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Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

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Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

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Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

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The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.

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Seniors to the Rescue of China’s Housing Market

The Chinese government is attempting a variety of measures to rescue the sinking housing market. There was a story that banks in Nanning city of Guangxi province have increased the age ceiling for mortgage applicants to 80, and shortly afterwards, banks in Beijing raised the limit to 95.

A local newspaper, Beijing News reported that a branch of the Bank of Communications allows the mortgage applicants to be as old as 95 years of age, with the condition that the applicant’s children guarantee the loan and that the borrower’s pension and the monthly income of the guarantor are at least twice the monthly mortgage payment.

A researcher at the Bank of China said the banks’ practice of extending the age of applicants for mortgages reflects the changing demand for housing from a population that is aging. The policy is aimed to help “stimulate demand” in the current sluggish housing market in China.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), February 19, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202302190156.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China’s New Military Reserve Personnel Law May Be Part of Possible Preparation for Invading Taiwan

The Taiwanese news site NewTalk recently reported that China is about to take the first step in preparation  for invading Taiwan by force. China’s Reserve Personnel Law  passed by the National People’s Congress at the end of last year, will come into effect on March 1. Some netizens pointed out that the law expands the age limit for reserve service to men between the ages of 18 and 60, which shows that China’s intent to  move against Taiwan is becoming more and more obvious. Due to the implementation of the new law and the abolition of the old law, some veterans (under the age of 60) who have already retired from the original reserve age may be included in the registration of reserve personnel again. In the previous reserve service regulations, the maximum ages for regular reserve officers for various ranks were between 35 to 55 years old. The new law expands this range to between 45 to 60 years old. The old law’s maximum ages for reserve professional and technical officers for various ranks were between 50 to 60 years old. The new law now expands this range to between 50 and 60 years old for senior officers, 55 years old for medium ranks and 45 years old for lower ranks. The new law also requires loyalty to the motherland, the Communist Party, and the socialist system.

Source: NewTalk, February 8, 2023
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2023-02-08/856517

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

Global Times: Computing Power Is Becoming a New Engine for Digital Economic Growth

Global Times recently reported that computing power, like water and electricity, has become a necessity in our lives. China is accelerating its integration into all fields of the economy and society. The processes of implementing real-life application scenarios such as smart manufacturing, smart city, smart medical care, and driverless cars, are all inseparable from the support of massive computing power. Computing power has gradually become a new engine for digital economic growth. Last February, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Energy Administration officially launched the national “East Data West Compute” program which consists of eight National Computing Power Hub Nodes in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and in the Chengdu-Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou regions, and in the planned ten National Data Center Clusters. The “East Data West Compute” program guides the intensive computing power demand from the east to the west in an orderly manner. It also enables the cross-region flow of data elements and it also promotes the rapid development of the digital economy and the artificial intelligence industry with a national integrated computing power network. Recently, the Shanghai Data Center has started dividing high volume business data and distributed non-realtime computing loads to the Inner Mongolia Computing Hub, which has the advantages of a low electricity price and natural low temperature cooling. The program promotes an east-west balanced resource structure of domestic data centers to establish a clustered, integrated layout from a national perspective to improve efficiency.

Source: Global Times, February 16, 2023
https://finance.huanqiu.com/article/4BjecqI2uhL

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

CNA: China Plans to Scrutinize the CATL Battery Contract with Ford

Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that China will scrutinize the latest contract between Ford Motor Co. and Chinese battery leader CATL to ensure China’s core technology doesn’t fall into Ford’s hands. Given the sensitivity of the contract and the current tensions between China and the United States, top Chinese officials have called for strict scrutiny of the contract. Ford announced, not long ago, that it will invest US$3.5 billion to set up an electric vehicle battery factory in Michigan with the assistance of CATL. According to the contract, CATL will approve the provision of technology and technical assistance required by Ford to produce lithium iron phosphate batteries in Michigan. Republican Senator Marco Rubio has asked the Biden administration to review Ford’s contract to use Chinese technology for the battery plant. A spokesman for Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said that Manchin has voiced serious concerns about the reliance on China for the auto supply chain and that Ford must answer some serious questions before Senator Manchin can fully evaluate the partnership. A Ford spokesman said that, to the best of his knowledge, Chinese government officials were not involved in this deal. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), is a Chinese battery manufacturer. In 2021 it had a global market share of 32.6 percent . It is the biggest lithium-ion battery manufacturer for EVs in the world.

Source: CNA, February 17, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aopl/202302170338.aspx

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

Chinese Scholar: China’s Academia Is Full of Fake and Low Quality Publications

Recently, a report by Li Bozhong (李伯重), published on China’s Tribune of Social Science in 2005, was spread on the Internet. Li discussed his view that despite the fact that Chinese scholars have been publishing many academic papers, most are fake or of low quality.

Li is a famous Chinese economist, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and also a professor at Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In Li’s view, Chinese researchers have ignored both theoretical and foundational research in the academic fields and have focused only on the practical areas of the hot applications of technologies. This is due to the Chinese people’s focus on immediate short-term gain. Hot applications can result in fame and bring money in quickly while the basic research may not yield any fruit for years or decades. As a result, some foreign scholars have said that, except for the papers published by a few trusted serious Chinese scholars, they would not read any papers written by other Chinese authors.

Source: Sina, November 5, 2021
https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1250060497_4a8268d1019011jor.html#/

Hot Topics | | |   Information/Technology

Economy: China’s Internet Celebrity Making Machine Aims at Western Unemployed Young People

China has developed a mature marketing strategy to use Internet celebrities to promote products on the Internet. It is done by the Multi-Channel Networks (MCN’s), or service providers that help (and even finance) video channel owners (Tiktok, YouTube, etc.) to produce and market products for manufacturers. Now these Chinese MCN’s have put their eyes on the Western channel owners to promote Chinese products directly to the people in the U.S. and Europe.

Chinese MCN’s usually identify the channel owners who they believe have the potential to grow big but currently have only a small or mid-sized follower base. They then work with these channel owners to package them, guide them in producing videos, or even produce the videos for them. This allows the MCN’s to control the channel owners at a lower cost before they become Internet celebrities. These MCN’s sign up Chinese manufacturers to let their channel owners sell the products on their channels. Then both the channel owners and the MCNs share the proceeds with the manufacturers.

Now the Chinese MCN’s are applying their business model to the U.S. and Europe. Some Western channel owners have started to see that they make more money from their MCN work than from their regular jobs.

However, there are also cultural challenges. Chinese MCN’s found that, unlike the Chinese channel owners, the Western channel owners do not like to be told what to do. Also the Western channel owners are more willing to settle for a big enough increase in their follower count instead of going ahead full-steam for a bigger target.

Source: Sina, February 9, 2023
https://t.cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/2357213493/8c80393502001d6la

Hot Topics | | |   Economy/Resources

Economy: City Investment Corporations Cannot Pay Their Obligations

In China, many local governments have set up their own investment companies. These companies usually use the land as collateral to get loans from banks to invest or finance the construction of infrastructure projects or government-subsidized housing.

However, due to the collapse of the real estate industry in China, many of these city investment corporations are short of money and some cannot even pay their obligations.

Phoenix Finance reported that in the past year, people buying government-subsidized housing reported the delay (or even failure) of delivery of those houses. This has happened in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province; Qingdao City, Shandong Province; Zhengzhou City, Henan Province; and Baoding City, Hebei Province.

Chengyang District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province provided an apartment subsidy to attract skilled/talented people to come to the city. On a jointly-owned housing program (government pays a portion to reduce the purchase cost for the talent they are bringing in), the talent paid 1.5 million yuan (US$220,000) but the Chengyang Municipal Investment Group did not pay the government portion of 760,000 yuan, and thus the talent could not get an apartment. (After the Phoenix Report, Chengyang Municipal Investment Group said they had gathered enough money to pay for their dues.)

People pointed out that this showed the government has run out of money. These investment companies cannot raise more money because land is no longer hot property – builders are not willing to buy land from the government (thus paying the land transfer concessions) anymore.

Since November 2021, the number of bonds issued by the city investment corporations that missed the payback on the due date has increased from five per month to around 20 per month.

An unconfirmed report said that to sell their apartments, some city investment corporations assigned quotas to their employees and tied it to their annual reviews.

Source:
1. Phoenix, February 2, 2023
https://fengcx.com/news/detail/56084949.shtml
2. Sohu, February 3, 2023
https://www.sohu.com/a/636924623_100162316
3. Sina, February 4, 2023
https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/zqgd/2023-02-04/doc-imyemynm3699818.shtml

Hot Topics | | |   @CS Economy/Resources Government/Politics

China Lost Its Status as the Largest Trading Partner of the U.S.

Well-known Chinese news site NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) recently reported that, according to data released by the US Department of Commerce, last year, China lost its position as the largest trading partner of the U.S. It was replaced by the European Union. In 2022, U.S. imports rose sharply, and the foreign trade deficit reached a record high. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. imported $537 billion in products from China in 2022, lower than the U.S. imports of $553 billion from the European Union. However, overall U.S. imports from China increased from the previous year’s $505 billion in 2021. China’s loss of its status as the largest trading nation of the United States has been blamed largely on Covid-19, as well as the diversification of U.S. supply sources. Particularly supplies from other Asian countries have increased. In the meantime, data shows that the trade dependence between China and the United States remains high. In 2022, the total import and export volume of the two countries broke the historic record again after three years, reaching $690.5 billion. During the same period, the U.S. deficit with China expanded by eight percent to $382.9 billion, the second highest in history after 2018. In 2022, U.S. businesses and consumers had strong demand for foreign-made goods and services, and international trade was recovering from the pandemic. China has not benefited significantly from this recovery.

Source: NetEase, February 9, 2023
https://www.163.com/dy/article/HT6175KF0553LKHX.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations