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Chinese Scholar: Deflation is Here

According to Liu Yuhui, a Professor at the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China’s economy has fallen into recession.

“In a word, the current economic situation in China is that deflation has begun, and the economy has fallen into the recession,” Liu wrote in an article published recently. The following summarizes his view on the issue of debts.

In the previous 15 months, China’s M2 has increased by more than 40 trillion. But it has not stopped the economy from sliding into deflation.

There are 1.4 billion people in China. According to the statistics of China’s central bank, 700 million people are now in debt. If children and older people are excluded, almost everyone in the country is in debt.

The total debt of the household sector accounts for as much as 137.9 percent of its disposable income, and the debt ratio of American households is about 90 percent in the same period. There is a more than 40 percentage points gap between China and the United States.

The ability of households to pay is constrained significantly. The annual interest payment accounts for nearly 15% of disposable income to cope with such debts. In the same period in the United States, this figure was 7%. From January to February 2023, the total amount of credit in China’s household sector was only 290 billion, less than 300 billion.

The high debt ratio of 137.9 percent today is much worse than the below 80 percent in 2015. This radio doubled in seven years. As a result, the ability and willingness to spend and borrow in the entire economy are rapidly collapsing.

Liu believed a breakthrough leading to China’s economic recovery in 2023 is indeed difficult.

Source: iNewsDB, April 12, 2023
https://bit.ly/3UJVnew

RFI Chinese: Chinese Local Officials Flock Abroad to Seek Investments

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that, since December, large delegations of officials from across China have already made hundreds of visits to Asia and Europe. Local governments have been scrambling to meet growth and employment targets. According to three sources, local officials, along with their municipal and provincial supervisors and local businesses, have been traveling abroad more than ever before. The Chinese economy has paid a huge price due to China’s strict Zero Covid policy. After three years behind closed borders, officials have traveled to Hong Kong, Paris and the like within days of the restrictions being lifted. Their urgency underscores the pressure on local governments to boost growth while saddled with a cumulative US$9 trillion in debt. A video that was posted online by the government of the eastern province of Jiangsu showed a 200-member Chinese delegation even chanting slogans like “grab new orders” as they boarded a private jet bound for Europe at 1 am. Just two days after China abruptly lifted the Zero Covid restrictions, that delegation alone was said to be scheduled to hold more than 230 business meetings in Europe. Wuxi, which is close to the commercial center of Shanghai, held 85 signing ceremonies during a 7-day trip to Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen, with a total transaction value of RMB 156 billion yuan (around US$22.7 billion). However, many foreign investors are still complaining about the unfair playing field, intellectual property theft and unpredictable rules for overseas companies.

Source: RFI Chinese, April 7, 2023
https://bit.ly/3KFecLp

Chinese Schools and Kindergartens Close Down as Birth Rate Drops

China’s Primary Schools Dropped by 80,000 in 10 Years. According to data recently released by China’s Ministry of Education, there were 149,100 primary schools in 2022, compared to 229,000 in 2012, a decline of 79,900 or 35 percent.

The chances of any improvement seem slim. In 2022, there were 289,200 kindergartens in China, a decrease of about 5,600 compared with the previous year.

Behind the decline in the number of kindergartens and primary schools in China is the sharp drop in the number of newborns.

According to data released by the CCP this year, there were 9.56 million newborns in China in 2022, with a birth rate of only 6.77‰ and a natural growth rate of -0.60 percent. This is the first time since 1950 that the annual birth population has fallen below 10 million. CCP data show that China had 10.62 million newborns in 2021, 12.02 million in 2020, and 14.65 million in 2019.

According to the “China Statistical Yearbook 2022,” 13 of the 31 provinces and municipalities directly under the Chinese central government had negative population growth, namely: Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, and Sichuan.

Analysts observed that China has a history of not releasing actual figures, but one can see a trend from the statistics it does release.

Source: Epoch Times, April 5, 2023
https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/23/4/5/n13965673.htm

People’s Daily Urgently Destroyed Papers due to Missing Xi Jinping’s Name

On the evening of March 30, officials responsible for the distribution of the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, issued an urgent notice to stop delivering and destroy the newspaper immediately, according to Hong Kong-based Ming Pao. Although the notice was harshly worded, no explanation was given for the action. Screenshots of the notice were circulated on social media.

Sources familiar with the situation have pointed out that the incident was a result of the omission of the three characters of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name in an opinion article published in the newspaper. Ming Pao reported that on March 30, page 5 of People’s Daily contained a commentary article titled “Unity and struggle is the only way for the Chinese people to create greatness in history”. In the article, Xi Jinping’s name was erroneously missed from the sixth line of the seventh paragraph before the word “comrade.” The sentence, which should have started as “the Party Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core…”, was instead misprinted as “the Party Central Committee with comrade as the core….”

According to the same source, the notice to stop delivering and destroy the newspaper was issued after an internal investigation. As the incident was made public and could cause adverse effects, it is expected that the editor and other responsible persons will be punished.

Source: Liberty Times (Taiwan), April 4, 2023
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/4260403

New Births in China’s Six Largest Provinces Fell in 2022

On March 31, The Paper, a Chinese media outlet, reported that the six major economic provinces in China, namely Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan, which are also major population provinces, experienced a decrease in the number of births last year. In fact, Shandong and Henan even reported negative population growth.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported in January that there were 9.56 million new births last year, which is 1.06 million fewer than in 2021. This marks the first negative growth in 61 years.

The six large provinces saw varying degrees of decreasing birth rates, with Guangdong, the most economically developed and most populous province, experiencing the largest decrease of 131,100 births.

These six provinces collectively have a population of about 562 million, accounting for nearly 40% of China’s total population. While Guangdong and Zhejiang registered a slight positive population growth rate of only 0.04 per thousand, the remaining four provinces showed negative population growth.

Source: The Paper, March 31, 2023
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_22527853

Forty-Eight Taiwan’s Retired Generals Involved in Beijing Espionage Case

The District Prosecutor’s Office in Kaohsiung city of Southern Taiwan has indicted former retired navy Rear Admiral Xia Fuxiang (夏复翔) and former Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Luo Zhiming (罗志明) for their involvement in introducing retired military generals to visit China and receive United Front ideology, with the aim of developing spy organizations in China. The number of retired officers introduced over the past six years reached 48, with 13 missions and 194 trips.

The retired generals involved in this espionage case came from all military branches, with ranks of lieutenant colonel or higher. Major General Guan Benkun (官本鲲), former senior official of the National Security Council, was invited to China 10 times, while Chen Shengwen (陈盛文), former head of Heng Shan Military Command Center, visited nine times. Even high-ranking naval officers, including the former Vice Commander-in-Chief, former Chief of Operations, former Lieutenant General Commander of the Department of Corrections, and former Vice Admiral of the Naval Command, have been invited to mainland China.

The indictment reveals that these retired generals claimed that China used the visits to promote “one country, two systems,” “armed reunification,” “peaceful reunification,” and other content with the intention of turning them against Taiwan. Moreover, Beijing collected intelligence on Taiwan’s missile defense, military buildup, defense technologies, as well as the personalities of defense officials and military leaders.

The indictment suggests that restrictions on retired military personnel visiting China were relaxed during Ma Ying-jeou’s presidency, following former KMT Chairman Lien Chan’s ice-breaking trip to China, enabling high ranking officers to visit China. This has given the Chinese Communist Party a window of opportunity to engage in United Front work.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 30, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/hx1-03302023115918.html

Global Times: French Media Claimed EU’s New Anti-Coercion Law Is A Real Gun

Global Times recently reported that the European Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on the Anti-Coercion Instruments Act (ACI). The bill aims to prevent third countries from economically coercing the European Union and its member states through measures affecting trade or investment. French media quoted Bernd Lange, chairman of the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament, as saying that ACI will prove to be a powerful deterrent to future economic coercion. “It’s not really a water gun – it’s a real gun,” he said. All these new measures are clearly intended as a last resort. The European Commission will first negotiate directly with the relevant third country to allow the other party to withdraw the coercive measures that have been implemented, or to demand compensation for losses. Many media believe that the United States and China are the targets of this EU bill. According to South China Morning Post, the proposal of the bill was not originally aimed at China, but to counter Trump’s imposition of tariffs on EU goods. However later, in the context of Lithuania’s trade with China being blocked because of the Taiwan issue, this bill once again received widespread attention within EU. Now as a unilateralist policy tools targeting China’s, the ACI Act has somewhat changed its original purpose. “Economic coercion” needs to formulate basic a definition acceptable to all parties. And it should obtain corresponding support at the level of international law and WTO rules. For example, on the issue of Lithuania, although the EU has lodged a complaint in WTO, it is difficult to get support. ACI has also been questioned within the EU. Some EU members are worried that ACI will turn EU towards protectionism and trigger a trade war. Europe should abandon its confrontational approach and actively cooperate with China.

Source: Global Times, March 29, 2023
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/4CHS9n14XCK

Xinhua: U.S. Becomes EU’s Largest Crude Oil Supplier

Xinhua recently reported that, as a “by-product” of the protracted Ukraine crisis, the European Union had to increase its energy dependency on the United States last year in order to make up for the huge energy gap caused by the sanctions on Russia. According to data released by Eurostat, the United States has replaced Russia as the largest crude oil supplier to the European Union, followed by Norway and Kazakhstan. As of December 2022, 18 percent of the EU’s imported crude oil came from the United States. This data represents a significant shift since, in the meantime, Russian crude oil accounts for 4 percent of total EU crude oil imports. However, many EU countries used to rely on Russia for energy. And the counterproductive effect of sanctions against Russia is becoming increasingly apparent. Energy shortages, soaring prices, and soaring living expenses have become common social problems. A senior official of the Russian government said that Russia has successfully transferred all oil exports affected by Western sanctions to “friendly countries”. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia’s oil exports to India increased by about 22 times in 2022, but he did not disclose the specific amount. However, Russia’s oil and gas output is expected to drop this year amid Western curbs and fewer European buyers.

Source: Xinhua, March 29, 2023
https://bit.ly/3m0xhiv