Chinascope – Page 802

Due to Local Debts, Shadow Banking, and Property Bubbles, China’s Economy May Crash at Any Time

On December 3, 2013, the Hexun website, a leading financial and securities information website in China, published an article on three major financial risks that China faces. The three major financial risks in China are local government’s debts, shadow banking, and property bubbles. Once one of these 3 financial risks gets out of control, China’s economy may crash at any time.

China’s local government’s debts have been growing continuously in recent years. Currently, local debts have reached around 20 trillion Chinese yuan, which is 40 percent of its total GDP for 2012. Shadow banking in China poses the 2nd biggest risk for its financial system. As China has never publicized any real estate statistical data, there has been a debate as to whether China has a property bubble. However, according to scholars’ research there are 68 million vacant housing units in China. If that is true, then China’s property bubble is very large. Once the bubble breaks, a destructive domino chain reaction may not only crash China’s economy but also lead to wide scale social unrest in China.

Source: Hexun, December 3, 2013
http://opinion.hexun.com/2013-12-03/160234304.html

Briefings | | December 4, 2013 | Economy/Resources

Qiu Shi: Directions on How to Manage Public Opinion Online

Qiu Shi, a magazine of the CCP Central Committee, recently published an article discussing a key point the new Chinese President Xi Jinping made in a conference. Xi suggested that those who do propaganda and ideology work should shift their focus toward managing public opinion online. The article analyzed the development trend of the Internet and concluded that it fundamentally changed human society and how public opinion can be influenced. Traditional one-way communication channels like newspapers, the radio and even television are losing ground. China now has a netizen population of nearly 0.6 billion; it has 0.46 billion cellphone users and 0.3 billion microbloggers. China is becoming the largest “new media” country in the world with the “most noisy” public opinion “field.” The author emphasized the importance of the fact that the government must tightly control the online leadership position, administrative power, and the highest right to speak. If the Communist Party does not “occupy the battlefield,” then “someone else will.” The author called for establishing a talent pool to provide the government with qualified government officials and superior technical teams to deliver Internet control in a timely, deep, accurate and effective fashion.

Source: Qiu Shi, November 27, 2013
http://www.qstheory.cn/zywz/201311/t20131127_296081.htm

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Information/Technology

CRN: The Emerging Countries Are Good Consumers for China’s Excess Capacity

China Review News (CRN) recently published an article discussing China’s manufacturing overcapacity issue. China’s market demand apparently does not match the volume of current production. China is facing a major problem of excess manufacturing capacity. It is not easy to resolve it without massively increasing the unemployment rate. The author expressed the belief that the Chinese manufacturing structure was not designed for domestic consumption to begin with. Therefore, it is highly possible that emerging economies, whose share of the global market has grown to 29.7 percent (from 15.4 percent), may be a good target market. The article suggested that the Chinese companies take the opportunity of an appreciated Chinese currency and invest in the new markets so that a large percentage of China’s manufacturing capacity can be consumed.

Source: China Review News, November 28, 2013
http://hk.crntt.com/doc/1028/9/1/2/102891236.html?coluid=53&kindid=0&docid=102891236&mdate=1128074739

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Economy/Resources

BBC Chinese: Japan Turned to ICAO to Discuss China’s Air Defense ID Zone

BBC Chinese recently reported that Japan took the issues arising out of China’s creation of the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The Japanese representative asked the ICAO Council to have a discussion on how to deal with the newly established Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone. Japan called the Zone a potential threat to international civil aviation order and safety. The United States, Great Britain, and Australia all agreed with the Japanese on their call for a discussion. However China disagreed. The United States government stated that the U.S. government expects civil airlines to follow the ICAO regulations on issuing NOTAM (Notice to Airmen). However that does not mean that the U.S. government accepts Beijing’s terms for its Zone. Since rounds of foreign military aircraft have ignored the Chinese Identification Zone rules, the Chinese Air Force has started sending fighter jets to identify the aircraft entering the Zone.

Source: BBC Chinese, November 30, 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/world/2013/11/131130_japan_icao_china.shtml

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Guangming Daily: China’s Scientific Journals Lag Behind

Recently, the 9th Scientific Journal Development Forum was held in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Over 600 scholars from the domestic and foreign scientific journal industry participated in the forum.

Guangming Daily published an article summarizing the discussion on the topic of how the fact that China’s scientific journals lag behind other countries is incompatible with China’s image as a scientific and economic giant. The article said that China has the largest number of researchers who publish the second largest number of scientific papers and it also holds the third largest number of patents in the world. China has close to 5,000 scientific journals. They account for 50 percent of the total number of journals in China. Thus China ranks second in the world next to the U.S. However, only 239 or 5 percent of those journals are in English. Their quality is considered to be low and they do not have much of an impact in their respective scientific fields. The article disclosed that over 80 percent of the Chinese researchers have chosen to publish their papers in foreign journals rather than in domestic journals. It also said that China’s journal industry is behind in online and digital publishing. Currently scientific groups, research agencies, or universities publish articles, but they have a limited publication size and sales channels and can hardly compete with international publishers.

The article also reported that the General Administration of Press and Publications, Radio, Film and Television has and will continue to introduce policies to assist in the development of the scientific journal industry and to improve its international influence.

Source: Guangming Daily, November 30, 2013
http://news.gmw.cn/2013-11/30/content_9652103.htm

Briefings | | December 2, 2013 | Information/Technology

Head of Propaganda Department: Use Movies to Express Wishes for a Beautiful China Dream

On November 29, the China Film Association held its 9th National Congress in Beijing. Liu Qibao, head of the propaganda department spoke at the meeting. Liu stressed the need to study the speech that Xi Jinping gave during the Party’s 18th National Congress. He stated that the movie industry should use the “China Dream” as an important topic as a movie’s production goes forward. Liu said that the workers in the movie industry should take it as their historic mission to paint a picture of the “China Dream,” to broadcast it, and to express people’s wishes for a beautiful China Dream.

Source: People’s Daily, November 30, 2013
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/1130/c1001-23701296.html

Briefings | | December 2, 2013 | Government/Politics

State Internet Information Office: Effort to Combat Internet Rumors has been Successful

According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), the Deputy Director of the State Internet Information Office recently spoke at the Internet Development and Management meeting held in Beijing. He stated that since the effort to attack Internet rumors was launched in May of this year, the end result has been effective. A number of microblog accounts have been closed and the related personnel have been punished because of their involvement in spreading rumors on the Internet.

Liu Qing, a China Human Rights activist told RFA that the “effort to clean up the Internet environment” was meant to make the contents that the Chinese government does not welcome or that provide truth clarification information disappear from the internet. Liu added, “They have done this so many times. … If the censored information were to be made available to the public for open discussion, the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party would face a huge challenge and be threatened. Therefore they will try every means to control the Internet. … The Communist Party has taken control of the Internet and of information as its lifeline. They will not let it go that easily.”

The statistics indicate that, by June 2013, there were 331 million microblog users in China. Since its launch in 2011, the number of micro message users has broken 300 million. According to the top ten most influential Internet sites, over 200 million microblog exchanges take place each day.

Source: Radio Free Asia, November 28, 2013
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/nu-11282013141840.html

Briefings | | December 2, 2013 | Government/Politics

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.