On 19 July 2022, "Business Daily" published its reporter Dana Heide's observations and summary after three years of work in China. The article, titled "Twilight China: How Much Has This Country Changed," wrote that she started work in Beijing before the covid pandemic, when about 382,000 people flew from all over the world every day away from China. Today, “the China I knew in my first few months as a reporter has disappeared”, and the number of people flying in and out of China every day in 2021 has dropped to about 8,400.
The reporter then described the current state of CCP China's economy in her eyes - business sentiment, consumption is at a low point, young people are seriously unemployed, in addition, there is a heavily indebted public budget and a real estate crisis. “The ruling Communist Party is dismantling almost everything that has made China successful. In the past three years, there has been a marked increase in economic and social control. Beijing is isolating itself from overseas and becoming a a bigger threat for world peace."
The article is then divided into several sections on how China has changed over the past few years—“total control,” Hong Kong, wars against Taiwan and Ukraine, and “China is closing itself off.”
In the "Comprehensive Control" section, the author stated that cameras were ubiquitous in China long before the epidemic, but after the introduction of the "Health Code", China has "weaved a tight control network to capture everything and every people, including myself."
When talking about Hong Kong, the former reporter in China said: "Hong Kong today is just a shadow of my visit two years ago. The National Security Law promulgated by Beijing in 2020 has set almost all challenges to the regime as criminal offenses. More than 180 people have been imprisoned for criticizing the Hong Kong government or the Beijing government. ... For Beijing, breaking its international commitments is de facto undermining the 'one country, two systems' principle with almost no consequences."
Under the subsequent subheading "China a Threat to World Peace," the article described China's position on the Taiwan issue and the war in Ukraine, stating that "even with its closest trading partners, China's leadership is increasingly confrontational".
The last part of Dana Heide's article states that "China is closing in on itself", decoupling from the world in multiple areas. She concludes by writing that despite state repression and increasingly difficult conditions on many fronts, "if you take the time to visit China, you will still meet interesting people and tireless entrepreneurs. . . China's potential remains enormous. ... but it's becoming increasingly doubtful that the country will be able to capitalize on that potential."
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Developing countries are closely watching the "big brother" CCP
Sri Lanka's economy collapsed and the Rajapaksa family, who ruled the country for years, fell. Christoph Hein, Singapore-based correspondent for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, commented on 18 July 2022, "This is a disaster and a resounding reminder that the rulers of Africa, Asia and South America have clearly noticed that ... in times of extreme need "Beijing's financiers are not helping Sri Lanka. The collapse of Sri Lanka has left politicians in developing and emerging countries in a cold sweat as they all have to deal with rising interest rates, a high dollar and their own debt."
The commentary then recounts the post-civil war rise of the fugitive former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as well as China's Belt and Road project in Sri Lanka, noting that the CCP government favors these developing countries. The so-called political strongman "makes himself indispensable through loans and construction teams, securing his own strategic access".
"In Colombo, almost within India's line of sight, Chinese submarines are welcomed but at a critical time like now, it is not Beijing that provides billions of dollars in emergency aid, but India, which is finally realizing its regional responsibility. What damages China's reputation as a development partner is like what China is doing now with Sri Lanka and its needy neighbour Pakistan. Its allies Laos and Cambodia may also face a crisis next. Many developing, threshold governments will again pay close attention, and see how their so-called 'big brother' will behave."
News (10)
Xi Jinping faces resistance and will face the worst political crisis
Over the past few years, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has taken control of China's big tech companies, imposing a draconian nationwide zero-out policy. Now, he is facing an unexpected challenge from Chinese home buyers. Homebuyers refusing to pay their mortgages have spread like fire across 91 Chinese cities.
The real estate market accounts for one-fifth of China's economic activity. About 70 percent of household wealth in China is tied to real estate, far more than in the United States, making it one of the Communist Party's most sensitive political issues.
For months, Xi Jinping has firmly reined in "overleveraged" Chinese developers, sparking a record wave of defaults that put at least 24 major real estate companies on the verge of collapse, while also scaring people. bad for global investors.
News (11)
Mortgage boycott spreads to 91 cities
Chinese homebuyers are watching their household wealth drain as the housing market continues to slump as falling house prices make buyers' properties now worth less than they agreed to pay, leaving them struggling to pay their mortgages and distressed.
In addition, the delay in completion of the apartment building has also annoyed buyers. They are now publicly revolting, and the boycott of mortgage payments is escalating rapidly and has expanded to at least 301 projects in about 91 cities. The value of mortgage loans that could be affected has ballooned to about 2 trillion yuan ($297 billion).
"Chinese homebuyers usually pool the resources of the entire family to buy a home," Bloomberg quoted Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, as saying.
"If their house becomes negative equity, it's a matter of life and death for them."
News (12)
Mortgage boycott is bad timing for Xi Jinping
As property prices fall and projects stall, it could spark wider dissatisfaction among homebuyers, fueling an already rapidly escalating mortgage boycott.
For Xi, the timing of the unexpected revolt from Chinese homebuyers could not have come at a worse time. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is still months away, when Xi will seek a third term. There are already signs that Mr. Xi will seek to ease the situation ahead of the sensitive moment of the 20th Party Congress.
Chinese authorities may allow homeowners to temporarily halt mortgage payments on stalled real estate projects without penalties, in an attempt to stabilize the market, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has also asked banks to increase credit to eligible developers so they can complete unfinished projects.
Bloomberg quoted Chi Lo, senior Asia-Pacific investment strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management, as saying, "This is the first time we've seen this type of mortgage boycott in China, and it's clearly caused the CCP) government’s attention.” “It is crucial that Xi maintain stability ahead of the party’s 20th National Congress.”
Diana Choyleva, chief economist at economic consultancy Enodo Economics, said the pair would be hard-pressed by the ruling Communist Party ahead of its 20th party congress later this year, The Guardian reported. It's a moment of instability, as it heralds a dip in confidence in a year when stability should have been a priority.
She added: “The refusal of homebuyers to pay mortgages on unfinished properties in cities across China and the massive protests by bank depositors in Henan demanding their savings back and denouncing government corruption are another type of challenge that Beijing faces right now. Manifestations."
News (13)
Xi Jinping faces "systemic" political crisis if protests erupt across the country
Even if a short-term solution is found, there are still long-term risks for Xi, Bloomberg said. Xi Jinping is seeing an unusually wide range of social discontent, with the Chinese economy taking a hit as he cracks down on excessive debt and seeks to implement a Covid-19 zero policy that will keep the party from meeting its annual economic growth target of 5.5%.
"If thousands of homeowners think their greatest asset is in trouble, they may identity protests across China, creating a 'systemic' political crisis."
The British "Guardian" published an article on July 19 saying that boycotting mortgage loans threatens China's economic and political stability.
China's economy is facing a blow from stagnant growth, high unemployment, resistance to mortgage payments and ongoing coronavirus lockdowns, with the potential for severe social and political consequences.
The refusal of homebuyers to pay their mortgages is a sign that the confidence of ordinary Chinese in the property market and the wider banking sector is beginning to crumble.
"The property I bought isn't finished yet, why do I have to pay the mortgage?" said one angry social media user after watching a documentary about hundreds of home buyers in Xi'an having to live in unfinished apartments.
News (14)
A broken economic model
Real estate has been a major driver of China's economic growth for years, with prices steadily rising for decades, offering a seemingly one-way upswing in middle-class incomes.
However, this growth trend in the real estate industry has shattered as the CCP imposed regulations on real estate developers, extreme epidemic lockdown measures.
At present, new epidemics have reappeared in many places in China, the CCP has once again implemented partial blockade measures, and major cities such as Shanghai are also facing the threat of further paralysis, all of which exacerbate the uncertain prospects for the future.
The government in Beijing has responded in recent weeks to the sluggish Chinese economy with plans for another massive infrastructure project worth as much as $70 billion in an attempt to ensure growth.
However, the Guardian says many economists and China watchers now believe that Beijing's "borrow-and-build" economic model has collapsed and that more infrastructure is the road to destruction , rather than leading to a sustainable future.
The crisis plaguing the real estate industry perfectly illustrates the problem, the report said. The government has used all means to stem Evergrande's slow collapse. Evergrande admitted last year that "changing market conditions" meant it could no longer repay its huge debt.
Although the Evergrande incident has faded to some extent after state-owned enterprises intervened to solve some of the difficulties, it was unable to prevent the spread of the "poison".
For one, homebuyers refusing to pay their mortgages showed they had grown desperate as they saw the value of unfinished homes drop while developers were still struggling.
Market research firm Capital Economics said in a research note that homebuyers' resistance to mortgages reflected their anxiety over whether a home could be completed "and dissatisfaction with falling prices for new homes". The report estimates that construction on about 13 million apartments has stopped in the past year.
Second, home sales remain subdued, with few signs of recovery amid the Covid lockdown, rising unemployment and uncertainty over the delivery of completed homes. Sales fell in May at a slower pace than in previous months, but from a low starting point, falling to the worst level since 2006. From January to May, property sales fell 23.6% from a year earlier.
Third, some troubles are brewing in financial markets, and investors are worried that there will be more bankruptcies. That concern saw the value of bonds sold by real estate companies fall sharply last week, as did real estate stocks in the Chinese stock market.
The Guardian quoted Dan Wang, chief economist at Shanghai Hang Seng Bank, as saying that policymakers in Beijing were now facing a "huge dilemma" in addressing the homebuyer crisis, "Eighty percent of residential housing in China is built with prepaid plans. So even if the central bank wants to save the industry, it won't be able to do it without lowering mortgage rates."
"They also need to figure out a way to ease the debt pressure on property companies without easing the official 'three red lines', a strict policy designed to limit debt for property developers. But it's going to be tough to get there. "
"According to our calculations, between 10% and 30% of local and regional governments will meet the prudential threshold for fiscal risk by the end of 2022," the analysts said, meaning they may not be able to service their debts and could be placed under special conditions by the central government measures.
News (15)
Li Keqiang admits that economic growth is difficult to guarantee: First stabilize employment and prices
Image : CCP Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at an event in Beijing on 21 November 21, 2019. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
In the second quarter of this year, China's economic growth fell off a cliff, causing concern. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang recently showed a showdown, saying that it is acceptable for the economic growth rate to be low, and that the most important thing now is to stabilize employment and prices.
News (16)
Li Keqiang admits that economic growth cannot be guaranteed
Under the impact of Xi Jinping's "dynamic clearing" epidemic prevention policy, China's economy continued to decline sharply. The economic growth rate in the second quarter was only 0.4%, the lowest in two years. International assessment agencies have predicted that China will achieve the predetermined target of "about 5.5%" of GDP growth in 2022, which is extremely unrealistic.
China's National Bureau of Statistics, which releases economic data, also acknowledged the challenges of meeting its full-year growth forecast.
The Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who focuses on the economy, admitted frankly when he attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Entrepreneur Video Dialogue on July 19, that China still needs to make hard work to stabilize the economic market. The most important thing now is "stabilizing employment", "" price stability".
"It is acceptable for the economic growth rate to be higher or lower," Li Keqiang said.
News (17)
The economy and epidemic prevention fight, officials do not know who to listen to
On the same day, "21st Century Business Herald" published an exclusive interview with Liu Yuanchun, president of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. He bluntly said that the target of GDP growth of about 5.5% is difficult to achieve, and the economic trend this year may be W-shaped.
In the opinion of some economists, Liu Yuanchun's forecast is too optimistic. As early as May of this year, Li Keqiang presided over a national meeting of 100,000 people, calling on the grassroots to "stabilize the economic market", and introduced a series of measures to save the economy. However, a number of international financial institutions expect China's economy to continue to decline, and once again lowered China's economic growth (GDP) forecast for 2022.
On 26 May 2022, the US consumer news and business channel CNBC reported that UBS (UBS) lowered its forecast for China's economic growth in 2022 to 3% from the previous 4.2%.
Another investment bank, JPMorgan, forecast a figure of 3.7%, significantly lower than the previous 4.3%.
Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase, and his team released a report saying, "Insisting on the zero-covid prevention policy is the biggest uncertain factor, including the risk of continued disruption of economic activities and the risk of repeated counterattacks of the Omicron epidemic."
Goldman Sachs, a large US investment bank, lowered its forecast for China's economic growth to 4% to 4.5% on May 18.
Bloomberg is the most pessimistic about China's economy. A research report released by Bloomberg Economics on May 20 predicted that China's economic growth this year may drop to 2%, the lowest of all current expectations.
According to Bloomberg, China is caught in a vicious circle of "self-cancellation". On the one hand, it is anxious about various economic weakness and has launched various measures to stimulate the economy. But on the other hand, these measures were defused by the authorities' zero-epidemic prevention policy.
Current affairs commentator Wang He told NTDTV, "The CCP has said a word, the epidemic must be controlled, the economy must be stabilized, and development must be safe. Because China's dynamics are cleared, these three goals make it completely impossible to achieve. There is a fight inside it."
Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that at Li Keqiang's economic meeting of 100,000 people, many senior officials in cities were absent as they were focusing on epidemic prevention, suggesting that epidemic prevention still trumps the economy.
Bloomberg said that many grass-roots government officials responsible for implementing policies are in a dilemma between balancing epidemic prevention and the economy, and are "not quite sure who to listen to."
On the other hand, Li Keqiang's speech at the meeting revealed that the zero-epidemic prevention policy has caused China's economy to encounter a serious crisis. That night, the party media rushed to issue a comprehensive dialectical view of the current economic situation, basically denying Li Keqiang's speech. The full text of Li Keqiang's speech was also deleted in large numbers on social media.
The Epoch Times columnist Zhou Xiaohui said that Li Keqiang's speech was deleted and denied, which shows that Xi Jinping will never accept the denial of his zero-covid policy, and that China's economy and people's livelihood will continue to deteriorate.
After the 100,000-person meeting, when Xi Jinping inspected Wuhan, Hubei on 28 June 2022, he reiterated his insistence on "maintaining dynamic clearing". He said, "It would be better to temporarily affect economic development" than to engage in "collective immunity" and "lying flat".
News (18)
Xi Jinping's military reform loopholes are exposed. Experts: Air Force operations will last less than two weeks
Image : The picture shows the J-11 fighter jet of the Chinese Air Force. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
After the CCP leader Xi Jinping took office, he launched a large-scale military reform, but military experts found loopholes in it. From the perspective of logistics supply alone, experts believe that the CCP Air Force is fighting Lasted less than two weeks.
News (19)
Logistics supplies exposed the door of the communist military cover
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on 20 July 2022 that senior U.S. military analysts believe that even though the CCP's active duty officers and soldiers are considerable, the logistical deficiencies mean that this unit is very weak in combat readiness.
On 19 July, Joshua Arostegui, a senior analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense, said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, that the Chinese Army’s operational logistics supply does not have the modern logistics strategy. He questioned how long the Chinese military could last at the tactical level once the war broke out.
Arostgui came to this conclusion based on a recent U.S. Department of Defense journal article targeting the Chinese Communist Party, as well as official footage broadcast by the Chinese Communist Party's CCTV. He noted the "surprisingly inadequate" Chinese military infrastructure, from naval supply ships to aircraft maintenance pads.
He wondered how long the CCP army could hold out in the event of a real war without modern logistical means? For other countries that intend to intimidate the CCP, "the logistical supply system can be said to have exposed the cover of the People's Liberation Army (the CCP's army)," Alosdji said.
News (20)
The war situation is changing rapidly, and the Russian dilemma may reappear
The current logistics support system of the CCP’s military was re-established after Xi Jinping came to power. After Xi Jinping, the leader of the Communist Party of China who is also the chairman of the Military Commission, took office in 2012, he initiated a major military reform. In November 2015, the General Logistics Department of the army was abolished, and the Logistics Support Department of the Central Military Commission was reorganized to be responsible for the logistics support planning, policy research, standard setting, etc.
Military experts have analyzed that such military reforms have resulted in the loss of direct command authority for commanders in specific theaters and led to bureaucratic delays.
During the covid epidemic, Beijing authorities have sent troops on rescue missions, which seem to have played a role. But Arostgui and another expert, JR Sessions, point out that engaging in public medical emergencies and responding to rapidly changing and complex battles are very different tasks. They questioned whether the Chinese military was ready to switch between war and civilian roles.
In addition, there are also many problems in the logistics support of the CCP's military. The Beijing authorities want to use private enterprises to solve the problem of insufficient transportation capacity. But experts believe that this could put the Communist Party in the dilemma it was when Russia sent troops to Ukraine.
Sessions said Beijing intends to integrate private logistics companies such as JD.com and SF Express into the wartime transportation system. However, he said that in the context of rapidly changing battle conditions, dynamic decisions must be made based on battlefield conditions, and then supplies are provided to the front lines. The CCP’s military relies on private enterprises to solve its transportation capacity, which is reminiscent of the difficulties faced by Russia when it sent troops to Ukraine.
He said that the current logistics support units established by the CCP's army are sometimes ordered to be transferred through the approval of the 5th or 6th floor checkpoints, so there are also criticisms within the CCP army.
News (21)
Air Force operations only last about two weeks
Lonnie Henley, a former East Asian defense intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and now an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, said he was "particularly skeptical" about the ability of China's navy and air force to maintain large-scale combat capabilities. .
Henry believes that the CCP's transportation departments and equipment are not enough to deal with the long-range operations that brigade-level troops can shoulder.
He speculates that the combat time of the CCP Air Force can only last about two weeks. "Because in some large air force exercises, their air drill training is only a few days at most," Henry said. "You won't understand how difficult it is unless you actually do it."
News (22)
Due to security considerations do not talk about whether to visit Taiwan; Pelosi: Showing support for Taiwan is very important!
Regarding rumors that she will visit Taiwan in August, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said today that she would never talk about her travel plans for security reasons. But she also said it was important to show support for Taiwan.
The Financial Times recently reported that Nancy Pelosi planned to visit Taiwan in August to show her support for Taiwan.
For this rumour, Pelosi maintained a consistent stance when asked about the matter at a regular weekly press conference today, unwilling to confirm or deny. She said that for safety reasons, she never talked about her travel plans.
When the media asked how to deter mainland China from coercing Taiwan, Pelosi said, "This is a very big issue." If it is really discussed, it is very important to show support for Taiwan. But she also pointed out that no one has mentioned Taiwan independence, which is up to Taiwan to decide.
President Joe Biden mentioned yesterday that the military thinks Pelosi's visit to Taiwan now is "not a good idea." Pelosi said that if she said that her visit to Taiwan would be troublesome, she thought Biden meant that the military might be worried that the plane would be shot down by China or something, "I don't know for sure, I didn't see it, I didn't. Heard", "I never heard from the president".
Pelosi was scheduled to come to Taiwan in April, but it was canceled due to covid. If Pelosi makes the trip, it will be the first time in 25 years that a speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has visited Taiwan. However, the report also quoted three people familiar with the matter as saying that the White House had expressed concern about Pelosi's trip. (Central News Agency)
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