Chinascope – Page 370

Xi Jinping Promoted Nearly 100 Generals

In four days in December, Beijing promoted 96 generals.

On December 12, 2019, Xi Jinping promoted seven Chinese military officers to the rank of General.

On December 10, the army promoted 52 officers, including six to Lieutenant General and 46 to Major General.

On December 9, the armed police promoted 37 officers, including one to Lieutenant General and 36 to Major General.

Usually Beijing promotes generals around August 1st, the anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army. Observers think that Xi did this large scale off-cycle promotion to impose stronger control over the military, as he is facing the U.S. trade war, Hong Kong Protests, a falling economy, and political rivalry inside the Communist Party.

Source: Epoch Times, December 12, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/12/12/n11719114.htm

Briefings | | December 29, 2019 | Defense/Military Government/Politics

China’s Experts: It’s Imperative to Enact Article 23 of the Basic Law

Recently, the Communist Regime in China has been talking about enacting Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law. At the annual Global Times (Huanqiu) meeting, two Hong Kong affairs experts in China stated that it is imperative to enact Article 23.

Wang Zhenmin, former Director of the Legal Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), stated, “The common understanding after Hong Kong’s extradition bill is that the national security issue must be included in the agenda; Hong Kong law has already defined five acts endangering national security, and therefore, Article 23 is not ‘empty.’” He also stated that here is a force in Hong Kong that does not want to acknowledge that Hong Kong has already permanently returned to China and intentionally smears China.

Qiang Shigong, a Law Professor at Beijing University, who also attended the meeting, warned against turning the Hong Kong issue into a “Taiwan-style problem.” He claimed that the Hong Kong issue might not be about the conflicts between Capitalism and Socialism, but rather whether Hong Kong should be united with mainland China.

Note: Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law stated that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region “shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government,or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies in the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.” The Hong Kong government’s attempt to implement the article with a National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill in 2003 caused a great controversy and 500,000 people protested on the streets. Since then, the bill of implementing the article has not been reintroduced.

Source: China News Agency, December 21, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201912210108.aspx

Briefings | | December 26, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

Data Says China’s Economy Faces Most Difficult Time

An Internet posting by author Tuozhanlaogou (拓展老狗, WeChat account name) has been widely spread in China. Using data and charts, the author explained that China’s economy is at its most difficult time:

28.54 million people used Baidu to search for jobs in 2019, whereas less than 7.5 million people did that in 2018.
China’s banking section is making so much money that it squeezes profits out of other industries. China has four companies ranked in the top ten companies with the highest profits in the world. All of them are banks. China’s banking section claimed 40 percent net income return, whereas the U.S. banking section only claims 14 percent.
China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are growing and the private companies and foreign companies are shrinking. In 2018, the rate of net asset increase vs. total profit (an indicator of investing profits into businesses) was 60.7 percent, -99.4 percent, and -1.6 percent, for the three types of business. The negative number itself indicates that the economic sizes of the private and foreign companies are shrinking.
People are short of money. The fund industry (both mutual funds and hedge funds) raised 500 billion yuan (US $72 billion) in the third quarter of 2017 alone. However, for the whole year of 2019, it has only raised 180 billion yuan.
1,884 movie or TV related companies closed in 2019.
New car sales dropped 2.76 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. From January to October 2019, the number of new cars manufactured and sold dropped 10.4 percent and 9.7 percent respectively, compared to a year ago.
China’s M2 money is out of control. It has increased from 11 trillion yuan in 1999 to 194 trillion yuan (US $28 trillion) in 2019, twice China’s anticipated GDP in 2019. The U.S. M2 money in 2019 is only US $15 trillion and its GDP is US $21 billion; its M2 is only 71.6 percent of its GDP.
In the past 12 months (December 2018 to November 2019), the Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) was below 50 for nine months and above 50 for only three months. The economy is considered contracting when the PMI is below 50 and expanding when above 50.
China is departing from real (manufacturing) businesses. Among the total companies’ assets in China, the financial and real estate industries claim 47.9 percent of the assets, whereas the manufacturing sector only accounts for 11.7 percent.
In the first six months of 2019, all provinces in China, except Shanghai, ran into a fiscal deficit.

Source: Sina, December 8, 2019
https://cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/1931232181/731c43b501900jjam

Briefings | | December 26, 2019 | Economy/Resources

Macao Refused to Let Some Hong Kong and Foreign Reporters Enter

Popular Hong Kong online new media HK01 Network recently reported that the government of Macao refused the entry of multiple members of the press from Hong Kong and other countries. December 20 was the 20th Anniversary of Macau’s Return and Chinese President Xi Jinping was attending the ceremony. The media organizations banned include Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK, an HK government owned, top and official broadcasting organization of Hong Kong), Commercial Radio Hong Kong (CRHK, one of the only two commercial radio broadcasting companies in Hong Kong), the South China Morning Post (the most popular English newspaper in Hong Kong), Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB, Hong Kong’s largest TV broadcaster), Apple Daily and NowTV. The Macao government had issued official press passes to all of the reporters from these media companies. Nevertheless, these reporters were blocked from entering, including those from the Radio and Television of Portugal, (although permitted later after diplomatic intervention). The Macao authorities refused applications from all online media companies. The Hong Kong Journalists Association issued a public statement calling on the Mainland government and the Macao government to respect freedom of the press. The statement also asked the Hong Kong government to work with the Macao border control to allow free passage for reporters with legal Macao permits.

Source: HK01, December 18, 2019
https://bit.ly/2PJFepA

Briefings | | December 26, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Global Times: Putin Commented on Trump’s Impeachment

Global Times reported quickly after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the impeachment articles against Trump, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments were published only one day after the result was out. Putin classified the impeachment as just part of a political fight. He mentioned that the Democrats failed to prove there was Russian collusion and they now were banking on the Ukraine excuse. To him, this was merely the continuation of the resistance delivered by the losers. Putin predicted that the Senate Republicans are very unlikely to remove a Republican president with such a weak excuse. In the meantime, President Trump said at a Michigan rally that the impeachment doesn’t feel real because the nation is in its best shape in history and he did nothing wrong. The White House official announcement also stated that the impeachment was a sham and that it was one of the most shameful political events in U.S. history. Global Times explained that the U.S. Senate is expected to look into the House impeachment articles in January and, with the Republican majority in the Senate, the articles won’t pass the Senate. China has a “Comprehensive Strategic Relationship” with Russia.

Source: Global Times, November 19, 2019
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnKoqvH

Briefings | | December 25, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend

DW Chinese: China Performed Precise Blockage during Democratic Presidential Debate

Deutsche Welle Chinese Edition recently reported that the Chinese government performed a precise blockage of the online real-time streaming of the latest Television Debate of U.S. Democratic Party Presidential Candidates. At around 9:00 PM, the official online video streaming went “black-screen” in China, without warning. At that very moment, PBS moderator Judy Woodruff was asking Mayor Pete Buttigieg about whether boycotting 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was the right response to China’s detaining Uighurs in Xinjiang, China. Mayor Buttigieg responded by accusing President Trump of not doing enough about China’s human rights records. The online streaming in China was blocked for about nine minutes, during which time the debate also focused on the Hong Kong movement, the South China Sea situation, and China’s military ambitions.

Source: DW Chinese, December 20, 2019
https://p.dw.com/p/3V9Go

Briefings | | December 25, 2019 | US-China Relations

China Completes its “10,000 Villages Connected” Project in Kenya

According to Xinhua, China’s official News Agency, the completion ceremony for Kenya’s “10,000 Villages Connected” project was held at the Kinyanjui Primary School in Nairobi, Kenya, on December 20, 2019. The “10,000 Villages Connected” project is an African aid project that China launched in 2019. The plan was to install satellite receiving antennas, set-top boxes, digital televisions, projection televisions, solar systems, and other facilities in 800 villages in 47 counties in Kenya.

Source: People’s Daily, December 22, 2019
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2019-12/22/nw.D110000renmrb_20191222_11-03.htm

Briefings | | December 25, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Trump’s Twitter Response after Impeachment Was Widely Reported in China

Beijing News quickly reported that, after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, the U.S. President posted a picture to respond. He tweeted as soon as he completed his speech at a Michigan rally with a picture in which he pointed out to his supporters that, “In reality they’re not after me. They are after you. I’m just in the way.” Trump indicated in the Michigan speech that the impeachment was “illegal, unconstitutional, and partisan.” He called his supporters to “drive Pelosi out of office.” The Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of attempting to overturn the Trump administration because they could not accept the 2016 presidential election result. However, the Democrats said they were just defending the Constitution. {Editor’s comment: The Trump pictorial twitter response was widely reported and republished in Chinese official media, including in Beijing News, Beijing Daily, Global Times, iFeng, China.com, Tencent News, Sohu, Sina, and others.}

Source: Beijing News, December 19, 2019
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/world/2019/12/19/663954.html

Briefings | | December 23, 2019 | US-China Relations

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

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

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

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