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All posts by LLD - 39. page

China’s Most Restrictive Game Ban

Last year, the Chinese government issued an anti-addiction game ban, stipulating that minors can play online games for no more than three hours a week.

According to the Chinese media Yicai, this is the first summer since the implementation of the game ban, also known as the “most restrictive anti-addiction game ban in history.” Normally the summer vacation in China extends from July 11 to August 31. According to the rules, minors can only play games for one hour between 8pm and 9pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This translates into a total of 21 hours of online games during the whole summer.

According to available data from large gaming companies, the share of corporate revenue made from minors has decreased now that the ban has been in effect for nearly one year.

For example, in Q4 2021, after the implementation of real-name registration and facial recognition, the total game time for minors at Tencent decreased by 88 percent from the same period last year. The total traffic of minors decreased by 73 percent annually.

Knowing that some underage players would play the games using the identity of their parents, Tencent claimed that its facial recognition system will come into play in the summer. All adult accounts suspected of being operated by minors will trigger facial recognition during the login and other sessions and the system will start a “round-the-clock patrol.”

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), July 11, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202207110218.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Document: Government Sanctioned Forced Adoption of Illegally Born Children

In the past, when China enforced its family planning policy, parents who had children who were born illegally were often fined. A document that recently circulated on the Internet revealed a policy in which a local government office has taken those “illegal” children away  for “rearrangement.” The document, dated July 1 and bearing the seal of the Health Bureau of Quanzhou County in Guangxi province, is an official response to a petition letter filed by a resident who reported a child abduction case.

The Health Bureau of Quanzhou replied that, according to the family planning policy enforced in the 1990s, the Quanzhou county government made the decision to “select” a child for “rearrangement” if the child was born in violation of the laws or regulations and policies on family planning. It ”was made at the request of the higher authorities, including the Guilin city government and the Guangxi provincial government.”

The document stated that the petitioner’s seventh illegally born child was “carried away by the county for social “rearrangement,” and there was no “child trafficking.” No record was kept of the whereabouts of the child.

A lawyer in Beijing said that if the incident involved a joint effort between law enforcement officers and human traffickers, it could be a crime of trafficking of women and children, which carries a maximum sentence of death.

In the past, similar cases have been reported in China. In 2014, China Youth Daily  and in 2011Caixin Magazine  exposed the forced removal of illegally born babies in Dazhou of Sichuan and Shaoyang of Hunan respectively.

To control population growth, China has had a family planning policy since the 1970s, which for a long time allowed only one child to be born to an average family. However, in recent years, as the birth rate has declined, the country has relaxed the policy several times.  In 2021, It shifted toward encouraging people to have three children.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), July 5, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202207050238.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Chinese Premier: Prevent Incidents that Break the Moral Bottom Line

On June 27, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at an event that, “The population trapped in dire conditions has increased due to the impact of the epidemic and natural disasters.” Li told China’s officials to “detect in a timely manner those people who lost their jobs, those who need to be included in the low-income programs, and those in temporary distress, and prevent the occurrence of incidents that break the moral bottom line.”

Although Li did not specify what the events might be that could “break the moral bottom line,” this is not an often used wording for the premier to use to describe China’s economic difficulties.

Li Keqiang considered that the current economy has recovered to a certain extent, but “the foundation is not yet solid.” He emphasized that, “The unemployment rate should be brought down and controlled as soon as possible.”

The above remarks were made on June 27 when Li Keqiang visited the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 28, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206280409.aspxhat

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Profit of China’s Local State Enterprises Plunged 22.7 Percent in the First Five Months

China’s Ministry of Finance released the economic statistics of state-owned and state-controlled enterprises for the first five months of 2022. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the profit of local state-owned enterprises dropped by 22.7 percent.

Although the revenue of state-owned enterprises from January to May increased by 9.2 percent over the same period last year, the profit of all state-owned enterprises dropped 6.5 percent. Among them, local state-owned enterprises saw a deep profit dive of 22.7 percent.

As of the end of May, the asset and liability ratio of Chinese state-owned enterprises was 64.3 percent, of which the ratio for central enterprises was 67 percent, and 63.0 percent for local state-owned enterprises.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 28, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206280330.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Under Xi Jinping, the Number of Chinese Asylum-seekers Is Increasing. Despite COVID

Figures released by the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR showed that around 12,000 Chinese nationals sought asylum overseas in 2012, the year that Xi took office as CCP general secretary. By 2021 that number rose to nearly 120,000.

According to the release of Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO based in Madrid, Spain, “By 2019, that figure surpassed 100,000, and despite travel restrictions both in China and worldwide, it continued to increase in both 2020 and 2021. Last year, that figure reached nearly 120,000 people. That is ten times the number of asylum seekers the year Xi came to power.”

“In one year of Xi Jinping’s rule, 2021, China had more asylum-seekers than during the last eight years of the rule of his predecessor Hu Jintao.”

“In fact, since 2012 China has seen some 730,000 people seek asylum. Another 170,000+ persons are living outside of China under refugee status. The number of refugees has held steady for a long time (Many of them are Tibetans living in India).”

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 18, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206180103.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

China Further Tightens Online Censorship, Mandating Real Name Commenting

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), recently issued a draft version of the “Internet commenting service management regulations.” The country’s top Internet authority mandates that providers of commenting services shall authenticate the real identity of registered users and shall not provide commenting services to users who have not provided real identity information. The “comment service” refers to the Internet platforms that, by means of posting, reply, messaging and other means, provide users the ability to publish text, symbols, expressions, pictures, audio and video information.

CAC also requires service providers to establish mechanisms to review postings, conduct real-time inspections, and launch emergency responses. The online postings have to be reviewed before being published. Any “illegal and undesirable information” are to be detected, in a timely manner, processed, and reported to the Internet authorities.

CAC also proposed that the service provider establish a user grading system, which conducts a credit assessment of the user’s commenting behavior. Users with serious violations will be blacklisted, deprived of services, and prohibited from re-registering to use commenting services.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 18, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206180106.aspx

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Multinational Corporations Have a Crisis of Confidence in China

The French newspaper Les Échos published an analysis on Multinational companies’ crisis of confidence in China, focusing on the business community’s shock at  the brutal closure of Shanghai. They have been forced to re-evaluate the “China risk” including factors such as the zero-Covid policy, the war in Ukraine and tensions between the US and China.

The analysis says that the closure, as well as the broader disruptions caused by China’s zero-Covid policy, translate into huge economic costs. Foreign companies have massively reduced their forecasts. According to data from the European Union Chamber of Commerce, as of April, 60 percent of European subsidiaries had lowered their business targets for 2022. Production could be suspended at any time, with the epidemic and China’s draconian Covid prevention policies becoming a sword of Damocles hanging over these companies. According to a survey by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, 80 percent of French subsidiaries said that China’s zero-Covid policy is affecting their investment strategy, with 76 percent believing China’s image has deteriorated.

Geopolitics and the growing competition between the U.S. and China are other major long-term factors. Trade wars have complicated the business of multinational companies in China. The war between Russia and Ukraine has abruptly posed new risks. The potential consequences of Beijing’s possible attack on Taiwan could be even greater than that of Western companies’ retreat from Russia. In addition, companies are weighing the effect of the rise of local competitors, increased regulatory restrictions and the reputational risk of doing business in China due to Western condemnation of issues such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Many factors are prompting these companies to reassess their long term “China risk.”

Source: Radio France International, June 21, 2022
https://rfi.my/8WHA

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xi Jinping Criticizes Chinese Universities for Faking Employment Data

China has a record 10.76 million fresh college graduates this year, but the economy is under huge downward pressure due to Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 epidemic control. According to the government statistics, the national urban unemployment rate reached 6.1 percent in April, indicating there is tremendous unemployment pressure. Xi Jinping recently visited a college in Sichuan Province and expressed concern over employment issues.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi said that the employment data should reflect the real situation. “Some schools, while in pursuit of a high employment rate, falsify the data by coercing the graduates to sign an employment contract regardless of their will.” Xi

stressed, “We cannot fool the higher authorities, let alone the students.”

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 14, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206140124.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources