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Public Opinion: How Can a County Executive’s Family Pay a 10M Yuan Ransom?

Some hot news spread on the Internet on February 10. It was about the ransom of a former county Communist Party Secretary (the highest-ranked official in the county). Huang Dongming,the  former Teng County Party Secretary of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was kidnapped. The kidnappers asked for 30 million yuan (US$4.31 million) in ransom. Huang’s family paid 10 million yuan, but the kidnappers refused to release Huang. Then the family reported the kidnapping to the police who were able to rescue the hostage.

The public focus was on how Huang’s family could afford to pay 10 million yuan. Teng county is a very poor county in China and, on the surface, the officials’ salary is not high at all. Many commentators took it as indication that, in the past, Huang had collected a large amount of illegal money.

Also, several Chinese media reported on February 7 that Zhang Enliang, the former Hegang City Party Secretary in Heilongjiang Province, was accused of taking a bribe of 73 million yuan.

Official corruption is a severe problem in China that the authorities are unable to fix.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 10, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/5-02102023122403.html

Hot Topics | | |   @CS Government/Politics Social Stability

Chinese Scholar: China’s Academia Is Full of Fake and Low Quality Publications

Recently, a report by Li Bozhong (李伯重), published on China’s Tribune of Social Science in 2005, was spread on the Internet. Li discussed his view that despite the fact that Chinese scholars have been publishing many academic papers, most are fake or of low quality.

Li is a famous Chinese economist, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and also a professor at Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In Li’s view, Chinese researchers have ignored both theoretical and foundational research in the academic fields and have focused only on the practical areas of the hot applications of technologies. This is due to the Chinese people’s focus on immediate short-term gain. Hot applications can result in fame and bring money in quickly while the basic research may not yield any fruit for years or decades. As a result, some foreign scholars have said that, except for the papers published by a few trusted serious Chinese scholars, they would not read any papers written by other Chinese authors.

Source: Sina, November 5, 2021
https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1250060497_4a8268d1019011jor.html#/

Hot Topics | | |   Information/Technology

Economy: China’s Internet Celebrity Making Machine Aims at Western Unemployed Young People

China has developed a mature marketing strategy to use Internet celebrities to promote products on the Internet. It is done by the Multi-Channel Networks (MCN’s), or service providers that help (and even finance) video channel owners (Tiktok, YouTube, etc.) to produce and market products for manufacturers. Now these Chinese MCN’s have put their eyes on the Western channel owners to promote Chinese products directly to the people in the U.S. and Europe.

Chinese MCN’s usually identify the channel owners who they believe have the potential to grow big but currently have only a small or mid-sized follower base. They then work with these channel owners to package them, guide them in producing videos, or even produce the videos for them. This allows the MCN’s to control the channel owners at a lower cost before they become Internet celebrities. These MCN’s sign up Chinese manufacturers to let their channel owners sell the products on their channels. Then both the channel owners and the MCNs share the proceeds with the manufacturers.

Now the Chinese MCN’s are applying their business model to the U.S. and Europe. Some Western channel owners have started to see that they make more money from their MCN work than from their regular jobs.

However, there are also cultural challenges. Chinese MCN’s found that, unlike the Chinese channel owners, the Western channel owners do not like to be told what to do. Also the Western channel owners are more willing to settle for a big enough increase in their follower count instead of going ahead full-steam for a bigger target.

Source: Sina, February 9, 2023
https://t.cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/2357213493/8c80393502001d6la

Hot Topics | | |   Economy/Resources

Economy: City Investment Corporations Cannot Pay Their Obligations

In China, many local governments have set up their own investment companies. These companies usually use the land as collateral to get loans from banks to invest or finance the construction of infrastructure projects or government-subsidized housing.

However, due to the collapse of the real estate industry in China, many of these city investment corporations are short of money and some cannot even pay their obligations.

Phoenix Finance reported that in the past year, people buying government-subsidized housing reported the delay (or even failure) of delivery of those houses. This has happened in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province; Qingdao City, Shandong Province; Zhengzhou City, Henan Province; and Baoding City, Hebei Province.

Chengyang District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province provided an apartment subsidy to attract skilled/talented people to come to the city. On a jointly-owned housing program (government pays a portion to reduce the purchase cost for the talent they are bringing in), the talent paid 1.5 million yuan (US$220,000) but the Chengyang Municipal Investment Group did not pay the government portion of 760,000 yuan, and thus the talent could not get an apartment. (After the Phoenix Report, Chengyang Municipal Investment Group said they had gathered enough money to pay for their dues.)

People pointed out that this showed the government has run out of money. These investment companies cannot raise more money because land is no longer hot property – builders are not willing to buy land from the government (thus paying the land transfer concessions) anymore.

Since November 2021, the number of bonds issued by the city investment corporations that missed the payback on the due date has increased from five per month to around 20 per month.

An unconfirmed report said that to sell their apartments, some city investment corporations assigned quotas to their employees and tied it to their annual reviews.

Source:
1. Phoenix, February 2, 2023
https://fengcx.com/news/detail/56084949.shtml
2. Sohu, February 3, 2023
https://www.sohu.com/a/636924623_100162316
3. Sina, February 4, 2023
https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/zqgd/2023-02-04/doc-imyemynm3699818.shtml

Hot Topics | | |   @CS Economy/Resources Government/Politics

Around 10,000 Wuhan Retirees Took to the Streets

On February 8, around 10,000 retirees in Wuhan City, Hubei Province gathered at the municipal building to protest the city’s newly published “Employee Medical Reform” plan.

The plan, effective on February 1, will significantly cut the medical insurance benefits of Wuhan’s 2 million retirees. In the past, the government paid each retiree 286 yuan per month for medical spending , but the new plan only pays 83 yuan, a 70 percent cut. The new plan adds a 500 yuan deductible before any insurance payout. It appears that each person can be reimbursed 4,000 yuan a year, but the reality is only 1,300 yuan. Moreover, many medicines are no longer covered by the insurance.

A WeChat discussion showed that people have demanded that the Wuhan Mayor fix the issue by February 8; otherwise they will hold a large gathering on February 15. If there is no resolution by the end of the month, the retirees will demand that the mayor be impeached.

Police came to the site, but didn’t crack down on the protest. There are unofficial reports that the mayor met with the protesters in the afternoon and later on the city put the new plan on hold.

Source: Aboluo, February 8, 2023
https://www.aboluowang.com/2023/0208/1864549.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Government/Politics Social Stability

Economy: Jiangsu City Coerced Government Employees into Paying 2.5 Billion Yuan in Fines

As many local governments run out of money, one city in Jiangsu Province came up with a creative way to get more money: to impose a hefty fine on those government employees who have taken a part-time secondary job. The city sent special “working groups” to each government unit to check any government employee who “illegally” took on a secondary job. They targeted those people who have skills (so that they were able to get a secondary job), who do not have connections with higher-powers, and who want to have a smooth retirement. Those employees didn’t think it would be a big fine so they co-oporated with the investigation. Then the government fined them from 600,000 yuan (US$ 88,000) to 1 million yuan (US$ 147,000). Many of them depleted their own savings and some even had to borrow money to make the payment.

The city raised 2.5 billion yuan (US $367 million) by using this approach.

Source: Sound of Hope, February 8, 2023
https://www.soundofhope.org/post/694290

Hot Topics | | |   Economy/Resources Government/Politics

The CCP Is Effective in Its International Propaganda Efforts

James Sheen (沈榮欽), is Assistant Professor at York University, Toronto, Canada and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He posted on Facebook that research showed that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) propaganda against the international audience is very effective.

He said some scholars from Yale University and Harvard University conducted some multi-country research to compare the international propaganda of China with the information from the U.S. Of course, the U.S. promotes democracy and China promotes an authoritarian system.

The researchers sampled 19 countries across six continents, ranging from dictatorships and semi-democracies, to democratic countries, with low, medium, and high incomes. On average, after being exposed to the CCP’s propaganda, people who think that China’s authoritarian system is better than the U.S. democratic system has tripled from 16 percent to 54 percent. The percentage is even higher in Africa and Latin America where the CCP has  focused many of ts diplomacy activities. The U.S. propaganda has had a much smaller influence on people.

Source: Facebook, Posting by James Sheen
https://www.facebook.com/Independent.think/posts/10226251784754625

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

China Plans to Carry out Many “Work for Food” Programs

On January 10, China’s National Development and Reform Commission promulgated a newly revised “Management Measures of the National Work for Food Program.” The measure will be implemented on March 1, 2023. People’s Daily published the question and answers that occurred in an interview between an official from the National Development and Reform Commission and reporters.

The program is to ask people to perform labor (for which they will be paid) instead of simply receiving government welfare. It states, “If manual labor can be used then do not use a machine; if work can be done by local people (on welfare) then do not use professional teams.”

To encourage local governments and business entities to offer more “Work for Food” projects, the central government will increase its subsidy from 15 percent of the labor cost to 30 percent.

[Editor’s Notes: Promoting such programs may mean Beijing wants to  manage its welfare system more effectively. It may also indicate: one, that Beijing may need to provide more social welfare to its people; and two, Beijing may be running low on money so it uses the welfare money (which it has to pay anyway) to cover projects that it would need to pay for with money from other sources.]

Source: People’s Daily, February 1, 2023
http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2023/0201/c1001-32616015.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Social Stability