China’s top securities regulator has released new guidelines to strengthen regulation after the collapse of Chinese stock markets in the first two months of the year, wiping off billions of dollars as the economy teeters.
The draft guidelines will see the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) increase its oversight and supervision of listed companies, brokerages and public fund companies, and accelerate the building of “first-class” investment banks, the regulatory agency’s vice chairman Li Chao said in a press conference Friday in Beijing.
By raising the entry bar for public listings, Li said it will be improving the quality of the companies from the “source”.
“We will strictly prohibit companies from blindly listing to make money, overfinance, fabricate financial reports or report false or fudge information. Such behaviors will be seriously and legally dealt with,” he said.
According to Yan Bojin, head of the CSRC’s public offering supervision, the increased regulations were a response to the findings that listing candidates have unsound internal control mechanisms, irregular corporate governance, and financial fraud in some companies.
Similarly, supervision of gatekeeper responsibilities of intermediaries like the stock exchanges will be strengthened, as will regulation of securities firms and public funds, Yan added.
The stock market has been roiled by frequent turmoil in the past few years, weighed down by a real estate crisis characterized by defaults along with Beijing’s crackdown on sectors like technology and private tuition services. While it isn’t the economy, it is a barometer of investors’ expectations and confidence level of China’s prospects.
Between December and early February, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell nearly 11%. It only began to rebound, helped by Beijing’s recent measures to put a floor under share prices.
It did so by pushing state-owned funds to invest in stocks, curb short selling that bets on price declines, and cracked down on trades by quant funds, which use computer algorithms to catch investment opportunities.
Wu Qing, the newly appointed CSRC chairman also known as the “broker butcher,” has taken aim at quant funds that were blamed for worsening the slump in a stock market made up of mostly retail investors. The quant fund industry is estimated to have doubled in value in the past three years as punishing losses spread across the broader market.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
A bipartisan effort to effectively ban the social media network TikTok in the United States has taken a great leap forward. The House of Representatives voted 352–65 that the network’s parent company ByteDance must divest itself from Chinese ownership.
Lawmakers contend that “TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk because Beijing could use the app to gain access to Americans’ data or run a disinformation campaign” (New York Times, 3/13/24). While proponents of the legislation say this is only a restriction on Chinese government control, critics of the bill say this constitutes an effective ban.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate. That doesn’t make its passage in the House any less chilling, especially when President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law if it reaches his desk (Boston Herald, 3/13/24).
‘Profound implications’
Below the scary headline, Politico (3/11/24) acknowledges that “there have been no concrete examples publicly provided showing how TikTok poses a national security threat.”
I have written for almost four years (FAIR.org, 8/5/20, 5/25/23, 11/13/23) about how the US government campaign against TikTok has very little to do with user privacy, and everything to do with McCarthyism and neo–Cold War fervor. Before the vote, a US government report (Politico, 3/11/24) said that the “Chinese government is using TikTok to expand its global influence operations to promote pro-China narratives and undermine US democracy.”
Sounds scary, but fears about TikTok‘s user surveillance, or platforming pernicious content or disinformation, apply to all forms of social media—including US-based Twitter (now known as X) and Facebook, which let political misinformation flow about the US elections (Time, 3/23/21; New York Times, 1/25/24). And the Chinese government point of view flows freely on Twitter: Chinese state media outlets CGTN and Xinhua have respectively 12.9 and 11.9 million followers on the network owned by Elon Musk.
The Global Times (3/8/24), owned by China’s Communist Party, predictably called the legislation a “hysterical move” against Chinese companies. But the American Civil Liberties Union (3/5/24) was also alarmed:
The ACLU has repeatedly explained that banning TikTok would have profound implications for our constitutional right to free speech and free expression, because millions of Americans rely on the app every day for information, communication, advocacy and entertainment. And the courts have agreed. In November 2023, a federal district court in Montana ruled that the state’s attempted ban would violate Montanans’ free speech rights and blocked it from going into effect.
Bipartisan support
“There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a US company own something like this in China,” Seth Mnuchin told CNBC (3/14/24)—as though the Marxist-Leninist state should be the model for US media regulation.
We can’t write this off as MAGA extremist paranoia. In fact, 155 Democrats voted for the bill (AP, 3/13/24), joining 197 Republicans. Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres (Twitter, 3/12/24) said TikTok “poses significant threats to our national security,” and that the “entire intelligence community agrees.” While the bill may not pass the Senate, it does enjoy some bipartisan support in the upper house (NBC, 3/13/24).
Former President Donald Trump reversed course, and now opposes new restrictions on TikTok (Washington Post, 3/12/24), in part because of his hostility toward TikTok competitor Facebook, which would benefit from a TikTok ban. Trump might have been hyperbolic in calling Facebook “the enemy of the people,” but it is true that Facebook owner Meta is behind the political push against its competitor (Washington Post, 3/30/22).
Former Trump Treasury Secretary Seth Mnuchin is enthusiastic about the bill, however—because he hopes to be TikTok‘s new owner. “I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC’s Squawk Box (3/14/24). “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”
Mainstream conservative outlets like the Economist (3/12/24) and Wall Street Journal, at least, have united signed on to the crusade. The Journal editorial board (3/11/24) wrote:
Xi Jinping has eviscerated any distinction between the government and private companies. ByteDance employs hundreds of employees who previously worked at state-owned media outlets. A former head of engineering in ByteDance’s US offices has alleged that the Communist Party “had a special office or unit” in the company “sometimes referred to as the ‘Committee.’”
The Journal’s editors (3/14/24) followed up to celebrate the House bill’s passage. “Beijing treats TikTok algorithms as tantamount to a state secret,” it wrote. This is another way that TikTok resembles US-based social media platforms, of course—but for the Journal, it’s “another reason not to believe TikTok’s denials that its algorithms promote anti-American and politically divisive content.”
The Wall Street Journal (3/11/24) complains that on TikTok, “pro-Hamas videos trend more than pro-Israel ones”–which is also true of Facebook and Instagram (Washington Post, 11/13/23). (By “pro-Hamas,” of course, the Journal means pro-Palestinian.)
In other words, while the US government can’t legally block content it deems politically questionable on Facebook and Twitter, it can use TikTok’s foreign ownership as means to attack “anti-American” content. The paper ignored the issue of censorship and anti-Chinese fearmongering, and denounced “no” votes as either fringe Republicans swayed by Trump, or left-wingers whose political base is younger people who simply love fun apps.
The National Review‘s Jim Geraghty (3/3/23) earlier scoffed at Democratic lawmakers who continue to engage with TikTok:
Way to go, members of Congress. This thing is too dangerous to carry into the Pentagon, but you’re keeping it on your personal phone because you’re afraid you might miss the latest dance craze that’s going viral. And if the last three years of our lives have taught us anything, hasn’t it been that anything that comes to us from China and “goes viral” probably isn’t good for us?
Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, a major backer of the legislation, took to Fox News (3/12/24) to say that Chinese ownership of TikTok was a “cancer” that could be removed, that the problem wasn’t the app itself but “foreign adversary control.”
Vehicle for anti-Chinese fervor
It’s important to remember that people use TikTok to educate and organize, not just amuse—boosting efforts to unionize workers at Amazon and Starbucks, for example (Wired, 4/20/22).
This anger toward TikTok—which, just like other social media networks, is full of brain-numbing content, but has also been used as a platform for social and economic justice (NPR, 6/7/20; Wired, 4/20/22; TechCrunch, 7/19/23)—is not about TikTok, but is rather a vehicle for the anti-Chinese fervor that infects the US government.
Think, for example, how Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) embarrassed himself by repeatedly asking TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in a Senate hearing if he had ties to China’s Communist Party—despite repeated reminders that Chew is Singaporean, not Chinese (NBC, 2/1/24). Is Cotton ignorant enough to think Singapore is a part of China? Or was the lawmaker using his national platform to make race-based political insinuations, in hopes of bolstering the fear that Chinese government agents are simply everywhere (and all look alike)?
That fear is already potent enough to bring together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to line up against the First Amendment. are doing just that, using a social media app to ramp up a Cold War with China. The targeting TikTok is an attack on free speech and the free flow of information, as the ACLU has argued, but it’s also part of a drumbeat for a dangerous confrontation between nuclear powers.
In a rare bipartisan effort, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday requiring TikTok to be sold by its China-based owner, ByteDance, or face a ban throughout the United States. Backers claim the popular social media app could give the Chinese government access to U.S. residents’ personal data and potentially affect the 2024 elections. The fight over TikTok comes at a time of rising…
How delicious is political hypocrisy. Abundant and rich, it manifests in the corridors of power with regularity. Of late, there is much of it in the US Congress, evident over debates on whether the platform TikTok should be banned in the United States. Much of this seems based on an assumption that foreign companies are not entitled to hoover up, commodify and use the personal data of users, mocking, if not obliterating privacy altogether. US companies, however, are. While it is true that aspects of Silicon Valley have drawn the ire of those on The Hill in spouts of select rage, giants such as Meta and Google continue to use the business model of surveillance capitalism with reassurance and impunity.
In May 2023, the disparity of treatment between the companies was laid bare in a Congressional hearing that smacked the hands of Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pinchai with little result, while lacerating TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “Your platform should be banned,” blustered Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The ongoing concern, and one with some basis, is TikTok’s link with parent company ByteDance. Being based in China, the nexus with the authoritarian state that wields influence on its operations is a legitimate concern, given national security laws requiring the company to share data with officials. But the line of questioning proved obtuse and confused, revealing an obsession with themes resonant with McCarthyite hysteria. On several occasions, the word “communists” issued from the lips of the irate politicians, including regular references to the Chinese Community Party.
Alex Cranz, writing for The Verge, summarised the hectoring session well: “Between their obsession with communism, their often obnoxious and condescending tone, and the occasional assumption that Chew was Chinese, despite his repeated reminders that he is Singaporean, the hearing was a weird, brutal, xenophobic mess.”
TikTok, for its part, continues to tell regulators that it has taken adequate steps to wall off the data of its 150 million users in the US from ByteDance’s operations, expending US$1.5 billion in its efforts to do so. A January investigation by the Wall Street Journal, however, found that “managers sometimes instruct workers to share data with colleagues in other parts of the company and with ByteDance workers without going through official channels”. How shocking.
Cranz might have also mentioned something else: that the entire show was vaudevillian in its ignorance of US government practices that involved doing exactly what ByteDance and TikTok are accused of: demanding that companies share user data with officials. If he is to be forgotten for everything else, Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures on the National Security Agency’s collaboration with US telecom and internet companies on that point should be enshrined in posterity’s halls.
The PRISM program, as it was called, involved the participation of such Big Tech firms as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Apple in sharing the personal data of users with the NSA. Largely because of Snowden’s revelations, end-to-end encryption became both urgent and modish. “An enormous fraction of global internet traffic travelled electronically naked,” Snowden remarked in an interview with The Atlantic last year. “Now it is a rare sight.”
The US House of Representatives has now made good its threats against TikTok in passing a bill that paves the way for the possible imposition of a ban of the app. It gives ByteDance a six-month period of grace to sell its stake in the company, lest it face a nationwide block. Whether it passes the Senate is an open question, given opposition to it by certain Republicans, including presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Other politicians fear losing an invaluable bridge in communicating with youthful voters.
On March 13, however, the righteous were shining in confidence. The House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, claimed that the bill would lessen “the likelihood that TikTok user data is exploited and privacy undermined by a hostile foreign adversary” while Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher declared that the US could no longer “take the risk of having a dominant news platform in America controlled by a company that is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.” The subtext: best leave the despoiling and abuse to US companies.
The blotted copybooks of such giants as Meta and Google have tended to only feature in morally circumscribed ways, sparing the model of their business operations from severe scrutiny. On January 31, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave a farcical display of rant and displeasure over the issue of what it called “the Online Child Exploitation Crisis.” Pet terrors long nursed were on show: the mania about paedophiles using social media platforms to stalk their quarry; financial extortion of youth; sexploitation; drug dealing.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) made much of Zuckerberg on that occasion, but only as a prop to apologise to victims of Meta’s approach to child users. The Meta CEO has long known that such palliative displays only serve as false catharsis; the substance and rationale of how his company operations gather data never changes. And the show was also all the more sinister in providing a backdrop for Congressional paranoia, exemplified in such proposed measures as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has rightly called KOSA a censorship bill which smuggles in such concepts as “duty of care” as a pretext to monitor information and conduct on the Internet. The attack on TikTok is ostensibly similar in protecting users in the US from the prying eyes of Beijing’s officials while waving through the egregious assaults on privacy by the Silicon Valley behemoths. How wonderfully patriotic.
Second Thomas Shoal has emerged as a South China Sea flashpoint, as China smothers Philippine aspirations to protect its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This submerged reef 120 miles (194km) west of Palawan is where the Philippine Navy’s BRP Sierra Madre was grounded in 1999 to reinforce its territorial claim. China has been harassing Philippine resupply […]
The United States is going “all in on the Philippines” and its semiconductor sector in a bid to diversify the global chip supply chain amid growing tensions with China, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday.
Raimondo made the announcement during a two-day trade mission to Manila in which she was joined by 22 American business executives from companies including Alphabet’s Google, Visa and Microsoft.
“This is historic. The message is: We are all in the Philippines,” Raimondo said at a meeting with U.S. and Philippine business associations in Makati City, the city’s financial hub.
She also announced that American companies would invest $1 billion in the Philippines, spanning solar energy, electric vehicles and digitization.
The U.S. delegation, the first of its kind to the Southeast Asian nation, comes as the battle for semiconductor supremacy heats up between the world’s two largest economies.
Washington has stepped up sanctions to limit China’s access to the tiny electronic devices that power the modern economy, while encouraging American firms to diversify hi-tech supply chains.
“U.S. companies have realized that our chip supply chain is way too concentrated in just a few countries in the world. Forget about geopolitics; just add that level of concentration. It’s the old adage: ‘Don’t put your eggs in one basket’,” Raimondo said.
“The Philippines has 13 semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging facilities. Let’s double it,” she added, without providing details on how that would be achieved.
Raimondo said the Philippines was rich in critical minerals, which “are more important than ever.”
“So as companies are thinking about how to make their supply chain more resilient, they are looking for countries in the world where they can establish an operation. I believe you are at the top of the list,” she said.
Semiconductor chips are seen on a printed circuit board in this illustration picture taken Feb. 17, 2023. [Reuters]
Raimondo did not publicly refer directly to China by name during the Manila visit.
U.S. engagement with the Philippines has increased since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in June 2022, especially onsecurity matters.
At the same time, Washington has done more to cultivate economic ties with nations in the so-calledIndo-Pacific region, which comprises 40% of the global economy, in a bid to counter China’s expanding influence.
In May 2022, the U.S. launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) with a focus on four pillars: Trade, supply chains, the clean economy and the fair economy, the latter of which covers tax and anti-corruption.
Aside from the U.S. and the Philippines, IPEF partners include Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
However, the initiative is not a traditional free-trade agreement and has faced criticism for not providing any market access.
On Monday, Raimondo met with Marcos in Malacañang before the president departed for a trip to Germany.
“Today’s gathering not only signifies a meeting of officials, but also celebrates the enduring relations between the Philippines and the United States – ties that have been built on shared sacrifices, mutual support and unwavering respect,” Marcos said.
In 2023, the U.S. ranked as the Philippines’ third biggest trading partner, its largest export market and fifth highest source of imports, according to data from the Philippine government. In the same period, total bilateral trade amounted to $19.96 billion, with exports valued at $11.54 billion and imports at $8.41 billion.
The Philippines’ top bilateral trade partner last year was China, with which it had a deficit of about $2 billion.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo (center) speaks during a meeting with business executives at a hotel in Manila, March 12, 2024. [Ted Aljibe/AFP]
Most of the Raimondo-led trade delegation was from the technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy and information and communications sectors.
Tech giant Microsoft said Tuesday it would partner with the Philippines’ Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to train 100,000 Filipino women on AI and cybersecurity.
Ted Osius, president and CEO of the non-profit US-ASEAN Business Council, said the U.S. commitments were good for the region.
“It’s in our national interest as well as in our economic interest to invest in the Philippines, to be involved in the Philippines, to support the Philippines’ growth and prosperity,” he told reporters after Raimondo’s address.
Resilient supply chains were important not just because of “challenges with China,” he said.
“We found during the COVID-19 pandemic that supply chains are more fragile than we expected. Even right now, there’s action in the Red Sea that is causing delays in shipping, causing delays in parts, needed parts, getting goods,” he said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Camille Elemia for Benar News.
The Taiwanese gangster film, The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon, has hit the bull in the eye with mainland Chinese moviegoers who saw the cult featured in the movie as an allusion to the Chinese Communist Party.
In less than a week of its release in China, it has chalked up close to 370 million yuan (US$51.55 million) in box office, received more than 580,000 reviews and earned an 8.1 high score on Douban, a social media site with streaming service. The film, currently streaming on Netflix, only sold NT$50 million (US$1.59 million) in Taiwan when it was released in October 2023.
Some scholars have attributed the popularity of this violent film in China to reflect the public’s distrust of the Chinese judiciary. The plot of the movie also exposes lawlessness in the society through labor exploitation and fraud that resonated with the economic hardships that Chinese citizens currently face.
The film’s Chinese title “Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils” pays homage to Zhou Chu, a Western Jin-era Chinese general reputed for his uprightness and integrity. Zhou sought to kill a tiger and a dragon that terrorized his hometown. The third evil referred to himself when he was a cruel and violent ruffian in his youth.
The movie’s protagonist is a notorious hitman and gangster Chen Kui-lin, who after learning that he has terminal lung cancer, wanted to leave his mark by taking out the two most wanted criminals ahead of him.
“Have you heard the story of ‘Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils’? Everyone only remembers Zhou Chu, and no one will remember the two people he killed. So Zhou Chu is the person of value, and everyone remembers him,” said Chen, who is played by Taiwanese actor Ethan Juan, in the movie.
Cult Party?
One of Chen’s two targets was a cult leader who was swindling money from cult followers.
Lai Rongwei, Taiwan Inspiration Association’s chief executive officer, said the movie made it pass Chinese censors despite the violence and gore because the Chinese Communist Party wanted to warn citizens to be careful of religious gatherings.
Lai said the CCP itself is a religion alienating the Chinese people, and the film’s allusion of the cult, which constantly seeks donations from followers, to the Party coincided with what Chinese President Xi Jinping is doing.
“Xi Jinping constantly talks about ‘common prosperity,’ about how the private sector should contribute to society,” said Lai.
Akio Yaita, Taipei bureau chief of the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, believes that the movie passed Chinese censors because the film’s underworld backdrop depicting the underbelly of Taiwanese society would illustrate Taiwan as a place where “the weak eat the strong and the people live in dire straits.”
Taiwan is a self-governed democracy that China claims its own and has vowed to reclaim, even by force if needed.
The cult in the movie alludes to the Chinese Communist Party, experts say. (Screengrab from the movie’s fans Facebook post)
A hit among Chinese influencers
The protagonist Chen’s other confrontation with the other wanted man “Hongkie” represented the issue of labor exploitation, which resonated with Chinese workers exploited and owed wages as the economy sputters, according to Taiwan Inspiration Association’s Lai.
“This movie resonated with many because it shows how hard many Chinese people’s lives are, a typical M-shaped society; the rich are very rich and corruption is rampant. The Party, the government and the judiciary collude.”
The M-shaped society describes demographic distribution of wealth where there is a shrinking and greater disparity between the rich and the poor. The statistical curve appears in the form of the letter “M”.
The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon has also sparked heated discussions online, with Chinese internet celebrities criticizing Chinese gangster films as not realistic enough. One of them, Dadonggua, pointed out that the characterization of Chen truly met the expectations of the Chinese people.
“Chen Kui-lin hunted down Hongkie and destroyed the cult organization all by himself. These are things neither ordinary people dare think or do, nor can the police handle,” said Dadonggua. “With the brutality of the evil forces and the incompetence of the government, people will naturally regard those who use violence to fight violence as heroes.”
In a Facebook post, Nick Wang, a well-known Taiwanese writer, wrote that if Xi had accidentally watched the film, he would certainly realize the cult satirized him and the CCP, as well as predicted their perish.
Still, Lai raised a concern that if public opinion continues to link cults with the CCP, the film may be axed as history has shown.
Translated and additional reporting by RFA Staff. Edited byTaejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ray Chung for RFA Cantonese.
President Xi made a promise to rid China of corrupt politicians and military leaders. Defence acquisitions have been examined in detail with irregularities found. He has been partially successful, but the road is long. In the Summer of 2023, People’s Republic of China (PRC) ministers began disappearing. It began on 25 June when Foreign Minister […]
Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”
Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefinggives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”
Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.
Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.
“The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.
“Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.
Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.
Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.
Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.
“The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.
“Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”
“Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.
Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”
Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.
“How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.
Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”
Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”
Whither China? was the name of a widely circulated pamphlet authored by the respected Anglo-Indian Marxist author, R. Palme Dutt. Writing in 1966, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the throes of the “Cultural Revolution,” the pamphlet sought to shed light on the PRC’s tortured road from liberation in 1949 to a vast upheaval disrupting all aspects of Chinese society as well as foreign relations. To most people — across the entire political spectrum — developments within this Asian giant were a challenge to understand. To be sure, there were zealots outside of the PRC who hung on every word uttered by The Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, and stood by every release explaining Chinese events in the People’s Daily, Red Flag and Peking Review. A few Communist Parties and many middle-class intellectuals embraced the Cultural Revolution as a rite of purification. Yet for most, as with Palme Dutt, the paramount question remained: Where is the PRC going?
Today, forty-five years later, the question remains open.
I wrote the above thirteen years ago. I contend that the question remains open today. Much has changed, however. In 2011, China-bashing was widespread especially where jobs had disappeared in manufacturing, but largely tempered by a Western business sector anxious to exploit low wages and the Chinese domestic market.
But almost simultaneously with the 2011 posting, the Obama administration made official its “pivot to Asia,” directed explicitly at Peoples’ China. As the Brookings Institute ‘diplomatically’ put it, “Washington is still very much focused on sustaining a constructive U.S.-China relationship, but it has now brought disparate elements together in a strategically integrated fashion that explicitly affirms and promises to sustain American leadership throughout Asia for the foreseeable future.” More explicitly, they intend “to establish a strong and credible American presence across Asia to both encourage constructive Chinese behavior and to provide confidence to other countries in the region that they need not yield to potential Chinese regional hegemony.”
To be sure, the officially declared Obama administration hostility to the PRC was neither a reaction to job loss nor to deindustrialization. The Administration showed no interest in recreating lost jobs or restoring the industrial cities in the Midwest. The real purpose is revealed in the simple phrase “Chinese regional hegemony.” Clearly, by 2011, ruling circles in the US had decided that the PRC was more than an economic cherry ready to be plucked. Instead, it had developed into an economic powerhouse, a true, even the true, competitor in global markets; indeed, it had become a robust threat to U.S. hegemony.
With the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the anti-PRC campaign continued, though conducted in an accelerated, cruder fashion, employing sanctions, threats, ultimatums, and even legal chicanery (the detention of one of Huawei’s executives, the daughter of the company’s founder).
The subsequent Biden administration pursued the same approach, adding another level of belligerence by stirring conflict in the South China Sea and reigniting the Taiwan issue. To anyone paying attention, successive administrations were intensifying aggression against the PRC, a process fueled by the eagerly compliant mainstream media.
It has become commonplace on the left to explain the growing hostility to the PRC by the U.S. and its NATO satellites as the instigation of a new Cold War, a revival of the anti-Communist crusades strengthening after World War II. In the past, I have suggested as much. But that would be grossly misleading.
The original Cold War was a struggle between capitalism and socialism. Whether Western critics will concede that the Soviet alternative was really socialism is irrelevant. It was a sharp and near-total alternative, and the West fought it as such. The Soviet Union did not organize its production to participate in global markets, it did not compete for global markets, nor did it threaten the profitability of capitalist enterprises through global competition. In short, the Soviet Union offered a potent option to Western capitalism, but not the threat of a rival for markets or profits. Moreover, Soviet foreign policy both condemned capitalism and explicitly sought to win other countries to socialist construction.
The same cannot be said for the Western antagonism to the PRC. The West courted Peoples’ China assiduously from the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution through the entire Deng era. Western powers saw the PRC as either an ally against the Soviet Union, a source of cheap labor, an investment windfall, or a virgin market. But with China’s success in weathering the capitalist crisis of 2007-2009, the U.S. and its allies began to look at the PRC as a dangerous rival within the global system of capitalism. Chinese technologies more than rivaled the West’s; its share of global trade had grown dramatically; and its accumulation of capital and its export of capital were alarming to Western powers bent on pressing their own export of capital.
In contrast to the actual Cold War, even the most ardent defender of the “Chinese road to socialism” cannot today cite many instances of PRC foreign policy strongly advocating, assisting, or even vigorously defending the fight for socialism anywhere outside of China. Indeed, the basic tenet of PRC policy — the noninterference in the affairs of others, regardless of their ideologies or policies — has more in common with Adam Smith than Vladimir Lenin.
What the Soviet Union took as its internationalist mission — support for those fighting capitalism — is not to be found in the CPC’s foreign policy. Nothing demonstrates the differences more than the Soviet’s past solidarity and aid toward Cuba’s socialist construction and the contrasting PRC’s commercial and cultural relations and meager aid.
Accordingly, the PRC’s commercial relations with less developed countries can raise substantial issues. Recently, Ann Garrison, a highly respected solidarity activist, often focusing on imperialism in Africa, wrote a provocative article for Black Agenda Report. In her review of Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives — an account of corporate mining and labor exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo– Garrison makes the following commentary guaranteed to raise the ire of devotees of the “Chinese road to socialism”:
[The author of Cobalt Red] explains battery technology and the global dominance of battery manufacture by South Korean, Japanese, and, most of all, Chinese industrial titans. Huge Chinese corporations so dominate Congolese cobalt mining, processing and battery manufacture that one has to ask why a communist government, however capitalist in fact, doesn’t at least somehow require more responsible sourcing of minerals processed and then advanced along the supply chain within its borders. I hope that Kara’s book has or will be translated into Chinese. (my emphasis)
Predictably, rejoinders came fast and furious. In both an interview and responseposted on Black Agenda Report, Garrison’s critics struggled to explain why PRC-based corporations were not contributing to the impoverishment and exploitation of Congolese workers. They cited Chinese investments in infrastructure and in modernization; they noted huge increases in productivity wrought by Chinese technology; they reminded Garrison of the corruption of the DRC government and local capitalists, and even blamed capitalism itself. How, one critic asked, could the PRC be singled out, when other (admittedly capitalist) countries were doing it as well?
Yet none even made a feeble attempt to explain how the extraction of one of the most sought-after minerals in modern industry could leave the people of the mineral-rich DRC with one of — if not the lowest — median incomes in the entire world. This striking fact points to the enormous rate of exploitation engaged in cobalt, copper, and other resource extraction in this poverty-stricken African country (for a Marxist angle on this question, see Charles Andrews’s article, cited by Garrison, but seemingly misunderstood by her).
In their zeal to defend the PRC’s Belt and Road initiative, these same defenders of the penetration of Chinese capital in poor countries often cite the frequent Chinese concept of “win-win” — the idea that Chinese capital brings with it victory for both the capital supplier and those ‘benefitted’ by the capital. Theorists of the non-class “win-win” concept are never clear exactly who the beneficiaries are — other capitalists, corrupt government officials, or the working class. Nevertheless, within the intensely competitive global capitalist system, this “win-win” is not sustainable and is contrary to both experience and the laws of capitalist development. Theoretically, it owes more to the thinking of David Ricardo than Karl Marx.
The PRC’s vexing relationship to capitalism has produced contradictions at home as well as globally. The ongoing collapse of the largely private construction/real-estate industry is one very large example. Once a major factor in PRC growth, overproduction of housing is now a substantial drag on economic advance. Monthly sales of new homes by private developers peaked late in 2020 at over 1.5 trillion yuan and fell to a little more than .25 trillion yuan at the beginning of 2024.
With the private real estate sector on the verge of bankruptcy and a huge number of residential properties unsold or unfinished, the PRC leadership is caught in a twenty-first-century version of the infamous scissors crisis that brought the Soviet NEP — the experiment with capitalist development of the productive forces — to a halt. If the government allows the private developers to fail, it will have harsh repercussions throughout the private sector, with banks, and foreign investors. If the government bails out the developers, it will remove the market consequences of capitalist excess and put the burden of sustaining capitalist failure on the backs of the Chinese people.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the government, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is considering placing “the state back in charge of the property market, part of a push to rein in the private sector.” The WSJ editors construe this as reviving “Socialist Ideas” — a welcome thought, if true.
The article claims that in CCP General Secretary Xi’s view, “too much credit moved into property speculation, adding risks to the financial system, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and diverting resources from what Xi considers to be the ‘real economy’ — sectors such as manufacturing and high-end technology.…”
Putting aside the question of how the private real estate sector was allowed to create an enormous bubble of unfinished and unsold homes, the move to return responsibility for housing to the public sector should be welcome, restoring price stability and planning, and eliminating speculation, overproduction, and economic disparities.
Unfortunately, there will be uncertain consequences and difficulties for banks, investors, and real estate buyers who purchased under the private regimen.
It is worth noting that no Western capitalist country or Japan has or would address a real estate bubble by absorbing real estate into the public sector.
Under Xi’s leadership, the direction of the PRC’s ‘reforms’ may have shifted somewhat away from an infatuation with markets, private ownership, and foreign capital. The former “enrich yourselves” tolerance for wealth accumulation has been tempered by conscious efforts at raising the living standards of the poorest. Xi has made a priority of “targeted poverty alleviation,” with impressive success.
Western intellectuals harshly criticize the PRC’s ‘democracy’ because it rejects the multi-party, periodic election model long-favored in the West. These same intellectuals fetishize a form of democracy, regardless of whether that particular form earns the trust of those supposedly represented. The mere fact that a procedure purports to deliver democratic or representative results does not guarantee that it actually makes good on its promise.
If China-critics were truly concerned with democratic or popular outcomes, they would turn to measures or surveys of public confidence, satisfaction, or trust in government to judge the respective systems. On this count, the PRC is always found at or near the top in public trust (for example, hereand here). Moreover, Chinese society shows high interpersonal or social trust, another measure of success in producing popular social cohesion by a government.
It’s telling that with the Western obsession with democracy, there is little interest in holding bourgeois democracy up to any relevant measure of its trust or popularity. When it is done, the U.S. fares very poorly, with a six-decade decline in public trust, according to Pew. As recently as February 28, the most recent Pew poll shows that even people who do respect “representative democracy” are critical of how it’s working. Their answer to their skepticism may be found “if more women, people from poor backgrounds and young adults held elective office”, say respondents. Those elites who so glibly talk of “our democracy,” in contrast to those including the CCP that they call “authoritarians,” might pause to listen to the people of their own country.
The PRC has shocked Western critics with the breakneck pace of its adoption of non-emission energy production. In 2020, the Chinese anticipated generating 1200 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2030. That goal and more will likely be reached by the end of 2024. Overall, the PRC expects to account for more new clean-energy capacity this year than the average growth in electricity demand over the last decade and a half. This means, of course, that emissions have likely peaked and will be receding in the years ahead– an achievement well ahead of Western estimates and Western achievements, and a victory for the global environmental movement.
At the same time, the PRC’s successful competition in the solar-panel market makes it the target of global competitors, a brutal struggle that undermines the espoused “win-win” approach. Despite the benign tone of “win-win,” market competition is not bound by polite resignation, but aggression, conflict, and, as Lenin affirmed, ultimately war. That is the inescapable logic of capitalism. PRC engagement with the market cannot negate it.
Western leftists too often simplify the ‘Chinese Question’ by making it a parlor game revolving around whether China is or is not a socialist country, an error confusing a settled, accomplished state of affairs with a contested process.
As long as capitalism exists and holds seats of political power, the process of building socialism remains unstable and unfinished.
The 1936 Soviet constitution declared in Article One that the USSR was “a socialist state of workers and peasants,” a status that was under great duress over the subsequent following decades. The 1977 constitution stated even more boldly that the USSR was “a socialist state of the whole people…,” a state without classes and, by implication, class struggle. A decade and a half later, there was no USSR. Building socialism is a fragile process and one prone to reversals and defeats.
Thus, we should follow Palme Dutt’s sage advice and observe developments in the PRC with vigilance and a critical eye. If building socialism is a dynamic process, we should attend to its direction, rather than pronouncing its summary success or failure. The PRC is a complex creation with a complex — often contradictory — relationship with other countries as well as the socialist project. The cause of socialism is ill served by either ignoring or exaggerating both missteps and victories in the PRC’s revolutionary path.
With political tension rising around the world, airborne special mission aircraft have arguably never been more important. Asia-Pacific states facing Chinese pressure on their South China Sea interests are continuing to enhance their air capabilities. This includes the acquisition of special mission aircraft whose various roles include airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), intelligence, surveillance […]
Papua New Guinea and Indonesia have formally ratified a defence agreement a decade after its initial signing.
PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and the Indonesian ambassador to the Pacific nation, Andriana Supandy, convened a press briefing in Port Moresby on February 29 to declare the ratification.
The agreement enables an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
According to Tkatchenko as reported by RNZ Pacific citing Benar News, “The Joint border patrols and different types of defence cooperation between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea of course will be part of the ever-growing security mechanism.”
“It would be wonderful to witness the collaboration between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, both now and in the future, as they work together side by side. Indonesia is a rising Southeast Asian power that reaches into the South Pacific region and dwarfs Papua New Guinea in population, economic size and military might,” added the minister.
In recent years, Indonesia has been asserting its own regional hegemony in the Pacific amid the rivalries of two superpowers — the United States and China.
Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to bolster collaboration with Pacific nations amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region during the recent 2024 annual press statement held by the minister for foreign affairs at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung.
Diverse Indigenous states
The Pacific Islands are home to diverse sovereign Indigenous states and islands, and also home to two influential regional powers, Australia and New Zealand. This vast diverse region is increasingly becoming a pivotal strategic and political battleground for foreign powers — aiming to win the hearts and minds of the populations and governments in the region.
Numerous visible and hidden agreements, treaties, talks, and partnerships are being established among local, regional, and global stakeholders in the affairs of this vast region.
The Pacific region carries great importance for powerful military and economic entities such as China, the United States and its coalition, and Indonesia. For them, it serves as a crucial area for strategic bases, resource acquisition, food, and commercial routes.
For Indigenous islanders, states, and tribal communities, the primary concern is around the loss of their territories, islands, and other vital cultural aspects, such as languages and traditional wisdom.
The crumbling of Oceania, reminiscent of its past colonisation by various European powers, is now occurring. However, this time it is being orchestrated by foreign entities appointing their own influential local pawns.
With these local pawns in place, foreign monarchs, nobility, warlords, and miscreants are advancing to reshape the region’s fate.
The rejection by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to acknowledge the representation of West Papua by the United Liberation for West Papua (ULMWP) as a full member of the regional body in August 2023 highlights the diminishing influence of MSG leaders in decision-making processes concerning issues that are deemed crucial by the Papuan community as part of the “Melanesian family affairs”.
Suspicion over ‘external forces’
This raises suspicion of external forces at play within the Melanesian nations, manipulating their destinies. The question arises, who is orchestrating the fate of the Melanesian nations?
Is it Jakarta, Beijing, Washington, or Canberra?
In a world characterised by instability, safety and security emerges as a crucial prerequisite for fostering a peaceful coexistence, nurturing friendships, and enabling development.
The critical question at hand pertains to the nature of the threats that warrant such protective measures, the identities of both the endangered and the aggressors, and the underlying rationale and mechanisms involved. Whose safety hangs in the balance in this discourse?
And between whom does the spectre of threat loom?
If you are a realist in a world of policymaking, it is perhaps wise not to antagonise the big guy with the big weapon in the room. The Minister of Papua New Guinea may be attempting to underscore the importance of Indonesia in the Pacific region, as indicated by his statements.
If you are West Papuan, it makes little difference whether one leans towards realism or idealism. What truly matters is the survival of West Papuans, in the midst of the significant settler colonial presence of Asian Indonesians in their ancestral homeland.
West Papuan refugee camp
Two years ago, PNG’s minister stated the profound existential sentiments experienced by the West Papuans in 2022 while visiting a West Papuan refugee community in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
During the visit, the minister addressed the West Papuan refugees with the following words:
“The line on the map in middle of the island (New Guinea) is the product of colonial impact. These West Papuans are part of our family, part of our members and part of Papua New Guinea. They are not strangers.
“We are separated only by imaginary lines, which is why I am here. I did not come here to fight, to yell, to scream, to dictate, but to reach a common understanding — to respect the law of Papua New Guinea and the sovereignty of Indonesia.”
These types of ambiguous and opaque messages and rhetoric not only instil fake hope among the West Papuans, but also produce despair among displaced Papuans on their own soil.
The seemingly paradoxical language coupled with the significant recent security agreement with the entity — Indonesia — that has been oppressing the West Papuans under the pretext of sovereignty, signifies one ominous prospect:
Is PNG endorsing a “death decree” for the Indonesian security apparatus to hunt Papuans along the border and mountainous region of West Papua and Papua New Guinea?
Security for West Papua Currently, the situation in West Papua is deteriorating steadily. Thousands of Indonesian military personnel have been deployed to various regions in West Papua, especially in the areas afflicted by conflict, such as Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Star Mountain, and along the border separating Papua New Guinea from West Papua.
On the 27 February 2024, Indonesian military personnel captured two teenage students and fatally shot a Papuan civilian in the Yahukimo district. They alleged that the deceased individual was affiliated with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNB), although this assertion has yet to be verified by the TPNPB.
Such incidents are tragically a common occurrence throughout West Papua, as the Indonesian military continue to target and wrongfully accuse innocent West Papuans in conflict-ridden regions of being associated with the TPNPB.
Two West Papuan students who were arrested on the banks of Braza River in Yahukimo . . . under the watch of two Indonesian military with heavy SS2 guns standing behind them. Image: Kompas.com
These deplorable acts transpired just prior to the ratification of a border operation agreement between the governments of the Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
As the security agreement was being finalised, the Indonesian government announced a new military campaign in the highlands of West Papua. This operation, is named as “Habema” — meaning “must succeed to the maximum” — and was initiated in Jakarta on the 29 February 2024.
Agus Subiyanto, the Indonesian military command and police command stated during the announcement:
“My approach for Papua involves smart power, a blend of soft power, hard power, and military diplomacy. Establishing the Habema operational command is a key step in ensuring maximum success.”
Indonesian military commander General Agus Subiyanto (left) with National Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo (centre) and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto while checking defence equipment at the TNI headquarters in Jakarta last Wednesday. Prabowo (right) is expected to become President after his decisive victory in the elections last week. Image: Antara News.
The looming military operation in West Papua and its border regions, employing advanced smart weapon technology poised a profound danger for Papuans.
A looming humanitarian crisis in West Papua, PNG, broader Melanesia and the Pacific region is inevitable, as unmanned aerial drones discern targets indiscriminately, wreak havoc in homes, and villages of the Papuan communities.
The Indonesian security forces have increasingly employed such sophisticated technology in conflict zones since 2019, including regions like Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Pegunungan Bintang, and other volatile regions in West Papua.
Consequently, villages have been razed to the ground, compelling inhabitants to flee to the jungle in search of sanctuary — an exodus that continues unabated as they remain displaced from their homes indefinitely.
On 5 April 2018, the Indonesian government announced a military operation known as Damai Cartenz, which remains active in conflict-ridden regions, such as Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga, and Intan Jaya.
The Habema security initiative will further threaten Papuans residing in the conflict zones, particularly in the vicinity of the border shared by Papua New Guinea and West Papua.
There are already hundreds of people from the Star Mountains who have fled across to Tumolbil, in the Yapsie sub-district of the PNG province of West Sepik, situated on the border. They fled to PNG because of Indonesia’s military operation (RNZ 2021).
According to RNZ News, individuals fleeing military actions conducted by the Indonesian government, including helicopter raids that caused significant harm to approximately 14 villages, have left behind foot tracks.
The speaker explained that Papua New Guineans occasionally cross over to the Indonesian side, typically seeking improved access to basic services.
The PNG government has been placing refugees from West Papua in border camps, the biggest one being at East Awin in the Western Province for many decades, with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
How should PNG, UN respond? The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, article 36, states that “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation with their own members as well as other peoples across borders”.
Over the past six years, regional and international organisations, such as the Melanesian Spearheads groups (MSG), Pacific islands Forum (PIF), Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP), the UN’s human rights commissioner as well as dozens of countries and individual parliaments, lawyers, academics, and politicians have been asking the Indonesian government to allow the UN’s human rights commissioner to visit West Papua.
However, to date, no response has been received from the Indonesian government.
What does this security deal mean for West Papuans? This is not just a simple security arrangement between Jakarta and Port Moresby to address border conflicts, but rather an issue of utmost importance for the people of Papua.
It concerns the sovereignty of a nation — West Papua — that has been unjustly seized by Indonesia, while the international community watched in silence, witnessing the unfurling and unparalleled destruction of human lives and the ecological system.
There is one noble thing the foreign minister of PNG and his government can do: ask why Jakarta is not responding to the request for a UN visit made by the international community, rather than endorsing an ‘illegal security pact’ with the illegal Indonesia colonial occupier over his supposed “family members separated only by imaginary lines”.
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands that share a border with the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He graduated last year with a Master of Arts in International Relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.
Battery-powered trains could soon be criss-crossing central Queensland after the Australian Renewable Energy Agency awarded a $9.4 million grant to retrofit existing rolling stock. Australia’s largest freight hauler Aurizon will develop and trial a 1.8MWh battery-electric tender (BET) in partnership with Alta Battery Technology, a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Huashi Group. A tender is a…
Video imagery released by state-owned broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) in late February has revealed that further development work has been carried out on the Tianying (Sky Hawk) uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV). According to CCTV commentary, improvements to the UAV include enhanced stealth and range performance. It added that flight-testing has also commenced following these […]
China’s top state planner has projected a multi-billion-dollar market from Beijing’s policy pushing for industries to upgrade their equipment and citizens to trade in their old vehicles and home appliances for new ones.
The domestic consumption push, an integral part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s latest mantra to unleash “new productive forces,” is seen as instrumental to Beijing’s efforts to revive growth.
Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, also assured the media that Beijing’s 5% GDP goal is achievable.
“This goal is in line with the annual requirements of the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ and matches the potential of economic growth, a goal that can be achieved with positivity and hard work,” he told reporters at a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress Wednesday.
Zheng said the economy is recovering and showing new results, without specifying. One such potential result could be the over 5 trillion yuan (US$694 billion) that is forecast to be created annually as industries and companies upgrade their equipment to raise development quality.
“Chinese industries and the agricultural sector last year invested about 4.9 trillion yuan in equipment. The push to raise quality development will only increase demand for equipment upgrade,” he said at the joint briefing with China’s finance minister, commerce minister, central bank chief, and head of the securities regulator.
The campaign will focus on industrial, agricultural, construction, transport, education, cultural tourism and healthcare, where the upgrade will foster reduced carbon emissions, safety, digital transformation and smart intelligence, Zheng added.
Similarly, Zheng described the trade-in market for vehicles and home appliances as “huge” and in the “trillion yuan” level, given that car and white goods ownership last year reached 336 million units and 3 billion units, respectively.
The upgrade and trade-in drives could enhance China’s efforts to build a circular economy, he noted.
“The promotion of such large-scale equipment upgrade and consumer goods trade-in is a systematic project … to be supported by fiscal, financial and tax policies.”
“New productive forces” was coined by President Xi during a trip to the rustbelt Northeast region last September, where he highlighted the need for a new economic model. In Xi’s China, the state’s role is expanding and the private sector is retreating.
Central government agencies and local governments are now focused on putting the new vision into play. Chinese Premier Li Qiang in his maiden government work report on Tuesday called for a “new leap forward” to modernize the industrial system and accelerate the development of new productive forces across sectors like electric vehicles, hydrogen power, new materials, life sciences and commercial spaceflight.
To support the domestic demand policy, Beijing will issue 1 trillion yuan of special long-term bonds this year, and more in the next few years.
The thrust of China’s economic policy direction is “seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through advancement, and in construction before destruction,” according to the Chinese premier’s work report.
As such, authorities could be banking on “new productive forces” to buffer the structural challenges that clouded the outlook of the Chinese economy, like a deepening real estate market crisis, local government indebtedness and economic issues due to demographic shifts. Li’s report offered little details on structural reforms which some analysts said are crucial to address fundamental problems.
Externally, China’s foreign trade will face a severe situation, commerce minister Wang Wentao said at the press conference.
Echoing the complexity and unpredictability of the external environment, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng stressed that the central bank will leverage on monetary policies and intensity macro-control policies to ensure stability.
“China’s monetary policy toolbox is still rich [with tools at our disposal], and there is still sufficient room for monetary policy [adjustments],” Pan said, adding that the bank will keep the yuan basically stable.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Armour, while useful in attack, needs ways and means to stop it being taken out by the plethora or weapons in now faces. Asia possesses very capable armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) manufacturers, but various systems can improve their survivability, situational awareness, firepower and mobility on modern battlefields. Asia-Pacific militaries are slowly adopting some elements in […]
It can take much bruising, much ridicule, and much castigation to eventually reach the plateau of wisdom. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who took office in November 2022, is one such character. Like a hero anointed by the gods for grand deeds and fine achievements, he was duly attacked and maligned, accused of virtually every heinous crime in the criminal code. Sodomy and corruption featured. Two prison spells were endured.
His whole fall from grace as deputy-prime minister was all the more revealing for being instigated by his politically insatiable mentor, Mahathir bin Mohammed, Southeast Asia’s wiliest, and most ruthless politician. Eventually, that old, vengeful fox had to relent: his former protégé would have his day.
Anwar is in no mood to take sides on spats between the grumbly titans who seek their place in posterity’s sun. And why should a country like Malaysia do so? During last year’s visit to Beijing and the Boao Forum in Hainan, he secured a commitment from Chinese President Xi Jinping on foreign investment amounting to RM170.1 billion ($US35.6 billion) spanning 19 memoranda of understanding (MOU). Greater participation in Malaysia’s 5G network plan by Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei was assured some weeks later.
In the Financial Times, the Malaysian PM levelled the charge against the United States that Sinophobia had become a problem, a fogging fixation. Why should Malaysia, he asked, “pick a quarrel” with China, a country that had become its foremost trading partner? “Why must I be tied to one interest? I don’t buy into this strong prejudice against China, this China-phobia.”
Much of this middle-of-the-road daring was prompted by comments made by US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been saddled with the task of padding out ties between Washington and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Rather than being diplomatic, the Veep has been irritatingly teacherly.
Last September, during her visit to the US-ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Harris beat the drum on the issue of promoting “a region that is open, interconnected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.” Such openness was always going to be subordinate to Washington’s own interests. “We have a shared commitment to international rules and norms and our partnership on pressing national and regional issues”. An international campaign against “irresponsible behaviour in the disputed waters” would be commenced.
During her trip to the Philippines last November, Harris made the focus of concern clear to countries in the region. “We must stand up for principles such as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, unimpeded lawful commerce, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, and throughout the Indo-Pacific.”
The subtext for those listening was so obvious as to be scripted in bold font: Our values first; China’s a necessarily distant second. This coarse directness did not fall on deaf ears, and Anwar was particularly attentive. He had already found the views voiced by Harris at Jakarta about Malaysia’s leanings towards Beijing as “not right and grossly unfair”.
In remarks made during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held at the current ASEAN summit, being hosted in Melbourne, Anwar expressed much irritation in being badgered by the United States and its allies on the subject of taking sides. The virus of Sinophobia had been doing the rounds, causing sniffles and rumbles. “[M]y reference to China-phobia is because the criticism levied against us for giving additional focus on China; my response is, trade investments is open and right now, China seems to be the leading investor and trade into Malaysia,” Anwar observed. Malaysians, for the most part, “do not have a problem with China.”
Labouring, even flogging the “fiercely independent” standing of Malaysia, Anwar went on to state that his country remained “an important friend of the United States and Europe and here in Australia, they should not preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbours, precisely China.”
Nothing typifies this better than Malaysia’s policy towards the supply and manufacturing of semiconductors. The emergence of a China Plus One Strategy, notably in the electronic supply chain, has seen companies diversify their risk through investing in alternative markets to mitigate risks. Keep China on side but do so securely. Anwar has established a task force dedicated to the subject, while also courting such entities as US chipmaker Micron Technology. Last October, the company promised an investment of US$1 billion to expand its Penang operations, in addition to the previous allocation of $US1 billion to construct and fully equip its new facility. In business, such promiscuity should be lauded.
Anwar’s concerns were solid statements of calculated principle, and inconceivable coming out of the mouth of an Australian politician. Albanese, for his part, has tried to walk the middle road when it comes to security in the Indo-Pacific, even as China remains Australia’s largest trading partner. He does so in wolf’s clothing supplied by Washington, with various garish labels such as “AUKUS” and “nuclear-powered submarines”. For decades, Australia’s association with ASEAN has been ventriloquised, the voice emanating from the White House, Pentagon or US State Department.
Canberra’s middle road remains cluttered by one big power, replete with US road signs and tolls, accompanied by hearty welcomes from the US military industrial complex and its determination to turn Australia into a forward defensive position, a garrison playing war’s waiting game. To his credit, Anwar has avoided the trap, exposing the inauthentic position of his Australian hosts with skill and undeniable charm.
Vietnam’s volatile relationship with China and territorial disputes in the South China Sea have compelled the country to enhance its military capabilities. With China’s growing military might and assertiveness in the region, Vietnam is undertaking modernization initiatives for its armed forces, which will increase its defense budget to an estimated $10.2 billion by 2029, with […]
Zhang Xiaoming, Beijing’s outspoken former representative in Hong Kong at the time of the 2019 protest movement, has been removed from his post at a political advisory body.
While state broadcaster CCTV reported that Zhang has been removed from the post of deputy secretary general of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, it was unclear whether he is accused of any wrongdoing.
State media continued on Monday to refer to Zhang as “comrade,” indicating that he remains a Communist Party member.
CCTV gave no reason for Zhang’s removal at the age of 61, four years short of the official retirement age of 65, and he remains a rank-and-file member of the Conference, appearing on the rostrum during Monday’s opening ceremony.
Several pro-China figures in Hong Kong declined to comment on Zhang’s departure when contacted by RFA Cantonese on Sunday.
However, political sources cited by the Singapore-based pro-China Lianhe Zaobao newspaper said Zhang could be on his way to another job, rather than being fired in some kind of disgrace.
In Hong Kong, Zhang is largely remembered as a hardliner who flagged a number of repressive policies shortly before they were implemented. He was apparently sidelined in favor of Xia Baolong in 2020, possibly to take the fall for the 2019 protest movement.
In 2013, Zhang said a march demanding fully democratic elections proved that the freedoms guaranteed under the handover agreement were still intact.
Zhang Xiaoming, center, head of the city’s Beijing liaison, arrives for a luncheon with Hong Kong Legislative Council members and Beijing officials in Hong Kong on July 16, 2013. (Philippe Lopez/AFP)
He made local headlines during the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement of 2014 when he seemed to minimize the importance of the civil disobedience campaign for universal suffrage, by saying: “The sun is still going to rise.”
In September 2015, Zhang ruffled feathers with an early warning that the powers of the city’s chief executive would always trump those of the legislature and judiciary and that the separation of powers “does not suit Hong Kong.”
Limits to free speech
By 2016 he was condemning the “fishball revolution” protests in Mong Kok as being “close to terrorism,” and warning that anyone who espoused independence for the city should be barred from running in elections — a policy that was later implemented by city officials.
He also warned in the same year that there were “limits” to the free speech that Hong Kong was promised under the terms of its 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
By 2017, Zhang had been promoted to head the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in Beijing, replacing Wang Guangya in the job. He was therefore the most senior Chinese government official in charge of Hong Kong affairs when the city was rocked by the anti-extradition movement, which broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections.
In 2019, he characterized the anti-extradition movement as “chaos and violence,” saying it was an attempt to foment a “color revolution,” or regime change, in Hong Kong.
Despite being demoted to deputy director with the appointment of Xia Baolong as director in 2020, Zhang continued to speak loudly against opposition politicians, saying they were “anti-China, disruptive elements” who should be excluded from public office, heralding changes to election rules that eliminated pro-democracy candidates from both legislative and district-level elections.
“It is only natural to demand that those who govern Hong Kong must be patriots,” Zhang said, adding: “Those who oppose China in order to create chaos in Hong Kong need to get out.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tim Lee for RFA Cantonese.
If ever further proof was necessary, then the horrific situation inside occupied Palestine, is a harrowing reminder of how the political interests of governments; driven by commercial factors, geopolitics and ideology, callously ignore the suffering of peoples.
But Tibet is not afforded such solidarity, it is a fringe issue and China’s regime is very happy indeed that it remains so. There have been efforts to secure greater support from Governments, various initiatives within the US and in Europe attract the interest of some political representatives. However, too often such assistance is limited to regarding the plight of Tibetans as one of cultural rights, as opposed to national freedom. Again this position suits Chinese interests, since it avoids the thorny issue of Tibetan independence. It is no accident, that within Congress, the State Department or Parliaments in Europe; what few mentions of Tibet which are presented, consistently omit any discussion of Tibetan sovereignty.
Yet the dream of a Tibet, free from Chinese occupation and rule, remains in the hearts of Tibetans, both inside and beyond that blighted land. The Chinese authorities however would of course prefer you knew nothing of that, and are ceaseless in their efforts to censor, deflect and distort when it comes to the matters Tibetan. From their propaganda perspective they want the Tibet, which yearns for the return of its national and cultural freedom, to be forgotten and marginalized. Look instead, urges China’s Ministry of Disinformation, at the happy ‘progress’ and ‘development’ of Tibetans under the enlightened vision of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
To that end, either through national economic interest and/or greed-driven complicity, Governments turn a blind-eye to the cultural genocide taking place inside occupied Tibet. Like the Chinese leadership they’d prefer their constituents didn’t know about the plight of Tibetans or their common political aspiration for national freedom. Far better to maintain the profitable status quo than have inconvenient issues causing distractions and taking up valuable political time!
It is for such reasons, the cynical desire for a veil of amnesia to fall over the cause of Tibet, that we must not allow our politicians and Government to forget the condition, and political hopes, of the Tibetan people.To that end informing our representatives and presenting them with questions on Tibet is an important and significant action. One that can be done online in a few moments.
We call upon those who care for, and uphold human rights and freedom, to stand with the just cause of Tibet. Don’t let Tibet become a discarded page of history, take action this March 10. Support local rallies for Tibet, Be you in the US, Europe or Britain join our online lobbying of political representatives https://tibettruth.com/action-for-tibet/
Corruption and military effectiveness do not go hand-in-hand. This has been overwhelmingly demonstrated by the performance of Russian forces during the war in Ukraine, where in many cases (and even literally in some instances), ‘the wheels have fallen off’ military kit and overall effectiveness. The Red Army, once feared by NATO planners who may have […]
An alleged spy for China living in Istanbul evaded detection by Turkish authorities for years, Sadiq Memeteziz’s undercover work taking him to Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Xinjiang in China’s far-west, Turkish media reports said, citing official documents.
Memeteziz, or Shadeke Maimaitiaizazi in Chinese, was one of six arrested on Feb. 20 for allegedly spying for China, Turkey’s Habertürk newspaper and TV channel said Wednesday.
Habertürk revealed the identities of four the six men arrested earlier this week, indicating they met with Chinese intelligence officials in Saudi Arabia.
The media reports didn’t identify the ethnicity of the men, but Radio Free Asia has confirmed that they are all Uyghurs. One of the six, named Ehmetjan, was later released. A seventh one is still at large and wanted by police.
The suspects are accused of spying on prominent Uyghurs and Uyghur associations in Turkey and passing the information to Chinese intelligence officers. The arrests follow a probe by the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau, media reports said.
If they are indeed shown to have spied for China, the case would illustrate the lengths that Beijing will go to gather information on Uyghurs abroad as part of its transnational repression.
Uyghur diaspora
With roughly 50,000 Uyghurs living in Turkey — the largest Uyghur émigré population outside Central Asia — the Muslim-majority countryhas become a focus for Chinese espionage.
Radio Free Asia in February 2023 reported on how the Chinese government’s efforts to coerce Uyghurs to gather information on each other undermines trust and can dampen social and cultural gatherings, preventing Uyghur refugees from rebuilding their communities abroad.
In the past, Turkey offered Uyghurs a safe place to live outside China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and is the only Turkic and Muslim country that has consistently raised the issue of the plight of Uyghurs at the United Nations and in bilateral talks with China.
So this crackdown on alleged spies for China represents a shift on Turkey’s part.
The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office would not comment on the ongoing investigation. RFA could not reach the Chinese Embassy in Ankara for comment.
Family is shocked
Memeteziz’s son, who lives in Istanbul, told RFA that he does not believe his father is a criminal, and that it is premature to call him such until judicial authorities issue a verdict.
“We also recently came across the news and were shocked by it,” said the son, who declined to be named for fear of retribution. “It was a mix of sadness and disbelief, as we never imagined such a thing could happen.”
The son said he has lived apart from his father for two-and-a-half years, balancing work and studies, and that they occasionally checked in with each other.
“As of now, we haven’t received any updates from the police or the judicial bodies,” he said. “There was no concrete evidence or confirmation, and judicial bodies haven’t said anything like what was reported in the news reports yet. All we’ve heard is that he was arrested.”
“Personally, I find this hard to believe because he has been running his own business for over 20 years,” the son added. “He has his own brand and products, and even when we lived together, he focused on his business and trade with Central Asia. Politics was never his concern due to his business commitments. Hence, I doubt the accuracy of these news reports.”
Details of alleged activities
Based on an arrest notice issued by the Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau, Memeteziz, in his mid- to late 50s, moved to Turkey from Xinjiang – where 11 million Uyghurs live – in the 2000s and had contact with someone from the Ministry of National Security, China’s spy agency.
He met with an official named Li from the Chinese Communist Party’s Kargilik (Yecheng in Chinese) County Committee in Xinjiang’s Kashgar prefecture, both via phone and in person, the notice said.
According to information from the Turkish National Intelligence Service, it appears that Memeteziz met with Chinese intelligence officials outside Turkey. He traveled to Hong Kong in February 2023, then proceeded to Xinjiang’s Kargilik county, where he had face-to-face meetings with two spies named Li and Alimjan.
Subsequently, Memeteziz met with Alimjan again in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. To conceal these meetings, Chinese intelligence officials in China and Saudi Arabia provided Memeteziz with two different passports, the Turkish news reports said.
Records indicate that Memeteziz continued to travel to and from Xinjiang with ease, particularly after 2017 when Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims en masse in “re-education” camps under the guise of preventing religious extremism and terrorist activities, the reports said.
In 2023, Memeteziz received US$7,000 in Beijing and US$15,000 in Saudi Arabia in exchange for his espionage activities for China, said the reports.
Upon his return to Turkey in August 2023, Memeteziz obtained information about Uyghur organizations and their meetings, and the addresses of prominent Uyghurs living in Turkey. He collected photos and documents to share with Chinese intelligence officials, the news reports said.
The notice from the chief prosecutor’s office said that Memeteziz, under instructions from the Chinese intelligence agency, tried in January 2023 to move to an area where Uyghur religious teacher Abduqadir Yapchan resided, but he could not find accommodations.
China had accused Yapchan of being part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group that the U.S. State Department dropped from its list of terrorist organizations in October 2020 because of a lack of credible evidence that it continued to exist. Turkish police arrested him in August 2016 on charges of being a “terrorist” and kept him in detention or under house arrest.
The arrest warrant for a second suspect, Hebibulla Ürümci, said he acted as an intermediary in transferring money from a spy named Alimjan to Memeteziz. It also indicated that Ürümci collaborated with Memeteziz in Pakistan and made multiple international trips, according to Turkish media.
Hashim Sabitoğlu, the third man arrested, recently traveled to Saudi Arabia under the guise of making an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city for Muslims, but instead met with Chinese intelligence operatives. Memeteziz received payments from China through Hashim under the guise of business funds.
Abdullah Nasir, the fourth suspect, was reported to have continuously met with a Chinese intelligence officer named Zhong Xuegang, who identified himself as a Chinese consulate officer.
Nasir was said to have stayed with Zhong in a hotel in Bursa, a city in Turkey about 92 kilometers (57 miles) south of Istanbul. Nasir was also acquainted with a spy named Alimjan and had a significant number of passport records on file, Turkish media said.
Memeteziz was assigned to gather information about Uyghurs in Syria by using Abdullah, an employee at a Uyghur bakery in Zeytinburnu, a working-class area on the European side of Istanbul.
When RFA contacted Abdullah – the bakery worker, not the suspect Abdullah Nasir – he said he didn’t know Memeteziz but mentioned someone from Kargilik who visited the bakery every two or three days, trying to gather information about Uyghurs in Turkey and in other countries.
“He would chat with me while buying naan,” Abdullah said, referring to Uyghur flatbread. “One day, he mentioned wanting to help people in need and asked if there were any religious kids from Kargilik. He asked me to let him know if I knew any. I told him I didn’t know any.”n
“I can’t confirm if he’s a spy because there’s a lot of gossip in the community,” Abdullah said. “I did’t have a close relationship with him. He didn’t live in Zeytinburnu, and he told me he was coming from the Aksaray area to buy naan.”
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Arslan Tash for RFA Uyghur.
In the age of disinformation and artificial information, Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post (WaPo) manages to have some credibility. After its February 22 editorial, “Mr. Xi is tanking China’s economy,” Jeff Bezos would be wise to sell the newspaper. If those who lead the Editorial Board make childish mistakes and recite obvious falsehoods, can anyone believe in what they read?
Before scolding WAPO’s spurious description of Xi’s world, in which none of the charges are backed with proof, permit the presentation of one of the most serious errors in journalism history. Doubtful the WaPo staff will ever recover from this faux pas. The editorial states:
China recorded a respectable 5.2 percent economic growth rate last year, but the real rate is lower when adjusted for falling prices. Rather than being an economic juggernaut, China seems likely to be entering a period of deflation, the sorts of conditions that led to Japan’s “lost decade.”
Having the real rate of growth to go down with deflation is equivalent to having an auto slow down when the gas pedal is more heavily pressed. How many hands, eyeballs, and minds at WAPO did not know that “inflation occurs when nominal GDP is higher than real GDP and deflation happens when real GDP is higher than nominal GDP.”
Real GDP= Nominal GDP/R
where: GDP=Gross domestic product
R=GDP deflator (R<1 during deflation and >1 during inflation)
Examine the opening paragraph:
For the past decade, Americans have worried increasingly about China, not least because Chinese President Xi Jinping has centralized power, silenced critics, stalled private-sector reforms and taken an increasingly combative posture toward the rest of the world
Saying that Xi Jinping silenced critics, without specifying who and how is meaningless. To gain office, all politicians try to overcome critics. A good politician silences critics. China is different; the government runs on consensus, and when a decision is made, including who will be president, there are no remaining critics.
Again, without specifying the nature of Xi’s “increasingly combative posture toward the rest of the world?” how can his nature be evaluated? Have the Africans, Latinos, Europeans, Eskimos, and most of Asia found Xi combative or does the WaPo editorial board think Washington is the world?
Instead, Mr. Xi’s China is less free, less prosperous and less competently governed than it would have been had he taken a different course — one not inspired by rivalry with the West or fear of his own people.
“Mr. Xi’s China is less free.”
The intentional insult of replacing President Xi with Mr. XI demeans WaPo.
Western media always considered China devoid of freedom. How can a country be less free when it has always been considered not free? Consider who is setting the criteria and doing the evaluation. If Chinese authorities set the criteria and evaluated freedom in the United States how would they consider freedom of thought in the U.S. after the rise of Trumpism and his cohorts?
“Less prosperous.”
GDP is up 60 percent since Xi’s time in office; how could Xi have made China “less prosperous?”
China GDP (Trillions of US Dollars)
From Trading Economics
“and less competently governed than it would have been had he taken a different course.”
How does anyone know what will happen and what is the different course?” This is speculative speculation, a ridiculous assumption that does not pass the smell test.
Despite Mr. Xi lifting the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions at the end of 2022, construction in China has slowed, manufacturing prices have declined and consumer spending has flattened. China’s stock market has lost $6 trillion in value in three years.
Reciting a decline in manufacturing prices and a flattening of consumer spending, as if they are always negatives, is not clever thinking. If a recession occurred, then they might be a result of an economic decline. No recession has occurred and their relation is due to consumer prices having dropped, maybe due to increased efficiency and productivity. Consumer transactions have increased and the total sales remained static, or did they? Beijing reports contradictory information and data does not indicate a flattening of consumer spending.
Robust consumption has been thriving and helping to underpin China’s economic recovery, while the country is energetically spurring consumer spending to strengthen one of the pillars needed to support high-quality growth. China’s total retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country’s consumption strength, climbed 7.2 percent year on year to reach 47.15 trillion yuan (about 6.63 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2023, an obvious sign of the Chinese people’s growing readiness to purchase.
China Consumer-spending in CNY hundred million
As for the stock market, it lost popularity in 2009, long before Xi Jinping gained the presidential office, exhibited a 100 percent increase in a year after he took the helm, and has been static since then. Nothing significant there.
The last of many spurious remarks
To reduce the falling birthrate, he prefers exhorting young women to stay home and have more babies as their patriotic duty.
Another insulting remark to a nation’s president. Falling birthrate is a problem in all advanced nations, and no country seems to have a solution. A mendacious and callous WaPo distorted Xi’s words. At a recent All-China Women’s Federation meeting, President Xi Jinping told the cadres:
…to “guide women to play their roles in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation” and “in establishing good family traditions.” They should “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and child-bearing” among women, so they can “respond to the aging of the population.”
Big difference between WaPo’s interpretation and the actual spoken words.
The experts on Xi Jinping China follow up the bashing with tools for him to use, and advice on how Xi can extricate himself and his nation from the damage he caused. Imagined failures solicit imagination of how to cure a patient who is not sick. Noting that, since 1978, except for one year during the COVID-19 epidemic, China had no recessions, while the U.S. suffered a recession every ten years, I doubt the Chinese government needs lectures on how to run their economy. China has a major housing crisis, not much different in scope than the 2008 mortgage crisis in the United States. The latter crisis provoked a huge banking crisis and sent the U.S. into a major recession. China’s housing crisis is now several years old and has not provoked a banking or economic crisis.
Describing people in a totally negative manner and not reciting known positive characteristics is biased editorializing. Xi has guided China to become the leading world power outdistancing the U.S. in the more important GDP/PPP.
Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power parity ($Trillions)
Xi probably was not personally involved and criticizing him for “the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions at the end of 2022,” is a subjective appraisal. An objective appraisal mentions his administration’s holding the number of Covid cases to 503,302 and deaths to 5,272 compared to U.S. cases of 111,426,318 and deaths of 1,199,436. Use per capita figures of 90,273 cases/1 million population and 896 deaths/1 million population for China and 333,802 cases/1 million population and 3,582 deaths/1 million population for the United States, and a bright light shines on China’s president.
The WaPo editorial, “Mr. Xi is tanking China’s economy,” is informative. It informs us that WaPo cannot be trusted. It has an agenda and will distort, lie, do somersaults, and deceive its audience to pursue the agenda.
