According to Zhang Dandan, a professor from Beijing University, the youth unemployment rate in China may be underestimated due to discouraged workers temporarily leaving the labor force during weak job markets,

According to an article published by Zhang in China Digital Times, structural and short-term factors both contribute to high youth unemployment. In the long run, three years of COVID-19 restrictions significantly impacted consumption, business, and economic vitality. In the short run, the 16.6% year-on-year increase in college graduates in 2022 and the 12% increase in graduate students flooded the job market. Rapid AI development has also begun replacing human roles in some white-collar professions like finance and sales, disproportionately impacting highly-educated youth. While vocational youth employment has rebounded slightly since March, unemployment remains high for 4-year college graduates. The number of civil service exam takers surged 80% during the period 2022-2023, reflecting graduates’ job insecurity. With 11.58 million total 2023 graduates, competition is fierce.

According to China’s Bureau of Statistics, urban youth in the 16-to-24-year old age range comprise 96 million individuals, of whom 64 million do not have jobs. Among this group of non-laboring urban youth, 16 million are non-students, many of whom choose to “lie flat” by relying on their parents rather than working. If these individuals were counted as unemployed, the youth unemployment rate could be as high as 46.5% rather than the reported 19.7%.

College graduates are increasingly choosing to not work immediately after graduation, comprising about 75% of the youth who choose to “lie flat. This situation may be helped as college graduates reduce their salary expectations and gradually enter the workforce. However, economic recovery is needed to fundamentally address the root cause of youth unemployment.

Source: China Digital Times, July 19, 2023
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/698406.html

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently stressed the importance of food security, calling for enhanced protection of China’s farmland, improved quality of the farmland, and full utilization of the potential of saline-alkali land to boost agricultural production.

On July 20, Xi chaired a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Financial and Economic Committee to study the issues of strengthening farmland protection and comprehensive improvement of saline-alkali land. The meeting notes say that China’s situation, with a large population and a small amount of land, has not changed, and that the country still faces prominent problems around use of farmland for non-agricultural purposes. The meeting stressed the need to “ensure that the red line of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectacres) of farmland will never be broken.”

The meeting stated that the central government should motivate farmers and local governments to protect farmland and promote grain production, establish a mechanism to guarantee the income of grain farmers, and develop various forms of moderate-scale agricultural operations.

The meeting pointed out that the comprehensive improvement and utilization of saline-alkali land is an important aspect of farmland protection and improvement. China has a large amount of saline-alkali land, and the trend of saline-alkaliization of farmland in some areas is becoming more serious. The meeting notes said that it is of great significance that China launch a project of comprehensive improvement and utilization of saline-alkali land, fully tapping the potential of saline-alkali land, strengthening the improvement of existing saline-alkali farmland, and effectively curbing the trend of saline-alkaliization of farmland.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), July 20, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202307200385.aspx

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently published a commentary on China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) authored by Yen Qingzhang (顏慶章), who served as Taiwan’s Minister of Finance and was the first ambassador of Taiwan to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Below are some key points made in the article.

GDP has become the main data point for measuring national output and economic activity across the world. China’s official records state that, in 1985, the country’s State Council gave approval for the National Bureau of Statistics to calculate China’s GDP using the System of National Accounts (SNA) methodology recommended by the United Nations. However, on March 18, 2022, China’s National Supervision Commission for Central Discipline Inspection (中央紀委國家監委) officially stated that “in recent years, the National Bureau of Statistics has resolutely investigated and dealt with statistical violations of disciplines and laws, but the problem of persistent statistical fraud is still relatively prominent.”

In 2019, a joint publication by University of Chicago Economist Xie Changtai and three scholars from the Chinese University of Hong Kong concluded that China’s economic data, including industrial exports and investment amounts, have been skewed for a long time. The paper indicated that China’s annual GDP growth from 2008 to 2016 was exaggerated by an average of two percentage points per year. Cumulatively, the official figures for 2016 are exaggerated by 16 percent, equivalent to more than US$1.5 trillion.

The tragic truth of China’s economic development, putting aside controversy around GDP exaggeration, is that the “achievements” of China’s economic growth have not resulted in accumulation of national wealth. To the contrary, the country’s wealth has been hollowed out. First, as far as residential construction and real estate are concerned, there are as many as 60 million empty housing units. What a waste of GDP! Second, investment by local governments in public facilities, originally an important factor driving local GDP, has been corrupted to the point of being unusable with the passage of time. Although future demolition of unnecessary construction projects will contribute to GDP, such demolition will not create any real wealth. Third, public investment by the central government in major projects such as China’s highspeed railway system have suffered from major losses. The highspeed railway’s income can only compensate for its electricity consumption, and by the end of 2022 the railway system’s liabilities totaled RMB 6 trillion (around US$0.834 trillion).

Source: LTN, July 23, 2023
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/4365526