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Briefings - 196. page

In 2020, China Signed $255.54 Billion in New Foreign Contracts

On September 9, the Ministry of Commerce published a report which stated that, in 2020, China signed US$255.54 billion in new foreign contracts with 184 countries and regions around the world. It made US$155.94 billion in contract revenue mainly in Asian and African markets.

The report also highlighted that 1) over 80 percent of the contracts were in Asia and Africa where new contracts accounted for 56 percent and 26.6 percent of the total revenue respectively. 2) Over half of the total contract revenue came from belt and road countries. In 2020, new contracts signed by Chinese companies in 61 countries along the “Belt and Road” amounted to US$141.46 billion which accounted for 55.4 percent of the total. The completed contract revenue was US$91.12 billion,  which was 58.4 percent of the total. 3) Over 75 percent of the foreign contracts are in infrastructure, architecture, electrical engineering and petrochemical. 4) The number of newly signed major foreign contracted projects increased. There were 904 major contracts worth over US$50 million, up by ten compared with 2019. Among those, 514 were contracts over US$100 million, an increase of eight compared with 2019.

Source: Central News Agency, September 9, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202109090393.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Cyberspace Administration Shut Down 1,793 Financial Commentators’ Social Media Accounts

On September 8, days after the Cyberspace Administration announced its plan to crack down on independent financial commentators for bad-mouthing China’s economy, it announced that it has identified 2,929 illegal accounts and suspended 1,793 of those accounts. Three of those suspended accounts had over one million followers including one account which had three million followers. The Cyberspace Administration also deleted over 40,000 “harmful postings.”

On August 27, the Cyberspace Administration had announced that it would clamp down on illegally collecting, editing and publishing financial information on commercial websites and self-media. China’s major social medial platforms WeChat, the Baidu Group, Douyin, and Kuaishou immediately announced that they would comply with the official policies and regularly publish their progress reports.

On September 9, the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau released a preliminary report which stated that, as part of the crackdown effort, they have banned 3,187 audio files, films, and programs and closed 53 live broadcast studios.

Source: Tencent QQ, September 9, 2021
https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20210909A03MIN00

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

EU Supports Lithuania Which Is under Beijing’s Sanction

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was angered when Lithuania let Taiwan set up the “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania.” It was the first office in Europe to be called “Taiwanese.” In the past, all of them were called “Taipei.” Beijing recalled its Ambassador to Lithuania and requested Lithuania to do the same. On September 3, Lithuania’s Ambassador Diana Mickeviciene left Beijing after finishing her 21-day forced quarantine there. Diplomats from other European Union (EU) countries gathered to see her off and to express their support for Lithuania.

China Railway Container Corporation stopped railway shipping to Lithuania. Lithuanian exports of agricultural, forestry, and livestock products to China, as well as imports of raw materials and components from China, are all facing obstacles from Beijing.

On September 1, the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee expressed its support for Lithuania in multiple ways: the Committee passed a bill to recommend that Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, should change the name of the “European Economic and Trade Office in Taipei” to the “EU Office in Taiwan.” The Committee also adopted the “EU-Taiwan Political Relations and Cooperation” report, calling for elevating EU-Taiwan “political relations.” It also passed a resolution to support and welcome Lithuania’s establishing the Taiwanese Representative Office and to condemn the CCP’s economic sanctions against Lithuania.

Sources:
1. Epoch Times, September 3, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/9/3/n13208170.htm
2. Epoch Times, September 7, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/9/7/n13217892.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times: In the Battle for Public Opinion, (China) Must Take Firm Control of Communication Network

China’s state media Global Times published an opinion article commenting on how China should win the discourse rights and change the current trend of China’s weak position in international public opinion.

The article stated that “Behind the battle of international discourse rights for public opinion is the battle for the global communication network.”

The article continued, “The ownership of the global communication network is the crisis of politics, news media and ideology. Although the focus of the United States on the current global strategic confrontation is gradually shifting to China, its main work on cyber-public opinion warfare is still to deploy globally and fight on multiple fronts. At the same time, the global data infrastructure is undergoing a new round of periodic turnover. In the global public opinion field, China still has opportunities.”

The article proposed that, “In the future, China’s main countermeasures in participating and leading the global communication network may include the following three aspects. 1). In the current era, the world data center is no less (in importance) than the world shipping center and the financial center were in the past. According to its Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China should further strengthen the 5G network. It should further enhance the construction of the 5G network, data centers and the new generation of infrastructures, including the communication network, emerging information technology, and the computing power hub. 2). China should systematically study the experience of the cultural order’s changes during the rise of the Western powers and the deep logic of the global communication network; it should construct a strategic toolbox and a strategic research subjects group, realize awareness of real-time trends of the global public opinion field, and provide advice on agile decision-making. 3). On the basis of the dual-cycle (domestic and exporting) format of China’s economy, we should build strategic core nodes of supply of culture and promote the re-balancing of the global media and cultural order.”

Source: Global Times, august 17, 2021
https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/44Nu8ydreJ0

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Shortage of Senior Technicians Creates a Bottleneck in Manufacturing

Based on Chinese media, according to its Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China has a shortage of 20 million senior technicians.  Estimates are that the number will hit 30 million in five years.  “Senior technician” is now among the top 100 job categories that are in the shortest supply.

However, according to a  survey, only one percent of workers in China want to be a technician. As many as 90 percent believe that technicians have low social status and low wages because generally, they do not have the education credentials of college graduates.

In China, skilled workers primarily come from migrant workers. As of 2020, nearly 70 percent of the total migrant workers have an education level of junior high school or below. As a result, most technicians in China are low- and middle-level skilled workers.

Senior technicians account for only six percent in China, compared with Japan’s 40 percent and Germany’s 50 percent.

According to the International Labor Organization, of all skilled workers in developed countries, 35 percent are senior technicians, 50 percent are medium level, and 15 percent have a low level of skills.

Such a large gap creates a bottleneck in transforming and upgrading China’s manufacturing industry. Workers’ overall quality and skill level are limiting how scientific and technological developments translate into economic growth.

Sources:

1. Tencent, September 5, 2021
https://new.qq.com/omn/20210905/20210905A00F9000.html

2. China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, July 22, 2021
http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-07/22/content_5626620.htm

3. Sina, June 30, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/roll/2021-06-30/doc-ikqciyzk2770023.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China’s “Aluminum and Iron Ally” Guinea

Since the military coup in Guinea, its relationship with China has received increased attention. Guinea has long maintained good relations with China. During the Presidency of Alpha Condé, Guinea became an important ally of China’s “Belt and Road” project.

China is the main importer of bauxite ore from Guinea, accounting for nearly half of the country’s total imports. Chalco’s (Aluminum Corporation of China Limited) bauxite project in Boffa, Guinea started operation in April 2020. As a result of exploration, the project sees resources of about 1.75 billion tons which will allow mining for up to 60 years. The total investment in the first phase of the project is about US$585 million and the designed capacity is 12 million tons of high-quality bauxite per year.

Simandou in southern Guinea is one of the world’s largest undeveloped high-quality open-pit hematite mines, with proven reserves of 2.4 billion tons and an estimated annual production of 150 million tons at full capacity, although its exploitation has been delayed by legal disputes and corruption allegations.

In November 2019, the Winning Consortium, a consortium led by a Chinese company, obtained 85 percent of the ownership of blocks 1 and 2 in the north of Simandou. In the south, Chinese companies control 40 percent of Blocks 3 and 4.

China imports more than 1 billion tons of iron ore each year. About 60 percent of it comes from Australia and 20 percent from Brazil. Although Simandou’s production seems small, analysts believe China can use it to reduce its dependence on Australia at a time when Sino-Australian relations have hit a freezing point.

The close ties between the two countries made Guinea one of the first countries to receive Chinese vaccine aid this year. Earlier, China was quick to congratulate President Condé after he amended the constitution and was re-elected president in October 2020, despite the opposition’s accusations of electoral fraud.

Source: BBC Chinese, September 7, 2021
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/world-58474966

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China Set up the Beijing Stock Exchange

On September 2, at the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services , Xi Jinping gave a video speech and announced that China would set up its third national stock exchange: The Beijing Stock Exchange.

The exchange was then registered on September 3, with registered capital of 1 billion yuan (US $150 million) and a location on the Financial Street in Beijing. The official position is that while the Shanghai Stock Exchange focuses on established companies and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange focuses on high-tech companies, the Beijing Stock Exchange will serve the small companies.

China started a National Small and Medium Enterprise Stock Transfer System (NSMESTS) in 2013, to let investors trade different small companies. The system enlisted over 7,000 companies in three classifications: basic, innovative, and selective. The selective class is the elite class, with 66 companies and 3.8 billion yuan in trading volume – 65 percent of the total NSMESTS trading volume. China’s Securities and Futures Commission stated that the selective class companies will serve as the foundation for the Beijing Stock Exchange.

An Epoch Times report stated that though the majority of companies on the NSMESTS are privately owned, many of the elite companies (those in the selective class) have state money. One report indicated that out of what was then 52 selective class companies, 33 had state-owned investments among their top ten shareholders. So it is yet to be seen whether the Beijing Stock Exchange is to help raise money for the privately owned small companies or the state-invested small companies.

The article also suggested that Beijing’s current policy is to squeeze money out of its already-too-dangerous real estate bubble and channel it into other capital investments. The Beijing Stock Exchange serves as one option. Beijing wants to make this capital move before the U.S. ends its quantitative easing policy. Afterward, if the Federal Reserve increases the interest rate, money may flow back to the U.S.

Sources:
1. SINA, September 5, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2021-09-05/doc-iktzqtyt4241201.shtml
2. Epoch Times, September 7, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/9/7/n13217782.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

CCP Watchdog: Cut off the Money Line behind the Entertainment Industry

In the headline news on its official website for August 31, 2021, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) stated that the entertainment industry must not harm the state’s interest.  The CCDI article reported on its interview with the State Council Development Research Center. The CCDI is the CCP’s disciplinary watchdog.

The CCP crackdown on the entertainment industry echoes its recent broader clampdown on the private sector. Increasingly Xi Jinping has emphasized the CCP’s dominant role in every aspect of China’s economy and society. The CCP has targeted high-tech, education, and other businesses using fines and restrictions. Private capital has been blamed for contributing to the risks of data breaches, education inequality, the disintegration of the Chinese culture, threatening social stability, harming state security, among other deep seated concerns.

According to the State Council Information Office in 2019, the value-added of China’s entertainment industry reached 4,436.3 billion yuan, accounting for 4.5 percent of China’s GDP.

The CCDI article states that money has been driving the growth and the chaos in the entertainment industry. Investment, entertainment stars, and fans’ consumption culture are part of one chain all led by money. In this chain, investment is the dominant force. It promotes entertainment stars to induce and influence fans’ consumption habits (particularly young people), ultimately eroding the socialist ideology.

“Entertainment is by no means mere singing, dancing, and playing music, but an important battlefield for ideological and cultural work. It is an important part of the superstructure [a Marxist term referring to culture, political power, and the state], and it is critical to Party [CCP] work. If capital is allowed to expand unfettered, entertainment will fail its role of serving the people and socialism, and it will disintegrate the spiritual homeland of the Chinese nation.”

“There are limits to capital expansion. The CCP dominant system has unique advantages so it can fully utilize capital in entertainment while effectively restricting disorderly expansion in the industry. The bottom line is that it cannot interfere with the development direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics;  it cannot manipulate the national economy and the people’s livelihood; it cannot harm state interests; and it cannot corrupt Party members and leading cadres, let alone seek improper political gains.”

Source: The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party, August 31, 2021
https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/toutiao/202108/t20210831_249112.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics