Briefings – Page 369

Beijing’s Intensified Control over China’s Higher Education

A Duowei News article put together information about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) practices of tightened control over the nation’s higher education.

At the beginning of 2019, for the first time, the Chinese media reported a case of the CCP Central Disciplinary Committee intervening in the personnel appointment at a Chinese university. Observers believe that this is a new signal that the CCP is strengthening its discipline and supervision of its universities. Days later, at a Provincial and Ministerial Leadership Seminar on January 21, 2019, Xi Jinping emphasized ideological risk when talking about the “seven major risks.” The two incidents point to the same group in the population – China’s youth. The article gave a list of CCP actions at China’s universities.

In April 2013, the CCP General Office’s “No. 9 Document,” or Bulletin on Current Ideological Situations, issued a warning that there was an ideological crisis in China’s higher education system.

On August 19, 2013, the China National Propaganda and Ideological Work Conference identified Chinese universities as “important areas and as having forefront positions in ideology.”

In October 2014, the CCP General Office issued a document that Chinese universities should “adhere to the core leadership position of the Party committee” and that “the Party committee has the overall leadership of the school’s work.”

In June 2017, the CCP Central Committee inspection teams pointed out problems that existed in 14 Centrally Controlled Universities (CCU’s) including Peking University and Tsinghua University. The problems are that “the Party’s leadership has weakened” and that “the core role of the Party committee is not fully functional.” The Central Committee demanded that a comprehensive rectification occur in order to correct all the universities.

In August 2018, it was reported that the Chinese-foreign joint venture universities would be required to set up a Party branch.

In China the CCP Central Committee directly manages a group of 31 so-called Centrally Controlled Universities (CCUs), or colleges and universities. The CCU’s party secretary and president are directly appointed by the CCP Central Committee, instead of the Ministry of Education, and rank at the deputy minister level. It is generally believed that the 31 CCU’s are the top universities in China, including Tsinghua University and Peking University.

Source: Duowei News, February 1, 2019
http://news.dwnews.com/china/news/2019-02-01/60116265.html

Briefings | | February 7, 2019 | Government/Politics

EU May Ban Huawei Equipment to Please the U.S.

Well-known Chinese news site Sohu recently reported that, according to four European Union officials, the European Commission is considering amending the 2016 network security law in order to stop EU companies from using Huawei’s next generation mobile network equipment. Anonymous sources said this plan is still in an early stage but good enough to demonstrate a “change in the EU position.” Apparently, this will please the United States. However, the new policy will face difficulties in real life even if it gets established, as some of the countries, such as Germany, have already issued their 5G permits. At the moment, most of the EU countries, except Britain, Germany, France, and Poland, do not have a ban on Huawei products. Interestingly, Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia hold the vast majority of the global 5G market. The United States doesn’t even have a presence there.

Source: Sohu, January 31, 2019
http://www.sohu.com/a/292577089_334198?scm=1002.0.0.0

Briefings | | February 7, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology US-China Relations

Caixin: Chinese January Manufacturing PMI Reached Three-Year Low

Well-known Chinese financial site Caixin recently released its official Chinese Manufacturing PMI index number for January, which was 48.3. The January PMI number was the lowest for the manufacturing sector since March 2016. The new orders sub-index showed another month of decline, especially on the domestic demand side. Exports saw an increase and experts expressed their belief that the rebound was the direct result of the temporary pause of the China-US trade war. The January number also indicated that the manufacturers have been reducing head counts and unemployment has gotten worse. In the meantime, raw material prices and consumer product prices have both dropped. The Caixin report expected a continued slowdown of the Chinese economy. Caixin PMI is a well-respected economic indicator monitored globally by financial institutions. PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) is an indicator of financial activity reflecting purchasing managers’ acquisition of goods and services. A PMI number below 50 typically reflects a decline.

Source: Caixin, February 1, 2019
http://pmi.caixin.com/2019-02-01/101376926.html

Briefings | | February 6, 2019 | Economy/Resources

China Faces Pension Deficit

National Business Daily reported that, according to China’s Social Security Annual Report for 2016, several provinces in China had a negative cash flow in their pension fund accounts (they received lower pension contributions than the amount of pension distributions). Heilongjiang Province not only had a negative cash flow for 2016; it also depleted all of its previous pension fund savings. Its pension fund has a debt of 23.2 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion).

The number of provinces with net negative cash flow increased from six in 2015 to seven in 2016, including Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Hebei, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Hubei, and Qinghai.

According to the China Pension Actuarial Report 2018-2022, without counting the government’s subsidy, the total of pension contributions for all employees working in companies would be short of 256.2 billion yuan (US$38.4 billion) in 2018 and will be short of 533.6 billion yuan (US$80 billion) in 2022.

Some southern provinces, such as Guangdong Province, still have a huge surplus. Thus, some scholars have suggested using the southern provinces’ surplus to cover the northern provinces’ deficit.

China’s pension system is a pay-as-you-go system, requiring employers to contribute a maximum of 20 percent of employees’ earnings to cover the basic pension while the employees contribute eight percent of their earnings for a second-tier pension.

Source: National Business Daily, January 21, 2019
http://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2019-01-21/1293179.html

Briefings | | February 6, 2019 | Economy/Resources

BBC Chinese: The CCP Faces Nine Challenges to Its Political Security

BBC Chinese recently reported that, entering the year 2019, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is steering into high political risk zones. The article summarized these critical risks using nine points. The top challenge is the reduced economic growth, which is on the borderline of the “tipping point.” The second risk lies in the rapidly expanding gap between the rich and the poor population. The growing and stubborn powerful and special interest groups present the third challenge. That risk is followed with failing rural villages as well as more and more homeless people in the city. The fifth challenge is a society that is, considering several different standards, highly divided. The sixth challenge is that the Internet brings everyday citizens a new political landscape. Tension among ethnic groups in China is now at a dangerous level, so the seventh risk is now quickly becoming a risk that will split the nation’s unity. On the eighth note, widespread corruption is everywhere and more and more people are losing faith in the ruling party. Finally, China’s geopolitical situation has worsened a lot in the past few years. The international pressure has transformed and affected the domestic political environment. All these risks interact with one another and are forming serious challenges for the administration.

Source: BBC Chinese, January 31, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-47079653

Briefings | | February 6, 2019 | Government/Politics

By 2022, Every Chinese Will “Own” Two Surveillance Cameras

According to a report that the market research institute IDC released on January 30, the deployment of video surveillance cameras in China will reach 2.76 billion units by 2022. With nearly 1.4 billion Chinese, on average, each person will “own” two surveillance cameras. The report also said that, in the next few years, China will spend another $30 billion on improving the technical capabilities of tracking activities .

China has become the world’s largest market for security and surveillance technology. Research firm IHS Markit predicts that China will purchase three-quarters of the servers used for facial recognition in video footage.

In recent years, with the advancement of smart city projects, the public video surveillance network has achieved rapid development. At present, facial recognition systems have been deployed in streets and alleys across China, recording every move that the people make. The government calls it a “smart city.” China has also built the world’s largest video surveillance system, which can accurately identify a pedestrian’s age, gender, and dress.

After the completion of China’s huge video surveillance system “Skynet Project,” another “Bright-as-Snow Project” targeting rural areas started last year and, for the first time, was included in the “No. 1 Document” of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. A Guangdong company launched a monitoring system for the “Bright-as-Snow Project,” which uses home TVs and smart phones to deliver surveillance videos to the house.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 4, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/ql1-02042019104522.html

Briefings | | February 5, 2019 | Information/Technology

RFA: Safety of China’s Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants Is Questioned

Radio Free Asia reported that China claims that its new round of nuclear power construction will use domestic technology. On Thursday, January 31, the authorities approved the construction of four nuclear power plants in Huizhou, Guangdong and Zhangzhou, Fujian.They are expected to use the “Hualong No. 1” technology, which is known as independent research and development. However, some experts have questioned whether this so-called domestic technology was actually derived from a bankrupt U.S. company.

The Hong Kong Public Professionals Alliance has been following the safety of nuclear power plants in mainland China. Its policy spokesman, Li Guangde, told RFA that, although China claims to have independently developed the “Hualong No. 1” technology, in fact, Westinghouse Electric AP1000 technology developed its prototype before it filed for bankruptcy. Although the China Nuclear Safety administration approved these technologies, there has never been a disclosure of the technical documents and there has been no public participation in the approval process. According to Li, China is well aware that, in its future energy strategy, the focus is on renewable energy, including solar energy and hydropower. China already has this type of infrastructure, which is not fully used. The nuclear power industry could represent a big interest group, Li said, the battle between renewable energy and nuclear power will continue.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 1, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/gf1-02012019100816.html