroachment – entirely necessary given the collapse of external demand, in spite of signs of improvement in yesterday's trade figures – is more obvious still in the banking industry. State owned banks, which now have foreign shareholders, have suddenly decided that this is the time to lend. This year, they have seen fit to increase credit in local currency by more than 160 per cent. No one can possibly imagine this is the choice of free agents responding to market signals.

Much of the banks' money has been lent not to small private enterprises, but to big state conglomerates, many of which do not really need the cash. Some are putting loans straight back into the bank. Much is leaking out into real estate and equity investments, creating concerns about asset bubbles. If, as many suspect, the rash of lending eventually leads to a leap in non-performing loans, most banks probably expect the state to wipe the slate clean.

All of this is a logical and – so far, at least – successful response to last year's monumental external shock. After all, China is expected to grow by more than 8 per cent this year, not bad in a year when virtually all its rivals are shrinking. But in other ways, too, the hand of the state – not to mention its boot – is becoming more visible.

One is in the commodity markets. China has recently announced a rash of investments around the world designed to secure access to the hydrocarbons it needs to fuel its energy-thirsty growth. This week, it was learned, Beijing has offered the west African state of Guinea billions of dollars in infrastructure loans in return for rights to explore for offshore oil. CNOOC, one of China's big three energy groups, has made a pitch to prise Nigerian oil blocs away from western oil majors. That followed other loan-for-fuel deals with Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela and Angola.

In part, these investments are inevitable given China's huge foreign currency reserves and its unwillingness to pour billions more down the drain marked “US Treasuries”. But they also reflect a loss of confidence in spot markets, where China has traditionally been told it can most efficiently meet its energy needs.

State efforts to secure resources are not limited to oil and gas. An attempt by Chinalco, China's biggest aluminium producer, to invest $19.5bn in Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian miner, was similarly motivated. Not long after the deal collapsed, four executives from Rio Tinto – one involved in the fraught process of negotiating iron ore prices – were arrested, initially on charges tantamount to spying. Rightly or not, the impression given was that the Chinese state is ready to show its claws when its commercial interests are threatened.

A third area of what could be seen as creeping state resurgence came last month when the gloriously named State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (now say that again) backed legal efforts by Chinese companies to break loss-making derivatives contracts with foreign banks. The implicit warning from the state body was not so much that China's companies should refrain from casino capitalism as that foreign banks should not supply them the chips.

There is another way in which the financial crisis has exacerbated the trend known as guojinmintui, literally the state advances as the private sector retreats. State-led companies that have received massive stimulus-related loans now have the wherewithal to buy private enterprises, some of which are struggling in the downturn. In one example, a consortium led by state-owned China National Oils, Foodstuffs, and Cereals Group, the country's largest importer and exporter of food, grabbed 20 per cent of Mengniu Dairy, China's largest milk producer. That gave the state a majority share and, sure enough, a few months later, Mengniu's founder was replaced by a state-appointed executive. Some China-watchers were never really convinced the state was on the retreat. Few can doubt that, for now at least, it is advancing.