Hot Topics – Page 8

Taiwan: Chinese Think Tanker: China Can Take Taiwan by Force in One Week by 2027

Jin Canrong, a Professor and Vice Dean of the School of International Relations at Renmin University in Beijing, is a hawkish think tanker in China. He got the world’s attention for providing diplomatic advice to the communist authorities.

In his recent interview with Nikkei Asia, he made the following statement:

“Reunification by force will be pushed to become a reality after the Chinese Communist Party’s 20^th National Congress is over in the fall of 2022. The leadership is likely to bring the date to 2027, around the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).”

“China already has the capability to reunify Taiwan within a week. The PLA can defeat any U.S. force within 1,000 nautical miles of (China’s) coast.”

“Japan should never intervene in the Taiwan emergency affair. The United States can no longer win over China on this. If Japan intervenes, China will have no choice but to defeat Japan as well. (Japan) should realize that a new change is taking place.”

Pandemic: Hangzhou and Xiong’an Suffered CCOVID-19

On February 1, China reported 63 COVID-19 infection cases from 8 municipalities and provinces, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, and others. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is known for hiding COVID-19 information, so the actual number of cases is not known.

Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province has reported cases daily since it first reported an Omicron case on January 26. The Binjiang District, which had the most cases, sent over 300 buses to transfer 2,000 families, with about 9,000 people, from their homes to designed isolation sites. In some situations, the bus took people to certain hotels, but the hotels refused to accept the people. By now, the city has moved 30,000 people into designated isolation sites.

Xiong’an, Beijing’s satellite city, which has been designed to host the Beijing city government (Beijing will host the central government functions), reported five COVID-19 cases recently and locked down the city. However, this is a “secret” lockdown: the government didn’t publicly announce it, but only told the 1.3 million people in the city that they must stay at home and not go out. It also blocked the roads so people couldn’t leave the city. Foreign media confirmed the lockdown. Also commentators pointed out that the infection number was likely to be much higher than five, otherwise the authorities did not need to lock down 1.3 million people.

Taiwan: IOC Pushed Taiwan to Attend the Olympic Opening Ceremony

On January 28, Taiwan announced that its athletes who were attending the Beijing Winter Olympic Games would not attend the Olympic’s Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony. From January 29 on, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) contacted Taiwan’s Olympic Committee multiple times, stating that the Olympic Charter requests Olympic Committees of all countries to attend the related ceremonies. The Taiwan Olympic Committee discussed the issue with the athletes and then announced that they would attend both ceremonies.

The Taiwan team uses the name “Chinese Taipei” to attend the Olympic Games. In January, Beijing suddenly called it “China Taipei” making many Taiwan people feel it was purposely belittling Taiwan (indicating Taipei is under China). That is why Taiwan announced earlier that it would not attend the ceremonies.

Propaganda: CCP Organized Chinese Olympics Athletes to Vow to Compete for Its Superior Leader

On January 25, Beijing organized over 170 athletes competing in the Beijing Winter Olympics Games to come to Tiananmen Square to make a vow. The vow was in the strong style of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) propaganda that was rare to see in China these days but common during Mao Zedong’s era.

Their vow consisted of five sentences:

“For the sake of the motherland – rush, rush, rush (为了祖国冲冲冲)

To live up to the people’s expectations – fight, fight, fight (不负人民拼拼拼)

To repay the Superior Leader I will spare no effort (报答领袖豁出去)

Always compete for first place and never give up (永争第一不认怂)

Follow the (CCP’s) General Secretary to go to the future (跟着总书记一起向未来)”

Chinese netizens criticized that some sentences in the vow were so flagrant in order to please the communist party leader Xi Jinping and that nowadays, people can only see this style of communication in North Korea’s propaganda. Some state media avoided mentioning some sentences. Youth Daily (a newspaper under the Shanghai Communist Youth League Committee) posted a title of the event with a blank page. CCTV reported the event, but its video cut out the third and fourth sentences.

The full vow can be seen here: https://twitter.com/GaoFalin/status/1486366103060336644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1486366103060336644%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.secretchina.com%2Fnews%2Fgb%2F2022%2F01%2F28%2F996347.html

CCTV’s news video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSzU0vXX4g

Source: Epoch Times, January 28, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/1/28/n13535794.htm

Hot Topics | | January 30, 2022 | Government/Politics

Economy: 200,000 People in China Stopped Paying their Mortgage

Recently a message was widely discussed on the Internet. On January 14, Professor Han Fuling of the Central University of Finance and Economics obtained some “insider information” and posted it: When 2022 started, over 200,000 people had stopped making their mortgage payments and were sued by the four major banks in China. The next day, Professor Han posted a message from an attorney in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province: “So many people have stopped their mortgage payments. We were exhausted after sending (that many) attorney letters.”

Recently China’s real estate prices in certain cities have dropped. Many people lost their jobs last year. Thus, people may be unable or are unwilling to make their mortgage payments. However, China does not have a way to protest if individuals decide to go bankrupt. If the person defaults on his mortgage payment, he will not only lose his down payment, but he is still responsible for (and thus, has to pay) the financial loss to the bank. If the bank auctions off the house but can’t fully recover the money, then that the person still owes the bank.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 21, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/jingmaorediansaomiao/econ-01212022154111.html

Hot Topics | | January 27, 2022 | Economy/Resources

Economy: Beijing’s Foreign Exchange Settlement Surplus Is Due to Drop in Chinese Tourists Who Go Overseas

In January 2022, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange published data showing that the total foreign exchange settlement in 2021 had a surplus of US $267.6 billion, an increase of $110 billion from the $158.7 billion surplus in 2020.

Epoch Times pointed out that this surplus was mainly due to the drop in Chinese tourists’ spending overseas. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 20 million Chinese traveled abroad, a drop of 87 percent from a year earlier. Chinese tourists’ spending overseas was $116 billion. It was less than what the foreign tourists spent in China.

In 2021, an estimated 25.6 million Chinese went abroad. The total tourists’ spending difference has not been released, but in the first half of 2021, Chinese tourists’ spending overseas was US $44.4 billion less than what the foreign tourists spent in China. Following this trend, the annual tourists spending gap will be around US $100 billion. Therefore, China’s foreign exchange settlement surplus may just come from Chinese tourists spending less overseas.

Source: Epoch Times, January 25, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/1/25/n13529285.htm

Hot Topics | | January 27, 2022 | Economy/Resources

Hot Topics - 8. page

Taiwan: Chinese Think Tanker: China Can Take Taiwan by Force in One Week by 2027

Taiwan: IOC Pushed Taiwan to Attend the Olympic Opening Ceremony

Propaganda: CCP Organized Chinese Olympics Athletes to Vow to Compete for Its Superior Leader

Economy: 200,000 People in China Stopped Paying their Mortgage

Economy: Beijing’s Foreign Exchange Settlement Surplus Is Due to Drop in Chinese Tourists Who Go Overseas

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