Let’s share: cars, flats, power tools. Companies from eBay to Uber to Airbnb have discovered that tens of millions of people around the world are both eager to stop wasting underutilised assets – and willing to waste lots of time figuring out how to share them with strangers.

But surely this flavour-of-the-month business model has no hope of catching on in China? Didn’t Mao Zedong ruin the concept of the “sharing economy” forever? Any mainlander over the age of 25 has plenty of experience with sharing flats, cars and power tools: it used to be called communism.

And there is another hurdle too: the vast majority of Chinese are still savouring the joy of owning their very first car or flat. Why in heaven’s name would they want to share it with someone who might scratch, dent or burn it down, not to mention smoke in it, eat in it or conduct other, less mentionable activities inside?