Chinese Economics Thread

[KenC]

...

This transformation will wash away all the dust: capital markets will no longer be paradise for get-rich-quick capitalists, cultural markets will no longer be heaven for sissy-boy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in the position of worshipping western culture. It is a return to the revolutionary spirit, a return to heroism, a return to courage and righteousness. We need to bring all forms of cultural chaos under control and build a vibrant, healthy, virile, intrepid, and people-oriented culture. We need to combat the manipulation of capital markets by big capital, fight platform-based monopolies, prevent bad money from driving out the good, and ensure the flow of capital to high-tech companies, manufacturers and companies operating in the real economy. The ongoing restructuring of private tutoring organizations and school districts will clean up the chaos in the educational system, bring about a true return to accessibility and fairness, and give ordinary people room for upward mobility. In the future, we must also bring high housing prices and exorbitant medical expenses under control, and completely level the “

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

” of education, medical care, and housing. Although we are not trying to “kill the rich to aid the poor,” we need to find a practical solution to a worsening income gap that allows the rich to keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. Common prosperity means allowing ordinary workers to enjoy a larger share of the social distribution of wealth. This transformation will bring a breath of fresh air to our society. Current efforts to crack down on the arts, entertainment, film and television spheres are not nearly robust enough. We must use all the means at our disposal to strike down various forms of celebrity worship and fan culture, stamp out “pretty-boy” and “sissy-boy” tendencies in our national character, and ensure that our arts, entertainment, film and television spheres are truly upright and upstanding. Those working in the arts, entertainment, film and television must go down to the grassroots, and allow ordinary workers and citizens to become the protagonists, to play the leading roles in our literature and art.

China faces an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape as the United States menaces China with worsening military threats, economic and technological blockades, attacks on our financial system, and attempts at political and diplomatic isolation. The U.S. is waging biological warfare, cyber warfare, space warfare and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a “color revolution” by mobilizing a fifth column within China. If we rely on the barons of capitalism to battle the forces of imperialism and hegemony, if we continue our obeisance to

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, if we allow this generation of young people to lose their mettle and masculinity, then who needs an enemy—we will have brought destruction upon ourselves, much like the Soviet Union back in the day, when it allowed the nation to disintegrate, its wealth to be looted, and its population to sink into calamity. The profound transformations now taking place in China are a direct response to an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape, and a direct response to the savage and violent attacks that the U.S. has already begun to launch against China.

Every one of us can sense that a profound social transformation is underway, and it is not limited to the realm of capital or entertainment. It is not enough to make superficial changes, to tear down what is already rotten; we must go deeper, and scrape the poison from the bone. We must clean the house and clear the air to make our society a healthier one, and to make all members of our society happy in body and mind.

 

[Overbom]

...

This transformation will wash away all the dust: capital markets will no longer be paradise for get-rich-quick capitalists, cultural markets will no longer be heaven for sissy-boy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in the position of worshipping western culture. It is a return to the revolutionary spirit, a return to heroism, a return to courage and righteousness. We need to bring all forms of cultural chaos under control and build a vibrant, healthy, virile, intrepid, and people-oriented culture. We need to combat the manipulation of capital markets by big capital, fight platform-based monopolies, prevent bad money from driving out the good, and ensure the flow of capital to high-tech companies, manufacturers and companies operating in the real economy. The ongoing restructuring of private tutoring organizations and school districts will clean up the chaos in the educational system, bring about a true return to accessibility and fairness, and give ordinary people room for upward mobility. In the future, we must also bring high housing prices and exorbitant medical expenses under control, and completely level the “

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

” of education, medical care, and housing. Although we are not trying to “kill the rich to aid the poor,” we need to find a practical solution to a worsening income gap that allows the rich to keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. Common prosperity means allowing ordinary workers to enjoy a larger share of the social distribution of wealth. This transformation will bring a breath of fresh air to our society. Current efforts to crack down on the arts, entertainment, film and television spheres are not nearly robust enough. We must use all the means at our disposal to strike down various forms of celebrity worship and fan culture, stamp out “pretty-boy” and “sissy-boy” tendencies in our national character, and ensure that our arts, entertainment, film and television spheres are truly upright and upstanding. Those working in the arts, entertainment, film and television must go down to the grassroots, and allow ordinary workers and citizens to become the protagonists, to play the leading roles in our literature and art.

China faces an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape as the United States menaces China with worsening military threats, economic and technological blockades, attacks on our financial system, and attempts at political and diplomatic isolation. The U.S. is waging biological warfare, cyber warfare, space warfare and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a “color revolution” by mobilizing a fifth column within China. If we rely on the barons of capitalism to battle the forces of imperialism and hegemony, if we continue our obeisance to

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, if we allow this generation of young people to lose their mettle and masculinity, then who needs an enemy—we will have brought destruction upon ourselves, much like the Soviet Union back in the day, when it allowed the nation to disintegrate, its wealth to be looted, and its population to sink into calamity. The profound transformations now taking place in China are a direct response to an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape, and a direct response to the savage and violent attacks that the U.S. has already begun to launch against China.

Every one of us can sense that a profound social transformation is underway, and it is not limited to the realm of capital or entertainment. It is not enough to make superficial changes, to tear down what is already rotten; we must go deeper, and scrape the poison from the bone. We must clean the house and clear the air to make our society a healthier one, and to make all members of our society happy in body and mind.

Wasn't that manifesto shut down by the global Times' editor?

 

[KenC]

It is a weibo post, so how could GT shut it down. But Hu Xijin was rather critical, saying it's over the top or to that effect.

 

[Overbom]

It is a weibo post, so how could GT shut it down. But Hu Xijin was rather critical, saying it's over the top or to that effect.

Sorry, wrong choice of a word. I meant shut down as being critical of the article.

Bloomberg also said that a Chinese official pointed to them that they should give emphasis to the Global Times article as it was "closest to the top leaders thinking"

 

[Strangelove]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[ansy1968]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

@Strangelove bro a question Is there a recently pass law that indicate any R&D done in China is a Chinese product and therefore not subjected to sanction even though the owner is a foreigner?

 

[Strangelove]

@ansy1968

No idea, very interesting issue however.

 

[OppositeDay]

Translation of the much talked about essay by Li Guangman:

Everyone Can Sense That a Profound Transformation is Underway!
China’s entertainment industry has never lacked for scandals that stink to high heaven. Taken together, the recent back-to-back scandals involving Kris Wu and Henry Huo, Zhang Zhehan’s “devil worship” at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, and now the rape allegation against Hunan TV host Qian Feng have made people feel that the Chinese entertainment industry is rotten to the core. Without a swift crackdown, entertainment will not be the only thing that rots—the arts, literature, culture, performance, film and television spheres will all follow suit.

In the past few days, yet another storm has struck the beleaguered world of entertainment: the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched a heavy crackdown on celebrity “fan clubs,” the State Taxation Administration (STA) fined actress Zheng Shuang 299 million yuan [$46 million] for tax evasion, and Zhao Wei and Gao Xiaosong were banned and deplatformed. What does this heavy blow against the entertainment world portend?

On August 25, the CAC issued

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

aimed at cleaning up chaotic celebrity fan clubs: first, cancel celebrity and artist rankings; second, optimize and adjust ranking rules; third, strictly regulate entertainment agencies; fourth, standardize fan group accounts; fifth, ban doxxing; sixth, clean up groups that violate regulations; seventh, ban enticing fans into making purchases; eighth, tighten programming regulations; ninth, strictly control participation by minors; and tenth, standardize fan fundraising. The guidelines specifically call for [all localities] to improve their political stance while ensuring political and ideological security online, creating a “clean” cyberspace, and advancing the work of cleaning up chaotic fan clubs. As this is obviously a political action, all localities must view this rectification campaign from a larger political perspective.

Not coincidentally, on August 27, the STA announced their decision in actress Zheng Shuang’s tax evasion case. Their investigation found that Zheng Shuang signed a 160 million yuan contract to star in the 2019 television series “A Chinese Ghost Story.” She was subsequently paid 156 million yuan in two installments. She falsely reported the first installment of 48 million yuan as corporate income rather than personal income, thus evading taxation. For the second installment of 108 million, the producers signed a fake contract with a company controlled by Zheng Shuang and made payments structured as “capital injections,” enabling her to avoid industry regulators’ oversight, receive “sky-high remuneration,” conceal her income by filing false reports, and evade taxation. Over the course of “A Chinese Ghost Story,” Zheng Shuang evaded 43.027 million yuan in taxes, and underpaid another 16.1778 million yuan in owed taxes. The investigation also found that, after the film and TV industry revised its income and taxation structures in 2018, Zheng Shang again disguised 35.07 million yuan in performance fees by falsely reporting them as corporate income rather than personal income. The facts are that Zheng Shuang evaded 2.2426 million yuan in taxes, and underpaid another 10.3429 million yuan in taxes. In total, from 2019 to 2020, Zheng Shuang failed to report 191 million yuan in personal income, evaded 45.27 million yuan in taxes, and underpaid another 26.52 million yuan in taxes.

In accordance with the relevant laws and regulations, Zheng Shuang has been ordered to pay 299 million yuan in combined taxes, late fees, and penalties: 71.7903 million of this is unpaid taxes and 8.8898 million is late fees. For the portion of her income that she misrepresented in order to evade taxes, she was fined 30.6857 million yuan, or four times the misrepresented amount; for the portion of her income that she attempted to conceal by falsely reporting it as a “capital injection,” she was fined 188 million yuan, the maximum penalty of five times the falsely reported amount. According to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, the tax agency will hand her case to the police should she fail to pay in time. The National Radio and Television Administration subsequently issued a notice requiring TV broadcasters at all levels to stop airing any programmes in which Zheng Shuang appeared, and to ban her from participating in future productions. Lately, Zhao Wei [Vicky Zhao], no stranger to the headlines, is in trouble again. On August 26, Zhao Wei’s “super topic” page disappeared from Weibo and her name was deleted from the credits for “My Fair Princess,” “Romance in the Rain,” and various other films and television series on Tencent and iQiyi.

By rights, Zhao Wei should have disappeared from the Chinese public eye twenty years ago, but instead, she has thrived. Twenty years ago, she became the target of an internet-wide crusade for wearing a dress emblazoned with the “rising sun” flag of the invading Imperial Japanese Army. But rather than being banned, she somehow became a mover and shaker in China’s capital markets, hailed as China’s “female Warren Buffet.” Back when she was rubbing shoulders with Jack Ma, Wang Lin, and other titans, she was able to control public opinion and routinely had unflattering news stories about her scrapped before publication. Later, when she directed “No Other Love,” she cast the die-hard Taiwan independence advocate Dai Liren [Leon Dai] as the male lead and the anti-Chinese actress Kiko Mizuhara—who supports praying at Yasukuni Shrine—as the female lead, thus incurring the public’s wrath. What strikes one as odd is that the whole thing blew over so quickly. Recently, Zhang Zhehan, an actor signed to Zhao Wei’s production company, appeared at Yasukuni Shrine multiple times, performed a Nazi salute, and cozied up to Japanese right-wingers, triggering a national uproar in China. The question remains how Zhao, despite so much negative publicity, was not toppled sooner. It was puzzling, but now we can look back and see: retribution had to bide its time.

Gao Xiaosong, another American whose works were deplatformed at the same time as Zhao Wei’s, has long been broadcasting programs such as “Xiao Speaks” and “Xiaosong Pedia” on Chinese television and the internet. He spouts utter nonsense about history, bends the knee to worship America, and has hoodwinked a certain group of Chinese into becoming his fans.

What sort of feeling do we get, just by looking at the events of the last two days—the crackdown on fan groups, Zheng Shuang being fined, and works by Zhao Wei and Gao Xiaosong being banned and deplatformed? If we take a broader political perspective on this series of events, we can discern a historical and developmental trend.

Consider the suspension of Ant Group’s IPO, the central government’s antitrust policies and reorganization of the economic order, the 18.2 billion yuan fine levied on Alibaba and the investigation of Didi Global, the grand commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the proposed path to common prosperity, and the recent series of actions to clean up the mess in the entertainment industry. What these events tell us is that a monumental change is taking place in China, and that the economic, financial, cultural, and political spheres are undergoing a profound transformation—or, one could say, a profound revolution. It marks a return from “capitalist cliques” to the People, a shift from “capital-centered” to “people-centered.” It is, therefore, a political transformation in which the People will once again be front and center, and all those who obstruct this people-centered transformation will be left behind. This profound transformation also marks a return to the original intent of the Chinese Communist Party, a return to a people-centered approach, and a return to the essence of socialism.


Cont....

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Hu Xijin, the quintessential centralist, has already came out rebutting Li Guangman’s article. Liu He has also reaffirmed the continuity of China’s economic policy. I suspect Li Guangman’s article was widely published at the instruction of anti-Xi elements in the propaganda system.

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

Hu Xijin, the quintessential centralist, has already came out rebutting Li Guangman’s article. Liu He has also reaffirmed the continuity of China’s economic policy. I suspect Li Guangman’s article was widely published at the instruction of anti-Xi elements in the propaganda system.

Delete

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Breaking Down Hu Xijin’s Challenge to Li Guangman’s ‘dazibao’

by Yawei Liu

September 3, 2021

On August 29, 2021, a blog entitled “Everyone can feel a critical change is taking place” was republished across Chinese state-owned media outlets, including the People’s Daily, New China News Agency, the People’s Liberation Army Daily, Guangming Daily and CGTN. The author of the blog is Li Guangman, a retired newspaper editor and active online blogger who is largely unknown outside of ultra-leftist circles in China. Two days later, Hu Xijin, chief editor of the Global Times and a much better-known leftist, wrote a blog challenging Li Guangman’s central thesis.

Hu declares that Li Guangman not only misjudges recent events taking place in China but is also trying to misguide the Chinese people into a revolution that will ruin the order brought about by China’s reform and opening up and the consensus of the 18th CCP National Congress. Interestingly, Hu’s blog post was not recycled by official media outlets, but it was not censored either (however, there was a brief period where it could not be shared on social media). Hu is not alone. Other shocked Chinese commentators have compared Li’s blog to the first dazibao that sowed the seeds of the Cultural Revolution.

Dazibao and the Cultural Revolution

On May 25, 1966, a few professors and administrators from the Department of Philosophy at Peking University hung a dazibao 大字报, a big-character poster, declaring that the management of the university had been overtaken by capitalist roaders. On June 1, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the Central Broadcasting Station to read the dazibao over radio, which was a key trigger for the Cultural Revolution. Kang Sheng, one of Mao Zedong’s top lieutenants, also went to Peking University’ campus to declare this dazibao as the “Declaration of Beijing Commune in the 20th Century.”

Other Chinese leaders at the top of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, did not endorse the message behind the poster, believing that it would throw the country into chaos. On August 5, a frustrated Mao wrote his own dazibao on the margin of a newspaper he was reading. It was titled “Bombard the Headquarters—My Dazibao” and described the Peking University dazibao as the first Marxist dazibao. The People’s Daily ran Mao’s dazibao alongside the Peking University dazibao on the same day.

Mao’s dazibao clarified the message in his May 16th Notification: there were capitalist roaders within the headquarters of the CCP Central Committee headed by Liu Shaoqi, and they were committing treason by taking China down the road of capitalism as opposed to socialism. In response, Mao encouraged opposition to rise up and overthrow Liu’s bourgeois influence and his ‘running dogs’ like Deng Xiaoping. These events triggered the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which brought China to a complete economic and cultural standstill that did not end until Mao passed away in September 1976.

Li Guangman Assessment of China’s Critical Changes

In his blog post, Li Guangman’s argument that a revolution is currently taking place in China is premised upon the following evidence:

1) the government has realized China’s entertainment circle is rotten to the core, the stars stink, and they should held accountable for their misbehavior, speculation, and tax evasion;

2) Celebrities with pro-American and pro-Japanese sentiments, such as Zhao Wei, Zhang Zhehan, and Gao Xiaosong, are being publicly shamed and cracked down upon, such as being removed from online platforms;

3) the CCP ran a big campaign to celebrate its first centennial and continues to call upon its members to not forget its original pledge (不忘初心);

4) the central government is taking aggressive actions to regulate private industry (such as the gaming industry, including Tecent), fight monopolies (Meituan), and stop private companies from holding IPOs overseas (Ants & Didi);

5) and, it is now looking into the feasibility of a third distribution of wealth with a view towards common prosperity (共同富裕).

Li writes, “All these tell us critical changes are taking place in China and these changes are economic, financial, cultural and political. In other words, this is a significant revolution, a return from the capitalist camp to the people’s camp, a pivot from the capital-focused center to the people-focused center. Therefore, it is a political transformation and people are the engine of this transformation. All those forces that attempt to stop this transformation will be abandoned.” In other words, the events taking place are about a return to the initial roots of the CPP: a return to the people and a return to the essence of socialism.

Another important dimension of Li’s blog is that China is in the middle of an epic rivalry with the United States. He argues that Washington’s China policy includes military threats, economic decoupling, and diplomatic isolation. Furthermore, he argues the US has launched a biological war, cyberwar, public opinion war, and space war against China, and seeks to foment a Color Revolution through a Fifth Column inside China. At this critical juncture, he argues that, to allow big capital to control China’s finance, to permit U.S. to deploy a ‘nipple’ strategy (using entertainment to poison and numb young people), and to have China’s youth lose vigor and fighting spirit is tantamount to repeating the tragedy of the Soviet Union.

What is Hu Xijin’s dissent?

Importantly, Hu Xijin does not dispute the facts listed by Li Guangman. What he strongly disagrees with, however, is what these events mean. To Hu, recent actions by the Chinese government and CCP are policies designed to regulate the market, to stop capital from barbaric growth, and to restore social justice and equality. In other words, the goal of these policies is about improving effective governance and gradual social progress— they have nothing to do with a seismic revolution.

Hu’s central argument is that China is politically united with its existing governance mechanisms, which he writes are orderly and efficient. This is, as Hu argues, the very reason that China could sustain a massive trade war and a frontal assault from the US. This is also the very reason that China has successfully contained COVID-19, which has generated so many problems for Western nations. Hu asks why a successful country like China needs to mobilize for a “revolution”? Who will be the targets of this “revolution”? China has undergone and is still undergoing transformation, even critical transformation, because reform is about transformation.

Hu continues in his blog that he works for the CCP and has daily public and private interactions with government officials. He writes that he has never seen or heard anything remotely connected to a beginning of a revolution to usher in a new order and a political campaign designed to correct fundamental flaws in the Chinese system of governance. Furthermore, Hu writes that Li’s blog describes changes in China as revolutionary “as if China is going to bid farewell to the era of reform and opening up and to go for an overthrow of the current order.” This is deeply misleading, seriously erroneous, and cynically populist. This kind of rhetoric has to be stopped.

What does the Li-Hu debate signify?

In both its message and propagation by state media networks, Li Guangman’s blog can be compared to the first dazibao that was posted to a Peking University wall in the early summer of 1966. What we do not know is who is behind the effort to amplify Li’s voice? What is even more intriguing are the circumstances of Hu Xijin’s daring critique of Li Guangman. Hu is an insider with strong knowledge of how the Chinese government approaches propaganda. Either his own conscience has dictated his behavior, or he was encouraged by someone inside the government to challenge Li Guangman— perhaps someone wants him to speak up and test the limitations of acceptable discourse before they speak up themselves? Or, perhaps, insiders want to test the waters of public opinion before another government decision is made?

There is one thing for certain: this debate indicates there is raging debate inside the CCP on the merits of reform and opening up, on where China is today in terms of social and political stability, and about what kind of nation China wants to become.

In terms of U.S.-China relations, the downturn is giving Li Guangman and the like fodder for their diatribe. There are even scholars in China who warn this is Washington’s strategy— that it is using the downturn in US-China relations to break Chinese political unity, as mentioned by Hu, and achieve its goal of containing China once and for all. In any case, those in China who want to see another revolution and overthrow what the nation has accomplished are either ignorant of what the Chinese people truly want or are so blinded by their own ambition that they disregard the pulse of the Chinese people.

Hu Xijin is certainly aware of the huge stakes in this debate. In today’s China, it takes courage to speak out. For this, I commend him.

Yawei Liu is Chief Editor of the U.S.-China Perception Monitor.