Reporter : Yang Zheng
Editor : Yuan Mingqing
Publisher : Sound Of Hope
Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan
/ KUCINTA SETIA
Image courtesy : Kazuhiro Nogi - Pool / Getty Images
Japanese media recently commented that the high unemployment and low economic growth caused by the covid pandemic will make the CCP face the challenge of ruling legitimacy. For Xi Jinping, the biggest nightmare is the collapse of the CCP like the Soviet Union.
The Liberty Times quoted the Nikkei Asian Review article on 14 June 2020 that the most difficult problem in China is unemployment. Although the official unemployment rate is 6%, the data does not include people officially registered in rural areas. Counting migrant workers, China’s actual unemployment rate may rise to 20%. The ruling Communist Party must be worried about this.
The report quoted Chinese observers in Hong Kong as pointing out signs that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang disagreed on how to save the sinking economy. They pointed out that Li Keqiang's speech at the National People's Congress on 22 May broke the tradition, did not set economic growth targets for this year, and clearly expressed his concern about job losses.
According to Xi's close friends, Japanese experts Li Keqiang , who is in charge of financial policy, would have made a more optimistic statement on the economic outlook to promote China’s epidemic prevention “victory” under Xi’s leadership but Li did not follow in his usual work report at the National People’s Congress .
The article pointed out that according to the World Bank's forecast, China's economy will grow by 1% this year, which will be China's slowest expansion since opening to the outside world in the 1970s.
The article believes that the Chinese people still tolerate the rule of the Communist Party despite the restrictions on political freedom because their lives have improved steadily in the past few decades. However, low economic growth and high unemployment will shake the core of the CCP. Xi Jinping’s biggest nightmare is that the People’s Republic of China suffered the same fate as the Soviet Union, which disintegrated in 1991, due to economic chaos.
The article also cited the fact that when Xi Jinping became the leader of the Communist Party of China in 2012, he ordered all senior officials to watch the documentary of the disintegration of the Soviet Union to illustrate how worried Xi is about repeating the mistakes of the Soviet Union. As far as Xi is concerned, the fall of the Soviet Union is a possible lesson for China.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick of the George W. Bush Administration also pointed out in a video forum last month (May) that the outbreak of the epidemic may threaten the ruling Communist Party. "I believe that if President Xi cannot control the epidemic, he will raise threats to the legitimacy of the CCP."
The article also pointed out that the CCP’s concerns about internal stability may affect its behavior towards other countries. At present, China and the United States are on the verge of a new cold war. Traditionally, when Sino-US relations are tense, China will try to divide the relationship between the United States and its friends in the Asia-Pacific region. But when the country (the CCP) is controlled by fear, it often loses the ability to make informed decisions. China (the CCP) may respond to its current pressure by adopting irrational, hard-line positions and unpredictable behaviour towards some countries. Since the outbreak, the CCP has shown that it has become harder diplomatically and has taken a tough stance against many countries.
The article mentioned that a senior Russian official also compared the situation in China with the Soviet Union. The Russian official said that the Soviet Union collapsed when the Communist Party lost its ability to enforce law. China now has a similar situation, but the CCP still has power, so it has more reason to fear.
In addition to high unemployment and low economic growth, China has also suffered from various natural and man-made disasters. In April and May, the northern region suffered multiple low-temperature freezing and snow disasters, while the southern region was hit by strong winds and hail. Since June, heavy rains have caused disasters in dozens of provinces in the south, and high temperatures and drought in the north. All of these have a great impact on agricultural production.
In addition, locust disasters broke out in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Hunan and other provinces. Although these locusts are still in the larval stage, they are spreading quickly and densely. Once they spread to the three northeastern provinces, China may lose 20.3% of their food.
Once a food crisis occurs, it will surely aggravate social unrest.
The epidemic that the CCP claimed to successfully resist has also made a comeback, and the center of the new epidemic situation happens to be the capital Beijing.
Some observers believe that this year for China can be described as a year of disasters. Natural disasters and human disasters are intertwined.
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