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Briefings - 75. page

Cities in Shandong Province to Consolidate Local Police Stations

Several regions, including Qingdao, Huangdao, Linyi, and Weifang cities, in Shandong Province, have recently announced the consolidation and merger of local police stations. Police stations are a key component of the Chinese Communist Party’s stability control (people control). The move to cut down police stations has sparked discussions among netizens, with some speculating that the move is motivated by local governments’ severe budget shortfalls.

Source: Epoch Times, October 30, 2023
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/23/10/30/n14106030.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Social Stability

Japanese Embassy in China Received 1 Million Harassing Phone Calls

During the two months following the start of wastewater discharge by Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Japanese embassy in Beijing has received approximately 1 million harassing phone calls from within China. The Japanese government asked China to address the situation as it was interfering with the embassy’s normal operations, but the problem persists.

The embassy investigated the calls and found that over 40,000 of them were made on August 25th, the day after discharge into the Pacific Ocean began. The volume of harassing phone calls decreased by the end of August. At present, the embassy is still receiving about 10,000-15,000 such calls per day.

Most of the calls involve verbal abuse, silence, or explicit threats against Japan or the Japanese embassy (e.g. threatening to “blow up [the embassy]”). The embassy documented malicious phone numbers and reported them to China’s public security authorities.

At a Japan-China relations forum on October 20th, Ambassador Hideo Tarumi acknowledged the harassing calls and said “rationality” was needed to advance bilateral relations.

Chinese law stipulates that frequent harassing calls interfering with normal life can incur legal liability.

Source: Kyodo News, October 27, 2023
https://china.kyodonews.net/news/2023/10/80198c16ac64.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

CCP’s Financial Work Conference Emphasizes Risk Prevention

The Central Financial Work Conference was held in Beijing on October 30-31. The meeting, held every 5 years, sets the direction for China’s major financial reforms and policies. This year’s conference comes amid a slumping Chinese economy, real estate crises, local debt issues, and financial sector troubles.

The meeting emphasized strengthening financial supervision to effectively prevent and resolve risks, including establishing mechanisms to address local debt and optimizing government debt structures. It highlighted promoting healthy real estate financing, regulating foreign exchange and maintaining RMB stability, overseeing financial markets to prevent cross-border risk contagion, and coordinating financial regulators.

Xi Jinping delivered an important speech summarizing financial work since 2012, analyzing the financial situation, and laying out current and future policy priorities. The conference also aimed to promote a positive cycle in finance and real estate, strengthen foreign exchange management, prevent financial market risks, and coordinate financial regulators.

The meeting was originally scheduled for 2022 but postponed to this year. The last meeting was held in 2017. According to recent reports, He Lifeng has taken over as director of the CCP Central Finance and Economics Office.

The Central Financial Work Conference is the highest profile meeting on China’s financial system. Held every 5 years since 1997, each conference sets the tone for major financial reforms and policies in China. This year’s meeting comes amid serious economic slump and financial sector instability.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 31, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/10-10312023155932.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

CCP Tried to Prevent Overseas Commentator From Talking About Li Keqiang’s Death

After Beijing announced the former Premier Li Keqiang’s death on October 27, there have been many Internet discussions about whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assassinated Li.

Cai Shenkun (蔡慎坤), the well-known Internet commentator on China’s current affairs who first reported the fall of China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu, implied in a tweet (on platform X) that Li Keqiang’s death was a hit: “Some important sources have revealed the true cause of Li Keqiang’s death, which is truly unbelievable and shocking! In the (CCP’s) fast-moving meat grinder, every person, even so-called high-ranking national officials, is still like ants, utterly lacking in dignity and value!”

On October 31, Cai reported that the CCP asked him to stay silent on Li’s death. His post on platform X said “The CCP is very dissatisfied with me discussing sensitive topics abroad, especially the sudden event involving Li Keqiang. The police from my place of residence came to intimidate me once again, causing deep fear for my family and loved ones! Several friends who have not yet retired also sent messages through intermediaries, advising me not to focus on domestic current affairs, which (they said) would be beneficial to both myself and others.”

Source: NTDTV, October 31, 2023
https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2023/10/31/a103815842.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

After Li Keqiang’s Death, Chinese Communist Party Bans Unofficial Memorial Activities

After the death of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Chinese authorities have moved to prevent protests and unrest. Internet searches for Li Keqiang have been restricted to only return content from official news sources. Many universities received orders prohibiting gatherings and limiting memorial tributes. By the evening of Li’s death, some people had visited Li’s former residence to lay flowers.

The news of Li’s death was announced October 27 and quickly trended online. However, despite 2.24 billion reads on Weibo, only 609,000 comments remained on the Weibo post, showing self-censorship. Only condolences appeared in comments; other posts were deleted. Official accounts disabled comments. Foreign embassies’ condolences were also blocked. On WeChat and Baidu, only official media appeared in searches regarding Li Keqiang.

Messages showed several universities were ordered to ban student gatherings honoring Li. Notices from Shanghai Jiaotong and other schools ordered monitoring of memorial activities, banning gatherings, and reporting to authorities. The Hainan University Student Union was told student leaders could only repost the official obituary with the text “In Memory of the Former Premier.” Online or offline group memorial activities were prohibited.

When former leader Hu Yaobang died in 1989, gatherings to mourn him led to demands for democratic reforms and eventually the Tiananmen Square protests. Chinese authorities aim to prevent any similar unrest after Li Keqiang’s death through censorship and banning public memorials.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), October 27, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202310270339.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Sing Tao: Nomura Re-examines Its China Strategy

Primary Hong Kong news media Sing Tao News Group recently reported that leading Japanese securities firm Nomura is re-examining its Shanghai joint venture strategy as its business losses in China continue to worsen. The firm’s subsidiary Nomura Orient International Securities (NOIS) has followed the lead of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in terms of its shrinking footprint in China: management reorganization and layoffs have occurred, and many employees have resigned. In the meantime, Nomura has cut loose about 10 Hong Kong-based investment bankers, including some who focused on China-related deals. The Hong Kong layoffs were announced very recently and affected both junior and senior bankers, including managing directors and executive directors. Kenji Teshima, chairman of Nomura’s China Business Committee, said that now is a good time to review and re-evaluate the business.

China’s Zero Covid restrictions during the pandemic seriously affected the business’ expansion during that time. More recently, the market environment has undergone major changes that affect Nomura’s operation in China. The profitability of NOIS has continuously deteriorated since its establishment at the end of 2019.

According to available documents, the losses of NOIS more than doubled last year. Although the organization’s client list and assets under management continued to grow, successive years of losses have caused concerns among Nomura’s partners. Moreover, many department heads working for NOIS have resigned since the beginning of this year, including the heads of wealth management, compliance and risk management.

Source: Sing Tao, October 26, 2023
https://std.stheadline.com/realtime/article/1960012/

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Geo-Strategic Trend

China Quickly Removes the Word “Emigrate” from Search Rankings

According to a recent report by Taiwanese news site NewTalk, there was a recent surge of search volume for the word “emigrate” on China’s top social media network WeChat. Volume surged by 1,156 percent, with an astonishing 510 million searches in one day. A few days later, the term “emigrate” (移民, also translated as “migrate”) was directly deleted from the WeChat Index, demonstrating China’s authoritarian control and the fear it has of its own people.

WeChat’s search index, based on big data collected by the company, represents the change in popularity of a certain keywords on WeChat. As early as when China first implemented the Zero Covid policy, many people began searching for terms related to emmigration, and the keyword’s popularity in WeChat increased rapidly, exceeding 100 million searches. Later during the White Paper Protests near the end of 2022, people’s desire for physical mobility became even stronger, with the WeChat Index recording 116 million searches. China’s economic difficulties have led to more and more Chinese people being dissatisfied with their living conditions.

Although the Chinese authorities attempted to remove terms related to migration from the supported vocabulary of WeChat’s hot-search system, this amounts to nothing more than an act of self-deception; the population’s dissatisfaction with the government will not disappear just because the word “emigrate” has been deleted from the search index.

Source: Newtalk, October 25, 2023
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2023-10-25/893847

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology Social Stability

China News: China National Data Bureau Open for Business

China News recently reported that the newly established China National Data Bureau officially opened for business on October 25. Below are some key excerpts from the article:

The main responsibilities of this ministry-level organization are to promote the construction of data infrastructure systems, to coordinate the integration, sharing, development and utilization of data resources, and to establish Digital China, Digital Economy, and Digital Society.

Data has been playing an increasingly important role in China’s national economic and social development. Data as a critical resource should be managed by a central ministry. At present, the scale of China’s digital economy has developed significantly. In 2022, it has reached RMB 50.2 trillion (US$6.86 trillion), accounting for more than 41 percent of the Chinese GDP, and the total volume ranked second in the world.

The Bureau will focus on improving China’s data infrastructure, which is still “hard infrastructure” based on traditional information network infrastructure and digital infrastructure designs. However, based on the characteristics of the industrialization of data elements, the second “soft infrastructure” level should include well-coordinated standards, specifications, tools, etc. This is a key point in entering the data digitization stage. More importantly, for certain industries where the data scale is relatively large, the data quality is relatively high, and the data potential is relatively rich, a data space must be established to form a new data infrastructure from bottom to top, to support the industrialization of data use.

Source: China News, October 27, 2023
https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2023/10-27/10101575.shtml

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Information/Technology