According to Xinhua, in February, Beijing’s new home sales were particularly disappointing. As of February 23, new home sales were 1,545 units, a 61.5 percent drop compared to same period last year. The monthly sales were even below normal weekly sales. Existing home sales were equally disappointing. As of February 25, there were 4, 224 existing home sales, a 45 percent decline compared to the same period last year. The fourth week in September last year saw 4,201 home sales, three times the monthly sales of February 2014. In November and December 2013, the weekly sales were above 1,500.
Silent Contest
To support its premise, the video further outlined five areas in which the U.S. is undermining China: political infiltration, cultural infiltration, public opinion and ideological infiltration, organizational infiltration, and political interference and social infiltration.
This video was produced as an educational document within the Party for specific groups such as the army and university classes. Somehow, in late October 2013, Silent Contest leaked out and circulated widely on the Internet. On October 31, 2013, it began disappearing from Chinese websites. [2] Nevertheless, a number of media have commented on it. [3]
The following is the translation of the Prelude and Part I of the video. Please note that the source of a number of quotes in English could not be identified. Unless the original English source is indicated in the end notes, the quotes in the video are translated from the Chinese text in the video. The translation of Part II will appear in a future issue.]
Qiushi: China’s Manufacturing Industry Faces Ten Dilemmas
On March 3, 2014, Qiushi, a journal of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, published an article titled, “China’s Manufacturing Industry Faces Ten Dilemmas.” A description of the ten dilemmas follows:
- A lack of the capacity to innovate: China lacks self-owned independent intellectual property products.
- Low value-added products: China is the equivalent of a world plant; however, it makes only minimal profits because foreign multinational companies, which have Research and Development (R & D) and management advantages, take away most of the profits.
- Severe overcapacity: China currently has a total of 24 sectors, but 21 out of these 24 sectors already have overcapacity problems.
- High-end talent shortage: China lacks Research and Development talent.
- Corporate tax burden is too heavy: Chinese enterprises have to pay a tax of over 30 percent. Then there is the cost of corruption, plus additional fees. Thus China’s actual corporate tax burden is among the highest of all countries in the world.
- Increasing costs: Salaries and wages keep increasing.
- A shortfall in funding: The problem of financing directly restricts the survival and development of small and medium enterprises.
- Strained resources and the environment: Pollution
- Deterioration of the domestic environment: These include debt problems, a widening gap between the rich and the poor, economic depression, and the abnormal development of real estate.
- Trade barriers: Increasing trade conflicts with other countries
Source: Qiushi, March 3, 2014
http://www.qstheory.cn/zs/rdht/201403/t20140303_326550.htm
Xinhua: Corrupt Officials Who Fled China Were from Economic-Related and Public Security Departments
On March 2, 2014, Xinhua reprinted an article that Beijing News had published on the same day regarding corrupt officials who had fled from China from 1992 to 2012. According to the article, the highest level official who had fled was Gao Yan, who was the Chinese Communist Party Secretary of Yunnan Province. The cases involving those who fled were in areas that were economic-related government departments, state-owned enterprises (mainly in transportation, energy, tobacco and public security) and financial institutions. The final destinations for those officials who fled were developed countries, especially the United States, Canada, Australia, and EU member countries. Most of them fled to the United States. They made detailed arrangements before they escaped from China. Some of them were already “naked officials” before they left; that is, their spouses, lovers, children and even relatives had already emigrated overseas.
Source: Beijing News and Xinhua, March 2, 2014
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2014-03/02/c_126209520.htm
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/feature/2014/03/02/307000.html
People’s Daily: Huawei Again Attempting to Expand Its U.S. Market Share
People’s Daily: Unusual PM2.5 Levels in South Korea and Japan
Beijing News: Xinzhou 60 Airplanes Grounded Due to Continuous Failures
Epoch Times: Unusual Protocol: Notice of Action against Zhou Yongkang Appeared on Non-Xinhua Website
According to an article published on March 2 in Epoch Times, news about disciplinary action against Zhou Yongkang appeared in the news twice. The first time was at 3 p.m. Beijing time during a press conference that the 2nd session of the 12th CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee) held. A reporter from the Hong Kong South China Morning Post raised a question about recent reports on Zhou Yongkang and asked if the CPPCC had any answers. The response from Lu Xinhua, the speaker, was that anyone who violated the law would be subject to punishment no matter what official rank that person had. Lu said, “I can only give you this answer. You should understand.”
Following Lu’s response, at 8:35 p.m. Beijing time, China’s Lianzheng (clean government) website published a notice saying, “Zhou Yongkang is suspected of serious disciplinary violations.” The notice stated that Zhou had been expelled from the party and will be subject to further notification until the fourth plenary of the 18th Congress. Epoch Times said that it was a rare occurrence for a news website other than Xinhua to publish such an important announcement.
Sources:
Epochtimes, March 3, 2014,
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/14/3/3/n4096103.htm%E8%AF%A1%E5%BC%82%EF%BC%81%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%BB%89%E6%94%BF%E5%BB%BA%E8%AE%BE%E7%BD%91%E6%8A%A2%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%97%E6%B5%B7%E8%AF%9D%E8%AF%AD%E2%80%9C%E9%80%9A%E6%8A%A5%E5%91%A8%E6%B0%B8%E5%BA%B7%E2%80%9D.html?photo=2
Lianzheng, March 2, 2014
http://www.lianzheng.org/plus/view.php?aid=11362