Chinascope – Page 851

Blue Book of China Audio-Visual New Media: The New Media Are Taking Control

The research center of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television recently published the 2013 Annual Report on the Development of China’s Audio Visual New Media. According to the report, the new media have had a significant impact. Personal computers, flat panel computers, and smart phones have brought the number of households living in Beijing who watch TV down to 30 percent from 70 percent three years ago. The report said that the audience for traditional media has shifted towards the senior population. A majority of the audience that watches television is age 40 years and older. In the meantime, the number of online television and video users has gone up. The Internet has become a major venue for watching popular TV movie series.

The report also suggested that, as the traditional media are losing their young audiences, their advertising market is shrinking as well. From 2007 to 2012, online advertising grew 120 percent for three straight years, significantly surpassing the increase in the television market.

It was reported that the annual income of the online video industry was 3.14 billion yuan (US$0.51 billion) in 2010, 6.27 billion (US$1.02 billion) in 2011 and 9.25 billion (US$1.51 billion) in 2012. The public opinion monitoring room of People’s Daily disclosed that the official media had 80 percent of the discourse rights in the 1980’s while non-official media gained 75 percent of the discourse rights on the top 20 popular social events in 2012.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/info/2013-06/16/c_132458593_8.htm

Briefings | | June 17, 2013 | Information/Technology

Li Keqiang Introduced Ten Air Pollution Prevention Measures and Promoted Photovoltaic Industry

On June 14, China’s new Premier, Li Keqiang, hosted the State Council meeting where he introduced plans for ten air pollution prevention measures and promoted the development of the photovoltaic industry.

The ten measures for preventing air pollution included, but were not limited to: limiting air pollution emissions; limiting production and growth of industries that consume high energy and create pollution; actively promoting “clean” manufacturing while reducing pollution emissions for key industries by 30 percent or more; increasing the usage of natural gas and coal methanol in order to speed up adjustments in the energy structure; strictly enforcing clean energy guidelines; and promoting incentives on projects to save energy. … The Council also stated that the photovoltaic industry is an important field for new energy development, although it is suffering from weak demand in both the domestic and international markets. The council called for efforts to strengthen the photovoltaic industry and promote product innovation and development to regain the photovoltaic market.

Source: Xinhua, June 14, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/14/c_116152393.htm

Briefings | | June 17, 2013 | Government/Politics

Developing Party Membership in Private Companies in Kunshan City

Xinhua published an article about developing Party membership in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, where 98 percent of the economic production comes from private enterprises.

According to the article, in the mid 1980’s, as more and more foreign investments poured in from Europe, the U.S., Japan, and Korea, the municipal government of Kunshan formulated a clear direction: to treat the importance of appealing to foreign investments the same as when developing the Party structure in private enterprises. For every foreign investment plan that was to be developed, all levels of municipal departments were required to come up with a plan to develop the Party structure in order to ensure that the “Party’s development moved in parallel with the economic development for each investment opportunity.”

According to the article, the City of Kunshan sent 352 full time Party cadres to the private enterprises. Those cadres, together with 3,668 Party leaders selected from the employees of the private sectors, formed a Party development team in Kunshan. They received financial incentives, as well as retirement and pension plans from the city.

The article disclosed that, because of the consistent Party development efforts in Kunshan, Kunshan currently has achieved "total coverage of Party membership" in private enterprises. Over 2,700 Party organizations have formed in private enterprises. They include 20,000 Party members, which accounts for 35 percent of the total Party members in Kunshan City. Of those, 75 percent hold key positions in their company.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/16/c_124861568_3.htm

Briefings | | June 17, 2013 | Government/Politics

Xinhua: The Troika Out of Steam and Economic Recovery Difficult

According to the macro-economic statistics recently released for the month of May, investments, exports, and consumption all fell below market expectations. The total social financing was 1.19 trillion yuan, a drop of over 30 percent from the figure for April. Since September of 2012, the Producer Price Index (PPI) and the industrial value added have hit new lows.

A review of the “Troika” (fixed asset investments, retail sales, and exports) that is deemed to be the driving force for economic growth shows fixed-asset investments grew slower than April by 0.2 percent compared to the growth from last year which was 20.4 percent; retail sales, with a growth of 12.9 percent from a year ago, was also below market expectations; exports in May grew one percent from a year earlier, a reduction of 13.7 percentage points compared to April’s growth. This was way below the 5.6 percent market expectation; it has hit its lowest point since last July.

Source: Xinhua, June 13, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2013-06/13/c_124847267.htm

Briefings | | June 14, 2013 | Economy/Resources

People’s Daily: The Black Hands Loomed out, Shorting Gold to Save Dollars

People’s Daily overseas edition published an article that stated that the current bear market in gold results from a conspiracy between U.S. financial institutions and the Federal Reserve.

Since April this year, the international price of gold has continued to fall. In contrast, with the improvement in U.S. economic data, the U.S. dollar has gradually grown stronger. So what is the source of this shorting power that caused the price of gold to plummet?

Honng Hao, a scholar at the Securities and Futures Institute of the Central University of Finance, believes that U.S. financial institutions actually manipulate the international price of gold. Once the 12-year long gold bull market bubble bursts, the United States can negate a large number of its printed dollars. To digest large quantities of printed money, the best way is to burst the asset bubbles and transfer the loss to the investors.

Yao Tongxin, Deputy Director of the China Center for Strategic Studies at Peking University believes that the real black hands behind the scene are the Wall Street financial giants who are working together with the Federal Reserve. They have jointly controlled this round’s crash in the price of gold. The purpose of manipulating the price of gold is not just to profit through the shorting mechanism. They had a larger strategic plan in mind. That is to destroy investor confidence in gold and allow the dollar to continue to grow in strength through suppressing the price of gold, thus enhancing the dollar’s credit and in the end allowing the U.S. debt chain and financial cycle to continue.

Source: People’s Daily (overseas edition), June 12, 2013

http://finance.people.com.cn/n/2013/0612/c1004-21815613.html

Briefings | | June 14, 2013 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Chengdu City to Train 1,000 Internet Monitors

On June 12, 2013, Chengdu authorities in Sichuan Province announced that they will train 1,000 volunteers to “spread civilization on the Internet” in order to monitor and control Internet postings.

In an interview with Chengdu Daily, a city official stated, “This year, our city will re-enforce the development of volunteer teams to spread civilization on the Internet. Chengdu will rely on 1,000 people at all levels of civilized units as the basic team, and will develop another core backbone of about 100 volunteers and a civilization commentator team of 15.”

To be assigned to selected websites throughout the country, these monitors will “effectively guide netizens not to use curse words and not to believe or spread rumors.”

Source: Chengdu Daily, June 12, 2013
http://www.cdrb.com.cn/html/2013-06/12/content_1864790.htm

Briefings | | June 14, 2013 | Government/Politics

In 2012, 36 Provincial Governments Had Debts Totalling 3.85 Trillion Yuan

China’s National Audit Office recently released the results of the debt audit of 36 provincial level governments. As of the end of 2012, these 36 governments had a debt balance that had reached 3.85 trillion yuan (US$0.63 trillion). This represents a 440 billion yuan (US$71.7 trillion) or 12.9 percent increase over the level in 2010. An official from the National Audit Office observed that the pace of current local governments’ debt growth is too high and that some regions and industries are facing a looming debt crisis.

The audit results highlighted four aspects of the debt problem. The first is the high debt growth of some provincial capital cities: 14 provincial capital cities have 18.17 billion yuan (US$2.96 billion) in overdue debt. Second is the decline in the growth of land sale revenues. Third, in some areas, the debt for highway construction has grown rapidly. Fourth, due to the cancellation of road tolls, some governments face greater pressure for debt repayment.

Source: Xinhua, June 13, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2013-06/13/c_124847326.htm

Briefings | | June 13, 2013 | Economy/Resources

Military Expert: China Has No Reason to Fear Any War

The 12th Asian Security Conference, also called the Shangri-La Dialogue, was held in Singapore, concluding on June 2, 2013. The representatives of the participating countries and regions focused their attention on Asia-Pacific regional security cooperation.

Qi Jianguo, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, made the observation that, in the past 30 years, almost all of the world’s major counties have used their armed forces to participate in a war. "For nearly 30 years, China is the only country that has not used its armed forces to participate in any war or to provoke a military conflict.”

Military expert Du Wenlong interpreted the message that Qi was signaling. In an interview on the CCTV program, "Today’s Focus," he said that the message expresses two levels of meaning: On the one hand, for the last 30 years, China has not wanted war. First and foremost it has chosen a path of peaceful dialogue and peaceful development. However this approach has also made us lose a lot of opportunities. For example, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other wars, the armed forces of the United States gained experience in its comprehensive combat capability. Its new weapons and equipment in all combat operations have been tested. We had some trade-offs in these areas compared with the Western counties.

On the other hand, 30 years ago, the Chinese army was invincible. From 1949 on, after the founding of the Republic of China, the PLA won all of its wars. Now, with the increase in China’s comprehensive national power and with the development of its military technology, we are capable of producing all the weapons required to safeguard our national security, from the F -15, aircraft carriers, and stealth fighter to the new surface ships, etc. From this point of view, we have no reason to fear any war.

Source: People’s Daily, June 3, 2013

http://military.people.com.cn/n/2013/0603/c1011-21713902.html

Briefings | | June 13, 2013 | Defense/Military

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.