Social Stability – Page 16

Xi Jinping Praises ‘One Country, Two Systems’ while Hong Kong People Flee Faster

On June 30, Xi Jinping, general secretary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrived in Hong Kong to attend a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of its return to China and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Hong Kong. Xi highly praised “one country, two systems” as a good system. However, Hong Kong people refute that Hong Kong no longer has two systems and do not trust CCP. Hong Kong’s economic outlook has become bleak, and a new wave of emigration has begun.

“One country, two systems” means that Hong Kong and mainland China have two different systems. In the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984, it is stated that after Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, China shall, under the principle of “one country, two systems”, ensure that Hong Kong’s own capitalist system and way of life shall remain “unchanged for 50 years”, and will protect Hong Kong people’s rights and freedoms of person, speech, publication, assembly, association and religious belief.

But today, 25 years later, former Hong Kong legislator Raymond Hui told Free Asia that the freedoms that Hong Kong people used to enjoy have been completely taken away under high-handed governance, and that “one country, two systems” has disappeared.

A poll conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong last year showed that nearly 60 percent of the 800 respondents aged 15 to 30 want to leave Hong Kong once they have chances.

Hong Kong’s economic outlook has become bleak over the past 25 years since the handover, the Wall Street Journal reported on the 30th, especially for the younger generation, their life has become much more difficult.

Since 1997, Hong Kong’s real estate prices have risen sharply. Many people cannot afford to buy a house. Young people’s monthly salary is also much less than that in the past. According to official data, the average monthly salary of Hong Kong people aged 20 to 24 in 2019 (the most recent year for which annual data are available) is 25 percent less than that of the same age group in 1994 after adjusting for inflation.

In 2021, the latest year for which full-year data are available, the unemployment rate for people aged 20 to 29 in Hong Kong is 8.1 percent, compared with 5.2 percent for the total population; In 1997, the difference between the two was only 0.6 percentage points.

Some young people in Hong Kong also believe that jobs are being taken away by mainlanders. In 2020, according to recruiting firm Robert Walters Group, about 30 percent of investment banking jobs in Hong Kong were filled by local staff, that was down from 40 percent of two years ago. While 60 percent of the jobs were filled by mainland staff and 10 percent by overseas staff.

Hong Kong resident immigration figures show a net outflow of over 140,000 Hong Kong people in the first three months of this year. And a cumulative net departure of 329,808 people as of April 3 this year, calculated from July 1, 2020 (20 months). In 2022, in February and March alone, the net outflow has reached 99,018 people, in contrast to 11,829 people in the same period last year.

One of the immigration hot spots for Hong Kong people is the United Kingdom, where authorities opened British National Overseas (BNO) visa applications at the end of January last year, allowing BNO passport holders and their families to apply for visas to work, study and live in UK. The British Home Office announced last month the latest data, 2021, a total of 103,900 people applied for BNO visas, of which more than 93% have been approved.

Sources:

1. Epoch Times, June 30, 2022. https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/22/6/30/n13770900.htm

2. Capitalwatch, April 6, 2022. https://www.163.com/dy/article/H49579MR0519ANON.html

Briefings | | July 1, 2022 | Social Stability

Government: Authorities Used the Health Code against People Defending Their Rights

Chinascope pointed out in its analysis, “China’s Zero-COVID Strategy: Part II,” that the communist regime in China has abused the Health Code App, a tool it developed to track people’s COVID-related health condition, so it could control people’s movement. The authorities can use its backdoor access to the app to freeze political dissidents or anyone they don’t like, anywhere and anytime.

A recent incident shows exactly how this abuse has been used.

A few days ago, a few local private banks in Henan Province were reported for massively stealing their customers’ money. They offered high interest rates to attract over 400,000 customers who are now facing the potential loss of a total of 40 billion yuan (US $6 billion). The government that was supposed to oversee the banks claimed that it was not responsible for the loss.

Some people then went to Henan to try to get their money back. To their surprise, they found that their Health Code apps had all been turned Red (in the COVID procedure, it means the phone holder is either a COVID patient or has close exposure to a COVID patient and needs to be quarantined). Henan officials visited those who arrived there and offered them two options: either stay in Henan for quarantine (their code will remain Red and they cannot go out to talk to anyone about their bank account problem) or return home.

Those bank customers who did not go to Henan also found their code had turned Red, which then completely prevented them from travelling, or even going out of their homes.

China.com, the website managed by the State Council’s China Internet Information Center, alleged that it was Henan Province that manipulated the health code of those bank customers even though they were not in Henan.

Public Opinion: Shanghai Entrepreneurs’ Open Letter: Lying Flat and Not Producing Anything

Lately, multiple media have reported that Shanghai entrepreneurs published an open letter in response to the government’s order to resume production. They announced that they will “lie flat.” They will resume work but will not produce anything. They were frustrated with the government’s lockdown of the city for two months. People’s living condition have deteriorated significantly, the government’s credibility has been swept away, the manufacturing orders have been reduced, foreign capital has been leaving China, and exporting goods has become much more difficult.

However, there were questions on the authenticity of this letter since big entrepreneurs have their own channels to share their opinions with high-ranking officials and will not challenge the authorities so openly.

In any case, the letter, regardless of whether it was true, expressed the public opinion that people are dissatisfied with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) policies. The following is an excerpt from the open letter.

Compatriots from Shanghai and across China:

During the two-month-long city lockdown, we were repeatedly threatened by the subdistrict administrative offices (街道办事处), residential Committees (居民委员会), police stations, and unidentified people, for quarantine and door-to-door sterilization, which made us completely sober and even woke us up. We, several business owners and investors living in adjacent areas of Shanghai had to suspend our work, study the situation and reach some initial consensus — to lie flat and clear, resume our work but not do any production!

In response to the impending economic crisis, we would like to announce to society that we have made the following collective decisions:

To abolish redundant departments and streamline operations.
To sell off non-performing assets and prepare for a cold winter of our economy.
To not plan or be unable to hire college graduates in the next few years.
To encourage existing employees to voluntarily reduce their salaries and work together to overcome the difficulties of the times.
To expand overseas markets for rebuilding the domestic economy in the future.

We hope that the CCP’s 20th National Congress will bring us the following:

It is urgent to reform the political system and release the political shackles on economic development.
To punish severely all levels of government and grass-roots officials who violated the law and disregarded public opinion during the COVID prevention and control period, so as to restore the government’s image and rebuild the government’s credit.
To redress wronged cases such as the case against Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu and recover the losses of the wronged entrepreneurs.
To release and redress prisoners of conscience, ideological prisoners, and political prisoners who are the backbone and treasure of the nation.
To release and redress those citizens who were politically and judicially persecuted for speaking out for the people or defending their rights and interests during the pandemic; to clean up the law enforcement team and restore the hearts of the people.
To establish the sanctity of private property and, especially to establish the private residences as freehold (the last refuge of the family).
To return the power to the people, reformulating the Constitution, removing the ban on parties and newspapers, eliminating the privileged class, and abolishing feudal systems such as household registration, political trials, and all other unreasonable systems that violate human morality and conscience.

We are eagerly waiting for entrepreneurs and investors from all over the country, scholars from colleges and universities across the country, elites from all walks of life and industrial and commercial people to express your opinions and support our initiatives and propositions.

Some entrepreneurs and investors in Shanghai

May 30, 2022

Government: Shanghai Authorities – It Is All the Residential Committee’s Fault

During Shanghai’s COVID Control and Prevention news press conference on May 29, authorities said the city has never announced a “lockdown” and therefore does not need to “remove the lockdown and (reopen)” the city.

They also blamed the residential committees (居委会) for locking down the residential buildings and forcing people to stay at home. They said the two months of the Shanghai lockdown was not a government action but rather the result of the residents’ self-management .

The authorities then pointed out:

The residential committee is a self-management organization for the city residents and the residential committee’s actions are based on the residents self-management, not the government’s orders.
Any official order and regulation must be published by the municipal party committee or the municipal government. The residential committee’s announcement only represents the view and action of that residential committee and residents of the neighborhood. The government is not responsible for these actions.
If any residential committee mentions “according to the authorities’ requirements,” if it is not based on an officially issued document with a government seal on it, it is a verbal order and the government does not recognize the claim.

People ridiculed the Shanghai authorities. According to the authorities’ logic, the government didn’t lock down Shanghai, but Shanghai residents voluntarily locked themselves down, stopped their own economy and created all their humanitarian problems for themselves.

Source: China Digital Times, June 1, 2022

民国地平线｜蔡慎坤：谁把上海人当傻瓜？

Hot Topics | | June 3, 2022 | Government/Politics Social Stability

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