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For the first time, US Sanctioned Head of 610 Office for Persecuting Falun Gong

On May 12, the State Department announced a sanction against Yu Hui. Yu Hui is the first director of the 610 office for the U.S. to sanction publicly. [Editor’s Note: The 610 office, named after the date of its creation on June 10, 1999—is an extralegal police task force responsible for carrying out the mission of eliminating Falun Gong.] This is also the first time, since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started suppressing Falun Gong in 1999, that the U.S. government has named and sanctioned a CCP official because of the Falun Gong issue.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press briefing, “We will continue to consider all appropriate tools to promote accountability for those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in China and elsewhere.” He then announced the release of the department’s annual report on international religious freedom, which cited arbitrary arrests, house raids, societal discrimination, and the forced harvesting of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners. Blinken said the designation was applied to Yu for his involvement in “gross violations of human rights, namely the arbitrary detention of Falun Gong practitioners for their spiritual beliefs.”

On December 10, 2020, the U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on 17 foreign current and former government officials for serious human rights violations. One of them was Huang Yuanxiong, a police chief from the Wucun Police Station of the Xiamen Public Security Bureau. Pompeo, then the U.S. Secretary of State, stated that Huang Yuanxiong seriously violated Falun Gong practitioners’ freedom of religious belief and “was connected with the detention and interrogation of Falun Gong practitioners simply for practicing their beliefs.” According to relevant regulations in the U.S., Huang and his spouse are not allowed to enter the U.S.

On March 8, according to Minghui, [Editor’s note: Minghui is a website dedicated to reporting on the Falun Gong community worldwide with a focus on China: https://en.minghui.org] Falun Gong practitioners in 38 countries have recently submitted lists of names to their respective governments of agents from the 610 Office at all levels in China. So far, about 9,300 names have been placed on the list. Yu Hui’s name was on the list that was handed over to the U.S. government.

In a statement to the Epoch Times Newspaper, Zhang Erping, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York, stated that the U.S. decision “will surely send a potent message across China that the world is watching and that there will be real-world consequences for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.” Zhang said, “As the news spreads among the CCP security apparatus, it will very likely make some think twice about perpetrating further abuses.”

Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said. “I think it sends a very strong signal to China. It sends the signal that we’re not going to let them get away with this war on faith.”

Source: Epoch Times, May 13, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/5/13/n12945359.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Global Times: If the U.S. Delivers, This Time China Will Support

Global Times recently released a commentary on the U.S. Biden Administration’s position on waivers on vaccine as intellectual property. Although Russia and France appear supportive, many advanced nations are against the waivers, especially Germany and Switzerland. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t directly mention the waivers, but did show support for improving availability and affordability. The U.S. position is positive. However, the current situation is very complicated since all 164 WTO members must agree in order to realize the waivers. A single veto can halt the process. The Biden administration cannot get this done solely based on executive power, let alone convincing the EU members and manufacturers. So far Biden has only made a political statement. Whether this is just a show to hold the “moral high ground” or the U.S. really meant it remains to be seen. If the U.S. does not take tangible actions, then the Biden slogan is just for headline news. Eventually he will blame other people for the failure. If Washington delivers on its position, then this time China will not go against the U.S.

Source: Global Times, May 7, 2021
https://bit.ly/3vJhiVs

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Fitch Downgraded China Huarong

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that Fitch downgraded China Huarong Asset Management Co. to BBB (from A), after Huarong delayed releasing its annual report. Earlier, both Moody and Fitch had put China Huarong on the negative rating watch list. Huarong is a majority state-owned financial asset management company in China, with a focus on distressed debt management. Huarong’s subsidiaries have not been able to release annual reports either. So far, the Chinese government has not acted on its promise to support Huarong. However, Huarong confirmed that, Huarong International, a Huarong branch, has, thus far, not defaulted on any of its bonds. China Chengxin Credit Rating Group, which is China’s first nationwide credit rating company, also put Huarong on the negative rating watch list.

Source: Sina, April 27, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2021-04-27/doc-ikmyaawc2157865.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources US-China Relations

Global Times: Reviewers Thought Biden’s First Congressional Speech Was “Boring”

Global Times recently published a report after Biden’s first televised congressional speech. With data aggregated from the U.S. and British media, it appears the speech suffered from a very poor performance and it had only around 22.6 million viewers. That was not even half of Trumps equivalent speeches. Trump’s 2017 February speech to Congress attracted over 48 million viewers. Even his lowest viewership, for the 2020 February State of the Union Address, had over 37 million viewers. Obama’s first congressional speech in February 2009 had 52.3 million viewers. The low-profile Biden speech received reviews like “boring,” “socialist dream,” “dividing the country,” and “full of empty clichés.” The speech did touch on topics related to his “blue-collar blueprint” government investment plans, gun control, police reform and immigration, as well as his China policies. Global Times also mentioned that Biden’s speech was not the only event seeing a dramatic decline in viewership. The Oscar ceremony in the same week also set a record low viewership of around 10 million, which was a freefall of 58 percent from last year’s number.

Source: Global Times, April 30, 2021
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/42vtGLIjmeV

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Bank of China: Economic Slowdown in the Next 30 Years Due to Demographic Transition

The Bank of China, the central bank of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), recently published a paper dated March 26, 2021. The paper warned that the aging population and declining birthrate are more severe in China than in developed countries and that China will face far more severe challenges for a long time into the future.

China’s economic growth will slow down.

First, there will be a reduction in the working population. China’s economic growth has been under the reform and opening up of production.  A demographic dividend transformed China’s economic growth. Since 2010, the Chinese economy has entered a new norm with declining potential output, directly caused by the decline in the labor force. It is estimated that from 2020 to 2050, the working population will decrease year by year at a rate of more than 0.5 percent and by 2050 it will have dropped by 15.2 percent compared to 2019. In 2010 the working population was 74.5 percent of the total population By 2019, it fell to 70.6 percent. It will be 64.6 percent by 2035 and 59.8 percent by 2050.

Second, the burden of elderly care is growing. The elderly dependency ratio, the ratio of the elderly population (ages 65+) per 100 people of working age (ages 15-64), will reach 36 percent. It was 17.8 percent in 2019 and is expected to be 32.0 percent and 43.6 percent by 2035 and 2050, respectively. If calculated based on retirement at the age of 60 (that is, no delay in retirement), the elderly dependency ratio will rise to 49.8 percent and 67.6 percent, respectively. It means one worker will need to support 0.5 and 0.7 elderly, respectively. Further, government pension expenditures as a proportion of GDP have risen rapidly. They were at 5.3 percent in 2019, an increase of 4.5 percentage points from 1990. As the old-age dependency ratio increases in the future, this expenditure will continue to rise.

Third, China will face low growth, low-interest rates, low inflation, and high debt. China’s demographic transition means that more people are consuming and fewer people are producing, which leads to economic stagnation, weak consumer prices, and declining asset prices. It will be very similar to the current situation of low growth, low-interest rates, low inflation, and high debt in Japan, Italy, and other countries. Moreover, the situation in China may be more difficult because of the faster population transition, with a growing aging population and declining birthrate.

The central bank paper said, “The economic gap with the United States will continue.”

The paper continued, pointing out that while China is facing the acceleration of its aging population and a declining birth rate, the U.S. population is undergoing favorable changes due to immigration and other reasons.

While the population in China is declining, the United States’ population is increasing. The United Nations predicts that, by the year 2050, the United States’ population will increase by 50 million, compared to 2019, an increase of 15 percent, while China will decrease by approximately 32 million in the same period, a decrease of 2.2 percent.

Fourth, China’s working population has been decreasing while the U.S. working population has been increasing. It is estimated that in 2035 and 2050, the size of China’s working population will drop by 4.6 percent and 15.2 percent from 2019, while the United States will grow by 2.4 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively, for the same periods. In terms of the ratio between the working population and the total population, China and the United States were 70.6 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively, in 2019. China will be 5.4 percentage points higher than that of the United States; in 2035, the gap will be reduced to 3.2 percentage points; in 2050, China will be lower than the United States by 1.3 percentage points.

Fifth, China’s elderly care burden is increasing faster than that of the United States. In 2019, China’s elderly dependency ratio was 17.8 percent and the United States was 24.8 percent, and China was seven percentage points lower than the United States. In 2035, the two countries will be basically the same. In 2050, China will be seven percentage points higher than the United States.

Sixth, China’s population structure will be very different from that of the United States. By 2050, China’s population distribution will be narrower at the bottom with fewer children and a shrinking working population in the middle, but wider at the top with a larger elderly population. For the United States, the bottom and middle of its population structure will be much wider, showing more young people and more working-age people. The top will be narrower, showing a smaller elderly population.

The central bank paper asked, “If, in the past 40 years, China had been able to narrow the economic gap with the United States by relying on cheap labor and substantial demographic dividends, then what would China rely on in the next 30 years?”

Sources:

1. Bank of China, March 26, 2021
http://www.pbc.gov.cn/redianzhuanti/118742/4122386/4122692/4214189/4215394/2021032618473569432.pdf

2. China.com, April 14, 2021
https://finance.china.com/domestic/11173294/20210415/37251654.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources US-China Relations

LTN: U.S. Lawmakers Called for Taiwan-Made Chinese Education to Replace Confucius Institutes

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, including Senator Marsha Blackburn and Congresswoman Michelle Steel, wrote to the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in March, calling for replacing the Confucius Institutes with Taiwan-based Chinese language education programs. The goal is to let U.S. students learn Chinese in an environment without censorship and threats. This new action is to build on the Taiwan-US Education Initiative created last December. The joint letter also copied Sung Kim, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacific Affairs. The U.S. lawmakers mentioned that there are still Confucius Institutes operating in 55 U.S. colleges today. On the surface, it appears to be an effort to teach Chinese language and the Chinese culture. In fact, the Confucius Institute is sponsored and monitored by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Many times, research has shown that its operations pressured the teachers to avoid anything that damages the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. However, we have to recognize that there is a global education need for the Chinese language, culture and history, which can be fulfilled by Taiwan-based education programs without any censorship.

Source: LTN, April 7, 2021
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3491720

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