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COVID Is Back in China

A new wave of COVID, led by the XBB variant, is spreading in China. Zhong Nanshan (钟南山), a Chinese government endorsed COVID expert, stated this week that this wave – the second COVID pandemic in China – started in late April. He said the simulation model showed it will reach its peak by the end of June and by then each week there will be 65 million people who got infected. There were 5 million people infected each week in the U.S. during its worse time in 2022. Zhong mentioned this wave was expected.

Beijing has been low-key in reporting the second COVID wave, since it has been focusing on stabilizing its economy.

Source: Voice of America, May 26, 2023
https://www.voachinese.com/a/china-faces-a-new-covid-wave-that-could-peak-at-65-million-cases-a-week-052523/7108934.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Chinese Lung Transplant Doctor Revealed Organ Harvesting Secret

Chen Jingyu (陈静瑜) and her team published a paper on China’s lung transplantation in JAMA Network Open, a publication under the Journal of the American Medical Association  (JAMA). Chen’s Lung Transplant Center in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, claimed this as the first time that Chinese lung transplant clinical data has been accepted by a top international journal. Chen is known as “the number one doctor in China’s lung transplants.”

Chen excitedly posted the news on WeChat and Weibo on May 8. She stated, “For a long time because we used organs from death row prisoners, the foreign (medical community) boycotted the organ transplantation in China because of ethical issues… In 2015, China fully implemented organ donation from people under heart and brain death. The organs of citizens with brain death have become our only source for organs. There is much gratitude for the 6,000 or so cases of organ donations each year in our country, which have allowed us to go global with lung transplants.”

Chen’s statement admitted two things: One: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long taken organs from death row inmates. Two: China is using organs from “brain-dead” people, not the “heart-brain-dead” people as the CCP ostensibly claimed.

Whether “brain-death” is considered real death is debatable in the medical community, since a “brain-dead” person can still keep breathing and has a heartbeat under medical equipment for a while. “Heart-brain-death” is fully dead.

China does not have a law on “brain-death.” Its definition of death in the Criminal Law is in line with the definition of “heart-brain-death.” Therefore, using organs from “brain-dead” people is illegal according to China’s own law.

China has been using the “Primary Brainstem Injury Impactor” device, invented by Wang Lijun, the former Vice Mayor and Public Security Chief of Chongqing. It is capable of precisely creating brainstem death without damaging other brain tissues or other organs. This invention was patented by China’s State Intellectual Property Office in 2012 under the patent number CN 202376254 U.

Source: Epoch Times, May 22, 2023
http://cn.epochtimes.com/gb/23/5/22/n14001686.htm

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics Social Stability

Leaked Meeting Minutes Showed Kunming City Investment Companies Are Running Out of Money

An article, said to be the minutes of an internal meeting of Kunming City Investment Companies, was widely spread on the Internet. The triggering event for the meeting was that Kunming Land Investment Company struggled to pay back a 200 million Yuan (US$28) debt which was due on May 19. Kunming is the capital city of Yunnan Province and is supposed to be the richest city in Yunnan.

A few highlights of the minutes are:

To help Kunming Land Investment Company make its payment, Kunming city gave 130 million Yuan from its fiscal budget. The investment company itself raised 35 million Yuan, and Kunming Land Reserve Investment Company provided 40 million.

Collectively, city investment companies in Kunming have 20 billion Yuan in debt due in the second half of this year. Kunming city does not have the money. The Yunnan Province government might have some money, but a Deputy Governor already stated that the province will not rescue every company.

The Deputy Major of Kunming led three chairmen of three investment companies, including Kunming Industry Investment Company, Kunming Urban Investment Company, and Dian Investment Company, to Shanghai on May 20 and 21. They were to ask Shanghai Urban Investment Company to transfer some money – Shanghai was tasked to provide Yunnan Province with financial support (several hundred billion Yuan each year), but it didn’t transfer money last year.

The Kunming city government has gathered all the money it can gather from its investment companies. If there is another debt crisis, the city has no money and no means but to issue new debt.

All loans (to Kunming city investment companies) that can be extended have already been extended. Principle and interest payments on fixed asset loans have all been deferred. Kunming Transportation Investment Company, Kunming Production Investment Company, Kunming Land Investment Company, Kunming Rail Transit, and Kunming Urban Investment Company have already accomplished this extension.

Source:
1. Pingcong website
https://pincong.rocks/question/58589
2. Net Ease, May 23, 2023
https://www.163.com/dy/article/I5EBF1QL0519B61A.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Economy/Resources Government/Politics

Hi-IQ Crimes Are Surging in China

An Internet article talked about how the current economic downfall in China has caused a spike in crimes, many of which are high intelligence crimes.

According to official numbers, 30 key cities in China have taken in more than half of China’s total fiscal income. Among these 30 cities, except Beijing, Shenzhen (in Guangdong Province), and Chengdu (in Sichuan Province), all other cities had poorer housing sales in April than a year ago. More than half of these cities saw that the total square footage sold dropped 30 percent or more.

Many other products are also having had difficulties being sold and their inventories have skyrocketed. Huawei and its subsidiary Honor have 10 million mobile phones in stock. BYD cars are piled in garages. Jiuguijiu, a famous strong Chinese liquor containing around 50 percent alcohol, currently  has over 1,000 tons of liquor in stock, while its annual sales in 2022 was just 1,147 tons.

The economic problem has led to a surge in crime. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate published its first quarter data, showing that the procuratorate system approved the arrest of 10,923 people for crimes of fraud in this period. It also sued 18,146 people in court on fraud charges, making fraud crime the fifth largest crime type in the first quarter. This implied that there were at least 100,000 criminal cases brought to court in the first quarter.

Searching the key words of “government” or “bank” on the People’s court website returned many results. This indicates that many local governments or banks have defaulted.

The websites for crimes of fraud have frequently been updated in terms of their styles and content, expanding from telemarketing fraud, financial fraud, and loan fraud to senior housing fraud, medical insurance fraud, and collectible fraud. Many fraud rings are well organized, with a clear division on work and strict hierarchical management. Criminals have evolved from using only the telephone to using the Internet, and even Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data analysis.

Source: VCT News, May 10, 2023
https://vct.news/news/d879a7cc-eaa4-4ea9-96f4-26d5ba2a95ec

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Why Did Russia Offer the Vladivostok Port to China?

Recently, Russia announced an offer of the port of Vladivostok, its most important unfrozen port in the Far East, to China as an internal port. Russia claimed that it has completed the preparation for China’s mass shipping needs.

China plans to  open the port officially on June 1. It hopes this will boost the economy at the Northeastern provinces, especially for Heilongjiang and Jilin, which have no access to the sea and have to transport their goods entirely over land, or partially to the port of Dalian and then ship them over the sea. Once Vladivostok becomes available, they can transport their goods to this seaport first (which is at a much shorter distance) and then ship the goods out. Also China’s foreign trade goods can go through Vladivostok without tariffs and other taxes.

One analysis said that Russia previously planned to develop its Far East region with Japan and South Korea as partners.  It was afraid that China might dominate the Far East as its power grows. However, this plan didn’t get very far. Now Russia finally agreed to offer it to China, showing it truly takes China as its best partner in developing the Far East. This will also trigger more trade between China and Russia.

Some people suggested that Russia has been forced to give China Vladivostok. Being that it is suppressed and sanctioned by the West for its invasion of Ukraine, Russia can only look east and rely on China.

Following this model, Russia may also open a seaport on the Japan Sea to the Chinese navy, allowing China to set a foot into the Japan Sea and counterbalance the U.S., Japanese, and Korean naval forces.

Some background information is that China’s history claims that Vladivostok, whose Chinese name Haishenwai (海参崴), was under the Qing Dynasty’s rule and was ceded to Russia in 1860 as the Qing government was no military rival to Russia.

Sources:
1. Sohu, May 18, 2023
https://www.sohu.com/a/676627195_121470982
2. Net Ease, May 16, 2023
https://www.163.com/dy/article/I4SQNHJC05561Y1A.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Massive Price Reduction on Pre-Owned Houses Is Expected

The week of May 1 (China’s Labor Day) used to be one of the hottest real estate sales weeks. However, this year, the sales volumes of both new houses and pre-owned houses have been low. For example, among the largest four cities with the highest housing prices in China, only 13,928 pre-owned housing units were sold in Beijing in April, a drop of 37 percent from the 22,192 units in March. Shanghai dropped by 27 percent and Guangzhou and Shenzhen were down by 14 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

On the other hand, a number of pre-owned housing units have kept coming on the market. Shanghai has around 200,000 units listed for sale. Approximately 13,000 units have been added each week for the past two months. However, only 17,000 units were sold in the entire month of April.

China had 606,000 foreclosed housing units auctioned off in 2022, an increase of 35.7 percent from 2021. Unlike the U.S. where a person can stop makjng payments on his mortgage and owe the bank nothing after declaring bankruptcy, Chinese law says that even if a person chooses to declare  bankruptcy or stop making payments on his mortgage, he is still liable for the remaining debt. Therefore, once a person is unable to make his mortgage payment, not only does he lose the down payment on his house as well as the subsequent payments, but he still has to pay the remaining debt and will be put on many spending restrictions until he clears his debt. This tough law gives people a great incentive to sell their house instead  of declaring bankruptcy if they do not want to continue their mortgage payments. China announced on April 25 that it implemented a nationwide real estate registration. Many people felt this was a step to prepare for adopting a real estate property tax, which is bad news to those who own many properties.

The “landlord tax” even came out faster than the property tax. Three provinces including Hebei, Hunan, and Yunan piloted the tax last year. The government will collect a 10 percent tax on rent if an individual rents out part of his own residence and 20 percent tax on rent from a non-residence.

All these factors will drive more people to sell their houses. A price reduction is unavoidable.

Source: VCT News, May 15, 2023
https://vct.news/news/f26f9d83-7acb-4ebc-99dc-88c82ffb3bd1

Briefings | | |   @CS Economy/Resources

Departing World Bank President: China Refused to Restructure Debts for Developing Countries

David R. Malpass, the departing President of the World Bank, told Bloomberg that, though the World Bank provided super-low interest rate loans to the developing countries facing debt payment challenges, those countries’ debt problems have not been resolved since China refused to restructure their debts.

Over seventy low-income countries accumulated US$326 billion worth of debt in total. Half of these countries, including Zambia, Ethiopia, and Ghana, are already unable to pay their debts or are about to be in that state soon. Zambia’s debt must be restructured (as it could not pay it back following the current terms), Seventy-five percent were from Beijing.

Source: Epoch Times, May 9, 2023
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/23/5/9/n13991783.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

The Chinese Government Refused to Help Its Citizens Who Were Kidnapped to Work as Slaves to Conduct Telemarketing Fraud

Some Chinese and Taiwanese were enticed to go to Southeast Asian countries for work and were then kidnapped there and forced to conduct telemarketing fraud against the Chinese people. Recently Little Chen, a man trapped in Myawaddy, Myanmar, called Radio Free Asia (RFA) to help. An RFA reporter spent a month attempting to contact various authorities in China to request help for him, but not a single office extended a hand.

Little Chen was from Hunan Province. He and two other fellow Hunan residents were sold by kidnappers to the East Wind Park in Myawaddy. He said that over 1,000 Chinese were working as slaves at that park. The slave master asked for US$30,000 to give him his freedom, but his family did not have the money. The slaves were closely monitored and were not allowed to contact their family members or friends for help.

Somehow Little Chen’s friend managed to contact his family in Hunan. His family reported the situation to the Hunan police, but the police took no action and instead, asked him to come back to China and warned that he would face criminal charge if he did not come back soon.

An RFA reporter tried to contract China’s Embassy at Myanmar, but none of the calls to listed public phone numbers went through. The reporter then contacted the Hunan Provincial Police Bureau, but the officer there rejected the request for help. The reporter contacted the office of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was told to contact the diplomat security bureau. The reporter contacted the diplomat security bureau, but the bureau staff said this was not their responsibility. The reporter contacted China’s Embassy in Thailand, since Thailand was just next to Myawaddy. The embassy referred the reporter to contact the Chinese Consulate General in Chiang Mai. The consulate told the reporter they knew that many Chinese were trapped in Myanmar, but said it was outside their scope. Only if those Chinese came to Thailand could they help. However, they do not suggest that they cross the Thai border since that is illegal. The reporter asked the progress of the joint effort to clean-out the telemarketing fraud by China, Myanmar, and Thailand; but the consulate staff said there is no such thing at all.

Little Chen has been losing his hope.

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 5, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/myanmar-05052023125339.html

Briefings | | |   @CS Government/Politics Social Stability