Chinascope – Page 411

VOA: CCP Membership Exceeds 90 Million; Most of Them Joined the Party for Personal Gain

According to the latest statistics that the Ministry of Organization released on June 30, as of December 31, 2018, the total number of members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was 90.594 million. But many people believe that most of the members joined the party for personal gain. The CCP is the ruling party of the country with the largest population in the world. Due to its long-term monopoly on social resources, many people join the party out of concern for their personal future. Meanwhile there are a large number of corrupt officials and other criminals among the CCP officials and party members. Many party members have a very poor image in the eyes of the people. When referring to the CCP’s dismissal of some of its party members in order to maintain the “purity” of the party, some non-party members even joked that, “It is better for the bad guys to stay in the party and not to be expelled. Otherwise they will contaminate the general public.” However, the latest article that Xinhua published claimed that the party attracts two million people to join each year and the quality of its members continues to improve.

Source: Voice of America, June 30, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/chinese-communist-party-members-20190630/4979386.html

Briefings | | June 30, 2019 | Government/Politics

RFI: China to Hold Military Exercise in South China Sea

China announced that it will hold a military exercise in the South China Sea from June 29th to July 3rd, and identified the 22,000 square kilometers (8,494 square meters) in the South China Sea region as a “no-fly zone.” The Central News Agency pointed out that, in the past, China had also designated a temporary “no-fly zone” in the South China Sea on the grounds of military training, but almost all of such designations were in the coastal areas of Guangdong or Hainan Island. This time, the scope will be delineated far from the land. As for what kind of military training the Chinese military will hold in this vast sea area, it is still unknown. According to past practices, if there is military training, the Chinese official media will report it in a few days after the event is concluded.

Source: Radio France Internationale, June 30, 2019
http://cn.rfi.fr/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20190630-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%9C%A8%E5%8D%97%E6%B2%99%E5%86%9B%E6%BC%94-%E5%B0%86%E5%85%AC%E6%B5%B722%E4%B8%87%E5%B9%B3%E6%96%B9%E5%85%AC%E9%87%8C%E5%88%92%E4%B8%BA%E7%A6%81%E8%88%AA%E5%8C%BA

Briefings | | June 30, 2019 | Defense/Military

VOA: More and More Hong Kong People Choose to Immigrate to Taiwan

Although the current number is still not large, more and more of Hong Kong’s people are moving to Taiwan to find a new life and place for themselves. According to Taiwan’s official data, the number of Hong Kong and Macao residents who obtained Taiwan resident status last year was more than double what it was 10 years ago. Since the umbrella movement in Hong Kong in 2014, the number of Hong Kong people who are migrating to Taiwan has been increasing. When the Hong Kong government recently attempted to revise the “Extradition Law,” millions of Hong Kong residents showed resistance. The number of people who have inquired about migration to Taiwan showed an “explosive growth.”

According to statistics from the Taiwan Immigration Department, there were about 700 Hong Kong residents who obtained Taiwan resident status in 2014. In 2016, the number went up to 1,086 people. For the past two years, the number has held steady at more than 1,000 people every year. Lin Yaozong, head of the Hong Kong immigration company in Hong Kong, said in an interview with Voice of America that, during the umbrella movement in 2014, there was a wave of Hong Kong people migrating to Taiwan. After Carrie Lam was elected as the Chief Executive, the number of applicants dropped. The decline was believed to be due to the fact that many Hong Kong people were waiting to see how Carrie Lam managed Hong Kong. After they discovered that Carrie Lam was only there to repeat the previous system, the desire of Hong Kong’s people to immigrate to Taiwan increased again. After 2018, the Hong Kong people’s immigration to Taiwan accelerated. He said that, especially in the past two months, the popularity of consulting about immigration to Taiwan has risen sharply, showing a “phenomenal growth.”

According to a poll that the Chinese University of Hong Kong released earlier this year, more than 30 percent of respondents said that Taiwan would be the third most popular location if they had the opportunity to migrate, second only to Canada and Australia. The reasons for migrating include that there are too many political disputes and social problems in Hong Kong, along with overcrowded living conditions, high housing prices, a lack of democracy, and an unsatisfactory political system.

Source: Voice of America, July 1, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/hong-kong-taiwan-immigration/4979467.html

Briefings | | June 30, 2019 | Government/Politics

Taiwan Reporter Resigned from Want China Times Because of the Newspaper’s Pro-China Change

A veteran news reporter, Liao Zhaoxiang, resigned from the Want China Times, one of the largest news media in Taiwan, criticizing the media because it has changed its position, lost its stance, and become an echo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Some background about the Want China Times follows: The China Times is a daily Chinese newspaper, one of the four largest newspapers in Taiwan. In the early 2000s, it purchased China Television and Chung T’ien Television and thus became a big media group in Taiwan. In 2008, the owner of the Want Want group, a Taiwan businessman who went to mainland China and focused on the market there, bought China Times and, in 2009, created the Want China Times Group. The newspaper has become a pro-CCP newspaper. Chien-Jung Hsu of National Dong Hwa University stated, “Want China Times seems to be a representative of the Xinhua News Agency in Taiwan.”

The New Talk website published Liao’s resignation letter that he sent to the management of the Want China Times. In his letter, Liao said that the main reason he chose to leave was that the company not only does not care about the first-line reporters’ judgments; it has also severely damaged Taiwan’s freedom of the press and democracy. He has become completely heart-broken and given up.

Liao pointed out that when he interviewed people, he was frequently criticized because the media created fake news. It was hard for him to defend the company because what people said was true.

Liao further pointed out that his conscience would not allow him to continue working there anymore. “If the company is selling a ‘social drug’ using the lie that it is letting employees get rich, turning news reporting into the splitting of Taiwan society and creating social conflicts, then as employees, can we just tell people, ‘It is not my fault because I just did what my boss told me to do’? The reality is that society will view us as an accomplice.”

“My son is a fourth-grader. He is interested in history. He knows that China is a totalitarian country, without democracy, rule of law, or freedom of the press. He asked me one day, ‘Dad, you are a reporter. Why does your company keep saying bad things about Taiwan and praise mainland China when it does not have freedom of the press and arrests news reporters and human rights attorneys at will? If someday Taiwan is taken over by the CCP, will you be put in prison? What should I do?’ I couldn’t answer him, but instead kept silent.”

“Even a fourth-grader understands this basic principle. All my managers, do you know what kind of government you are supporting and what editorial policy you are taking? Do you know what you are doing is killing the freedom of press in Taiwan?”

Liao also criticized China Times for removing all materials from its website that are related to the Tiananmen Massacre, including the news and photos that China Times’ own reporter Xu Zongmao brought back. He was actually shot and has a PLA soldier’s bullet in his head from when he was doing news reporting in Beijing at that time.

Sources:
1. New Talk website, June 21, 2019
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2019-06-21/262746
2. Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Times

Briefings | | June 28, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

Qiushi: Keep a Clear Mind and Fight till the End

Qiushi, the official journal of the Chinese Communist Party, published a commentary in its twelfth Issue for 2019. The subject was the trade war between China and the United States. It urged keeping a clear mind and fighting until the end. Xinhua and People’s Daily have since re-published the commentary. The following is a summary of some of the highlights:

The Sino-U.S. economic and trade relationship is not a “zero-sum game.” Rather, it is mutually beneficial.

The “fair trade” that the United States emphasized is not really fair at all. The United States purchases resources, labor, and products at a low cost from developing countries while selling its technology products at a high price.

Unilateralism is a dead end. Only through open cooperation can one gain more development opportunities and more room for development.

The United States hegemonism in the area of technology will not succeed. China’ technological advances are the result of the competition and hard work of the Chinese people and not the result of stealing or forced technology transfer.

The ultimate pressure applied to China will not work because such pressure will expose the true nature of the U.S. hegemony and further isolate the United States in the international community.

The trade protectionism of the Trump Administration will not bring the manufacturing industry back to the United States. On the contrary, it will seriously damage the global value chain, impact global resource allocation, generate widespread negative spillover effects, and reduce the efficiency of the global economy.

The trade war between China and the United States will not promote the prosperity of the U.S. economy. What goes around comes around. There will be no winner. Whoever initiates the trade war will eventually hurt themselves.

The Sino-U.S. trade war will not crush the Chinese economy.

The commentary concluded by stating that China has been firm and consistent in its position regarding the key differences between China and the United States on the trade war: zero-sum game vs. mutual benefit and win-win; opposition vs. cooperation; monopoly vs. competition; and unilateralism vs. multilateralism.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2019
http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2019-06/16/c_1124629943.htm

Briefings | | June 27, 2019 | US-China Relations

Xinhua: China’s Micro Leverage Ratio Hit New High

Xinhua reported that, by the end of the first quarter of this year, China’s Micro Leverage Ratio increased by 5.1 percent over last year, reaching 248.8 percent. The record that this set establishes a new high. The Micro Leverage Ratio is defined as the total government debt over the GDP.

This reason for the new high ratio is the slowdown of the increase in fiscal income. On the one hand, the fiscal income increase ratio went down to 2.9 percent in April, the lowest since 2016. On the other hand, government spending is increasing at a faster rate. The actual deficit ratio, defined as (general public fiscal spending minus general public fiscal income), when divided by GDP, has increased to 4.5 percent, the highest in the past ten years.

Therefore, local governments have resorted to issuing bonds to raise money thus hiking up the debt ratio.

Source: Xinhua, June 14, 2019
http://www.xinhuanet.com/money/2019-06/14/c_1210159511.htm

Briefings | | June 27, 2019 | Economy/Resources

Lianhe Zaobao: Multiple Chinese Exporters Fined for Forging Labels in Cambodia

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that the U.S. authorities have caught and fined multiple Chinese exporters because they were found to have forged Country of Origin labels. These Chinese exporters shipped goods to Cambodia where they forged “Made in Vietnam” labels in the Cambodia Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone. This is in line with an earlier report that Vietnamese Customs discovered several cases of illegal labels designed to bypass the new U.S. tariffs. The U.S. Embassy confirmed this incident. The Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone is located 210 kilometers west of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. It’s an economic development zone that Cambodia and China constructed jointly. It is one of the symbolic projects of China’s One Belt One Road initiative. According to the World Bank Group, the Cambodian economy saw a 7.5 percent increase in 2018 due to the strong growth of exports to the United States.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, June 20, 2019
https://beltandroad.zaobao.com/beltandroad/news/story20190620-965996

Briefings | | June 24, 2019 | Geo-Strategic Trend US-China Relations

Xinhua Commentary Series: Spotlight on the U.S. Presidential Election

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.”