Posted on 10/10/2021 7:46:22 PM PDT by MNJohnnie
This August, Chinese state-run paper Economic Information Daily ran a scathing 6,000-word article that condemned the country’s online gaming industry as promoting “spiritual opium,” raking in billions while creating a “new drug” addiction among the people, especially youth. The article was republished in dozens of outlets and followed by similar commentaries in state media and official social media posts.
Within days, Chinese gaming giants like Tencent and NetEase saw their stocks plummet by 300 billion yuan; on Aug. 30, Beijing imposed strict regulations on online gaming, limiting minors to three hours of playtime a week.
The onslaught by the press and authorities against the gaming industry came on the heels of major incidents involving other major players in China’s massive tech sector. On June 30, rideshare app Didi Chuxing debuted on the New York Stock Exchange without Beijing’s approval, earning it swift punishment.
And starting last year, the Chinese Communist Party has been steadily dialing up pressure on Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba and one of China’s richest men. What would have been a record-breaking $30-billion initial public offering (IPO) by Ma’s Ant Group was canceled abruptly in November 2020; according to the Wall Street Journal, the IPO would have presented serious financial risks for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ma disappeared for months, and now keeps a low profile.
The crackdown in the tech sector is just one aspect of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious project to reshape society, which in addition to increasingly invasive forms of surveillance and censorship, has recently included a blanket ban on extracurricular tutoring and a crusade in China’s pop culture business that saw billionaire actress Zhao Wei scrubbed from the internet and male stars accused of promoting an effeminate “sissy boy” aesthetic.
On Aug. 17, Xi chaired a meeting of a CCP economic commission, which focused on the promotion of “common prosperity” across the Chinese population. The program calls for a “universal” system of socialist redistribution to ensure the “people’s livelihood.”
Control Versus Chaos It’s often said that Xi’s heavy-handed approach to governance—summed up by his frequent declarations that “the Party leads everything”—takes direct inspiration from Mao Zedong, founding leader of communist China. Many of Xi’s moves, and especially the recent clamp downs, have been likened to Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, which between 1966 and 1976 plunged China into a traumatic decade of deadly political fanaticism.
Where Mao had the “Little Red Book,” today’s Communist Party mandates the “Study Xi Strong Country” app for Chinese to gain proficiency in “Xi Jinping Thought.” The “wolf warrior” diplomacy of Chinese officials under Xi recalls the Cold War-era flashpoints between the CCP and its rivals. And despite Xi’s assurances that economic reform is still on the agenda, both Western and Chinese observers blame him for throwing out the policies of previous Party leaders that stressed growth and profit over outward displays of ideology—often featuring a lot of red.
Similarities between Xi and Mao run deep, but so do differences.
Mao had launched the Cultural Revolution in a bid to retake power after being sidelined for his role in the disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign that resulted in the starvation deaths of an estimated 45 million Chinese. One of Mao’s short essays, “Bombard the Headquarters,” captured the spirit of reckless violence and rebellion that soon gripped the country and swept him back to primacy.
By contrast, Xi’s rhetoric and policies contain little of the call to grassroots iconoclasm and destruction that gripped China under Mao. While millions of Party officials have been disciplined in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, the purges are carried out exclusively by the Party’s disciplinary agency and Chinese courts.
Instead of condemning China’s ancient past, as was the theme of the Cultural Revolution’s slogan of “smashing the four olds,” the CCP under Xi has rolled Chinese culture and history into a narrative of national greatness. Private business and financial services are to be brought under official management, rather than attacked outright.
The political shifts under Xi have a strong social and ideological motivation, particularly as crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, food shortages, and overheated real estate markets threaten instability and perhaps even endanger the CCP itself.
‘Common Prosperity’ The Aug. 17 meeting of the CCP Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission produced 10 key points reported by state media, with most of the points focused on the goal of achieving “common prosperity.”
Notably, the meeting summary calls for wealthy Chinese individuals and enterprises to “give back to society more.” The Party also plans to “clean up and standardize unreasonable incomes, rectify the order of income distribution, and resolutely ban illegal income.”
According to Ming Chu-cheng, emeritus professor of political science at National Taiwan University (NTU), “common prosperity” may succeed in parting the rich from their wealth, but ordinary Chinese are unlikely to benefit substantially.
“This is not a program to aid the poor, but to aid the CCP,” Ming said on “Era Money,” a Taiwanese talk show.
A variety of factors have severely impacted the Chinese economy, from the U.S.-China trade war to the global economic downturn caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. “Foreign trade has shrunk. The unemployment rate is high. All this weighs on the national budget,” Ming said.
Evergrande, China’s largest real estate developer, missed two offshore bond payments in September, raising fears that the company could collapse, popping China’s real estate bubble and leading to a “Lehman moment” for the country.
Additionally, China currently faces a massive power shortage affecting more than 20 provinces in what are normally the wealthiest and most productive regions. According to state-run media, the electricity limits are being imposed due to rapidly rising coal prices.
The lack of electricity will prove highly arduous—and perhaps deadly—as China enters winter, especially in areas such as the northeast where subzero temperatures and heavy snowfall are common.
Ming said that the turn to “common prosperity” by the CCP reflects Xi’s inability to push through the economic reforms needed to foster healthy free-market growth.
In the beginning, Xi didn’t want to impose socialist-style redistribution policies, the academic said. “But after being in power, he found that China had gotten to the point where it was basically impossible to enact reforms.”
SinoInsider, a New York-based risk consultancy that specializes in Chinese political analysis, wrote in an Aug. 19 newsletter that common prosperity is a convenient “feel-good” catchphrase that the CCP hopes will help it weather the economic crisis.
The newsletter noted that previously, Xi had championed a strategy of “dual circulation,” which called for the country to spend less foreign exchanges without giving up profitable exports. However, global economic shocks, plus the regime’s alienating behavior, have cooled foreign trade. Now, the regime is desperate to shore up its coffers—and direct public outrage to the ultra-rich.
“Should financial risks explode, the CCP has laid the groundwork to sacrifice the wealthy elite and emerge as the ‘people’s savior,’” the analysis reads.
“But ‘redistribution’ runs the risk of further stifling economic activity and engendering fierce elite pushback against Xi.”
Political Showdown Beyond bringing society more firmly under CCP control and bracing for hard times ahead, much of Xi’s recent activity reflects a long-standing struggle between him and political rivals within the Party itself.
While communist regimes tend to present a monolithic “united front” to the public, they are given to complex infighting among different factions, a dynamic often overlooked in Western mainstream media reporting. These intra-regime struggles can play a crucial role in driving policy and rhetoric.
In February, Lingling Wei of the Wall Street Journal wrote that according to more than a dozen Chinese regime insiders, a key reason that the CCP canceled Ant Group’s November 2020 IPO in Shanghai was due to “growing unease in Beijing over Ant’s complex ownership structure—and the people who stood to gain most from what would have been the world’s largest IPO.”
According to Wei, would-be stakeholders who “stood to gain” included those with ties to Jiang Zemin, the former CCP leader who was general secretary from 1989 to 2002, but “remains a force behind the scenes.”
Many of the officials purged in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign have been connected to Jiang’s faction, including scores of high-ranking Party cadres and top generals in the People’s Liberation Army.
Ming, the NTU emeritus professor, said that even the crackdowns in the entertainment industry have a role to play in the Xi-Jiang feud, given the influence of Zeng Qinghong—former Chinese vice president and a close ally of Jiang—over the government offices that manage the entertainment industry.
Factional struggle in the CCP has come to a head as Xi prepares for the 20th Party Congress scheduled to be held late next year. While Xi is expected to take a norm-breaking third term as general secretary, the SinoInsider analysts believe he faces challenges in this endeavor.
“Xi has added many new enemies over the past nine years with his anti-corruption campaign and other uncompromising policies,” the risk consultancy wrote in a Sept. 15 piece. The article notes that the leader’s nine years in power have seen many setbacks for the regime—such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the rallying of democratic nations to oppose Beijing and support Taiwan—and few victories that Xi could claim as “legitimate political achievements.”
Without taking stronger measures, Xi could see his bid for a third term jeopardized, according to the article.
Recent moves by the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) have targeted more Jiang affiliates in the regime’s security apparatus.
On Oct. 2, the CCDI announced a probe into Fu Zhenghua, retired minister of justice and a former vice-chief of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s police force. The state-run Xinhua accused Fu of “overweening political ambition and very poor political integrity,” saying that he had spread groundless criticism of Party policy as well as political rumors.
Just two days earlier, the CCP expelled Sun Lijun, also a former deputy MPS head, from the Party, with the authorities accusing him of “holding improper discussions about the central government” as well as “forming gangs to take control of key departments,” in addition to the same accusations leveled against Fu.
Radio Free Asia noted in its report on Fu that the purges build on the sentencing of Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang, two powerful Politburo members with connections to the security state. All four of the disgraced officials are allies of Jiang.
While most officials have been officially charged with corruption, the Party has occasionally hinted at more serious offenses. For instance, the RFA piece noted that Liu Shiyu, Chinese securities regulator, said in 2017 that senior figures in the regime had “conspired openly to usurp party leadership.”
....looks to the Masses....
So does the Pope.
It apparent reading this that the Chinese Government and a Mafi crime family run on the same business model.
You said it before I could. It’s a superstitious thing, but apparently very real to the Chinese people.
CC
Corruption is their common denominator of course, same as here in our Government. That’s how International leaders now operate together and as leaders of their country.
IMO It’s always generally a bluff when a leader speaks of including or concern for it’s Citizens...they want something in return without a doubt.
China isn’t wrong in wanting to control various things in their country....it’s how they’re going about it...much to do with surveillance of one form or another....and frankly that’s the course we’re on as well as other nations.
However China’s citizens generally will do what’s asked of them....that’s their history.
Reading the stories coming out of China it looks like they are making all the wrong moves. Like the Biden Democrats, their solution is a Government centric approach.
It not just the US Government trying to turn the clock back to the 1970s
Xi Jin-Pooh is the Chinese Biden, an incompetent tyrant being manipulated by Communist radicals and who f***s up everything he touches.
Worlds in transition....all we can do really is watch and see who comes out on top. But know this...it never is what it seems because we’re looking at it all from the underside.
Might look like China’s making wrong moves but never underestimate those guys.
Worlds in transition....all we can do really is watch and see who comes out on top. But know this...it never is what it seems because we’re looking at it all from the underside.
Might look like China’s making wrong moves but never underestimate those guys.
Worlds in transition....all we can do really is watch and see who comes out on top. But know this...it never is what it seems because we’re looking at it all from the underside.
Might look like China’s making wrong moves but never underestimate those guys.
Time for an updated Little Red Book.
What’s next, swimming in the Yangtze River?
Hmmm something to be on the look out for.
bkmk
Rah! Rah!! Rah!! Jiang Zemin!!!!
Xi Jin-Pooh is the Chinese Biden, an incompetent tyrant being manipulated by Communist radicals and who f***s up everything he touches
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Hardly. Biden is a bungling idiot, but Xi is a mass murder who sets his own agenda - people in the CCP at the top are not run by anonymous radicals - they are the radicals as many of them were with Mao in the Long March. Xi, like the other members of the Central Committee, know exactly what they are doing ; they are the manipulators. Do not confuse western style of government with the Chinese CCP style - there are no similarities other then in the broad senses.
Xi has had numerous Party officials killed because they stood in his way or otherwise threatened his power. Xi, like the rest of the leadership, is fragile and paranoid. Almost all of China’s problems today are caused by the CCP which usually fixes one problem by creating a worse one ; like Mao did with grain that starved millions to death, rather than admit failure and loss of face - better they starve.
No one can challenge the CCP in any fashion and survive. Xi comes from one of the seven ruling families and is a creature of power ; corruption just goes with the territory.
“The CCP wants to control everything and only allows pro-CCP organizations, even in foreign countries. If an organization is big enough, the CCP will try to control it; if it won’t cooperate, the CCP will treat it as an enemy.” - mainland Chinese overseas student.
Whole lot of new rich in China but still the majority are poorer than any American poor and eventually another Boxer rebellion will occur there.
Past time for the starving in China to go about eliminating the elites.
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