BEIJING — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Beijing on Friday for a one-day visit that has drawn criticism over China’s tacit support for Russia in its war on Ukraine and lingering controversy over economic and human rights issues.
The German Embassy confirmed the arrival of Scholz and a business delegation traveling with him. He was scheduled to receive a formal welcome from president and newly reelected head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping, hold a working lunch and then meet with Premier Li Keqiang, who nominally has responsibility over the economy.
Despite their political disputes, Scholz’s visit reflects the importance of Germany’s trade ties with the world’s second-largest economy.
In an article for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Scholz said he was traveling to Beijing “precisely because business as usual is not an option in this situation.”
“It is clear that if China changes, the way we deal with China must also change,” Scholz said, adding that “we will reduce one-sided dependencies in the spirit of smart diversification.” Scholz also said he would address “difficult issues” such as the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Scholz is the first leader from the G7 group of industrialized nations to meet with Xi since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which was first detected in China in 2019. The diplomatically delicate trip comes as Germany and the European Union work on their strategy toward an increasingly assertive and authoritarian Beijing.
Scholz’s messages will face close scrutiny, particularly at home where some have criticized him for normalizing China’s behavior. While his nearly year-old government has signaled a departure from predecessor Angela Merkel’s firmly trade-first approach, his trip follows domestic discord over a Chinese shipping company’s major investment in a container terminal in Germany’s crucial port of Hamburg.
With China still imposing tough COVID-19 restrictions, his delegation won’t stay in Beijing overnight.
Scholz’s visit comes just after Xi was named to a third term as head of the ruling Communist Party and promoted allies who support his vision of tighter control over society and the economy. It is also accompanied by rising tensions over Taiwan and follows a U.N. report that said Chinese human rights violations against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups may amount to “crimes against humanity.”
German officials say the trip is intended to probe where China is going and what forms of cooperation are possible.
An official pointed to China’s “particular responsibility” as an ally of Russia to help end the war in Ukraine and press Moscow to tone down its nuclear rhetoric; to concerns over tensions in Taiwan and the broader region; to Germany’s desire for a “level playing field” in economic relations; and to Scholz’s current status as this year’s chair of the Group of Seven industrial powers.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The timing of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s imminent trip to China and what signals he will give to Beijing have raised questions at home, a German member of the European Parliament said Thursday.
Reinhard Butikofer of the Green Party, which is part of the governing coalition, said in Taiwan that Scholz’s one-day trip is “probably the most controversially debated visit in the country for the last 50 years.”
Scholz, who will be in Beijing on Friday, will be the first European leader to visit China since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Germany has strongly opposed. Beijing has provided Moscow with diplomatic backing, accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking the attack and scathingly criticized punishing economic sanctions imposed on Russia.
Some in the ranks of Scholz’s three-party governing coalition have questioned at least the timing of his visit. His trips to Ukraine and Russia in February also stirred controversy.
Butikofer, part of a delegation of European lawmakers in Taiwan, spoke to a joint news conference from his hotel room, where he was under quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
“Just as in other European countries and the EU, … China policy will be in transformation, in transition for some time,” Butikofer said. “We cannot return to the China policy of yesterday here, because the realities have changed.”
Scholz has pledged to use his trip to make the case for Chinese moderation and assistance in calming the situations with Ukraine and Taiwan.
In the face of Chinese threats to annex Taiwan by military force, the self-governing island republic has drawn increasing support from Western politicians, even while their governments maintain only unofficial relations with Taipei in deference to Beijing.
Butikofer said Germany’s governing coalition had agreed on a first-ever “clear expression of support for Taiwan’s democracy against China’s aggression,” as well as Taiwan’s “meaningful participation” in international organizations from which it is currently excluded at China’s insistence.
Butikofer is one of five members of the European Parliament banned from visiting China, a step taken by Beijing after the EU, Britain, Canada and the United States launched coordinated sanctions against officials in China over human rights abuses in the far-western Xinjiang region.
The European Parliament has said it won’t ratify a long-awaited business investment deal with China as long as sanctions against its legislators remain in place.
Visiting along with Butikofer were legislators Els Van Hoof of Belgium, Sjoerd Sjoerdsma of Holland and Mykola Kniazhytskyi of Ukraine.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the lawmakers’ visit a “clumsy political hype-up” and said efforts by Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive Party to garner foreign support are “doomed to fail.”
At the news conference, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the delegation’s visit “demonstrates the strength of the relations between Taiwan and the European Union and the bond that unites us with like-minded democracies across the globe.”
Sjoerdsma said the visit had special resonance following last month’s twice-a-decade congress of China’s ruling Communist Party, at which Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s determination to “reunify” with Taiwan. The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and the vast majority of Taiwanese reject Beijing’s calls to accept Chinese rule.
“We have a message to Beijing and I think the core message of our visit here is … that Taiwan is not to be isolated, but that contacts will only increase, that we will not be intimidated, that we will be coming over more often, and that our relations and our friendships are not to be determined by others,” Sjoerdsma said.
Scholz’s visit to Beijing was also criticized by Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, who said it risked sending mixed messages over the Ukraine invasion.
“German Chancellor Scholz’s visit is damaging the unity that the world has against Russia’s war efforts,” Law told The Associated Press during a visit to Taiwan.
Scholz’s trip is “definitely giving a lot of opportunity for Xi Jinping to see it as a badge of honor, to see it as means to dismiss the unity of the free world and silently to decrease pressure for Russia,” said LLaw, who fled arrest in Hong Kong during a Beijing-ordered crackdown on dissidents in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. “I think this is such a bad move.”
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Associated Press video journalists Johnson Lai and Taijing Wu contributed to this story.
HONG KONG — Two Hong Kongers were found guilty on a sedition charge on Thursday after they clapped and criticized the judge during a previous trial over a banned Tiananmen Square vigil in the city.
Garry Pang Moon-yuen, a pastor, and Chiu Mei-ying, a housewife, were arrested in April for disturbances they made in a court hearing in January when a leader of the group that organized the Hong Kong vigil was sentenced for inciting others to join the prohibited event last year.
Hong Kong is undergoing a political crackdown following widespread protests in 2019 and the imposition of a sweeping national security law in 2020, with many prominent activists in the pro-democracy camp having been arrested or jailed.
Besides the national security law, a growing number of dissidents have also been charged for colonial-era sedition offenses.
Pang and Chiu, instead of being charged with contempt of court, were charged with uttering seditious words. Pang reportedly told the judge “you have lost your conscience” and Chiu reportedly accused the magistrate of not complying with the law and deciding the case arbitrarily.
Magistrate Cheng Lim-chi convicted the pair over the intent to incite others to hate and contempt against the administration of justice, saying their comments were “definitely not a slip of tongue.”
Pang was also found guilty on an additional charge of acting with seditious intention for YouTube videos he published between 2020 and this year. In the videos he criticized how judges handled other cases, the court heard.
Sedition is punishable by up to two years in jail for a first offense and three years for a subsequent offense.
For decades, Hong Kong and nearby Macao were the only places in China allowed to commemorate the violent suppression by army troops of student protesters demanding greater democracy in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Hundreds, if not thousands, were killed.
In June, authorities banned the commemoration for a third consecutive year in what was seen as part of a move to snuff out political dissent and a sign that Hong Kong is losing its freedoms as Beijing tightens its grip over the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong fell three places to 22nd in the world in the latest Rule of Law Index compiled by the World Justice Project.
A Hong Kong government spokesman on Wednesday said the city’s ranking was still better than some Western countries, which he said have “unreasonably” criticized the rule of law in Hong Kong. He said the ranking change in some areas of the index could stem from a lack of understanding about the city.
BEIJING (AP) — China’s economic growth picked up in the latest quarter but still was among the weakest in decades as the ruling Communist Party tries to reverse a slump while enforcing anti-virus controls and a crackdown on debt in its vast real estate industry.
The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday.
The announcement was planned for last week but postponed while the ruling Communist Party met to award President Xi Jinping a new term as leader.
Xi, the most powerful leader in decades, wants a bigger party role in business and technology development. That has prompted warnings tighter control of entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth will depress growth that already was in long-term decline.
The party gave Xi a free hand by installing a seven-member ruling Standing Committee made up of his allies. Supporters of free enterprise including Premier Li Keqiang, the party’s No. 2 until last week, were dropped from the leadership.
Chinese stock markets closed lower Monday despite the unexpectedly strong data, suggesting investors still are uneasy about the country’s growth prospects.
The country’s market benchmark, the Shanghai Composite Index, lost more than 2%. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong plunged by an unusually wide daily margin of 6.4%. Tokyo and other Asian markets gained.
The International Monetary Fund and private sector forecasters say the economy will expand by as little as 3% this year. That would be the second weakest since the 1980s after 2020, when growth plunged to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Investors and the public watched the congress for initiatives to stimulate the economy or reduce the impact of “Zero COVID” controls that shut down cities and disrupt business, but none were announced.
The latest slide in growth that began in mid-2021 hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.
The improvement is “mainly a result of more flexible” anti-virus controls that isolate individual buildings or neighborhoods instead of cities, said Iris Pang of ING in a report. But she said more lockdowns are “still a big uncertainty.”
“This uncertainty means the effectiveness of pro-growth policy would be undermined,” Pang said.
Growth slid after controls on debt that regulators worry is dangerously high caused a slump in real estate sales and construction, one of China’s biggest economic engines. Economic growth fell to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter.
Beijing has eased mortgage lending and local governments have taken over some unfinished projects to make sure buyers get apartments. But regulators are sticking to debt limits have forced small developers into bankruptcy and caused some bigger competitors to miss payments to bondholders.
The ruling party is enforcing “Zero COVID” despite rising costs and public frustration after Shanghai and other industrial centers were temporarily shut down. That has boiled over into protests in some areas at a time when other countries are easing anti-virus controls.
For the first nine months of 2022, growth was 3% over a year earlier, up from 2.5% in the first six months but barely half the ruling party’s official 5.5% target. Leaders have stopped talking about that goal but promised easier lending and other measures to boost growth.
Growth is “highly uneven” and supported by government spending on building roads and other public works while consumer spending is weakening, said Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang of Macquarie in a report.
In September, retail sales growth fell to 2.5% over a year earlier from the previous month’s 5.4%. Growth in factory output accelerated to 6.3% from 4.2%.
Also Monday, trade data showed export growth declined to 5.7% compared with a year earlier in September from the previous month’s 7%. Imports crept up 0.3%.
“Most of the economy lost momentum last month,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. “The situation looks to have worsened in October.”
Investment in infrastructure, mostly government money, rose 16% in September compared with the previous month’s 15%.
Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.
Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results, economists say. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt.
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National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): www.stats.gov.cn
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Any changes to the China-Taiwan relationship must come about peacefully, a visiting German lawmaker said Monday, two days after China’s ruling Communist Party wrote its rejection of Taiwan independence into its charter.
A German parliamentary delegation focusing on human rights met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen at her office on Monday. The lawmakers expressed interest in how Taiwan would handle threats from China.
“Taiwan is really facing military threats,” delegation head Peter Heidt said. “From Germany’s point of view, changes to the cross-strait status quo, if any, must be based on peaceful means. Also, these changes must be made after both sides have reached a consensus.”
China claims Taiwan as its territory and says the self-governing island about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off its east coast must come under its control.
The Chinese Communist Party, on the last day of a major congress that confirmed a third five-year term for leader Xi Jinping, inserted a statement into the party constitution on Saturday “resolutely opposing and deterring separatists” seeking Taiwan’s independence.
“We note Xi Jinping’s intimidation against Taiwan in China’s 20th party congress. We also note the reaction of mainland China after Pelosi visited Taiwan,” he said, referring to the large-scale military drills held after the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in July.
Tsai did not refer to the amending of the Communist Party’s constitution in her remarks. But her government’s Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement Saturday urging China to break away from the mindset of confronting or even conquering the island, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
The statement said their differences should be resolved in a peaceful manner.
At the opening of China’s weeklong party congress, Xi said Beijing would continue to strive for peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan but refused to renounce the possible use of force. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council responded that the island’s 23 million people have the right to decide their own future and urged Beijing to stop imposing its political framework and its military coercion.
The German delegation arrived on Sunday and was expected to leave on Wednesday. It is the second German parliamentary group visiting Taiwan this month.
BEIJING — China’s economic growth accelerated in the latest quarter but still was among the slowest in decades as the country wrestled with repeated closures of cities to fight virus outbreaks.
The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday. For the first nine months of the year, growth was 3% over a year earlier.
A news conference to announce the figures last week during a meeting of the ruling Communist Party was postponed without explanation. The National Statistics Bureau released the figures on its website without advance notice of the timing.
No data were immediately released for growth compared with the previous quarter, the way data for other major economies are measured. The economy shrank by 2.6% in the quarter ending in June compared with the previous three-month period.
The ruling party is trying to revive economic growth while enforcing its “Zero COVID” strategy that has temporarily shut down Shanghai and other industrial centers while other countries are lifting travel curbs and reviving trade.
The slump hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.
Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs who generate China’s new wealth and jobs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.
Other major economies report growth compared with the previous quarter, which makes their levels look lower than China’s. Beijing for decades reported only growth compared with the previous year, which hid short-term fluctuations, but it has started to release quarter-on-quarter figures.
Forecasters say Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt they worry is dangerously high.
Growth for the first half of the year was 2.5% over a year earlier, one of the weakest levels in the past three decades.
BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, increased his dominance Sunday when he was named to another term as head of the ruling Communist Party in a break with tradition and promoted allies who support his vision of tighter control over society and the struggling economy.
Xi, who took power in 2012, was awarded a third five-year term as general secretary, discarding a custom under which his predecessor left after 10 years. The 69-year-old leader is expected by some to try to stay in power for life.
The party also named a seven-member Standing Committee, its inner circle of power, dominated by Xi allies after Premier Li Keqiang, the No. 2 leader and an advocate of market-style reform and private enterprise, was dropped from the leadership Saturday. That was despite Li being a year younger than the party’s informal retirement age of 68.
“Power will be even more concentrated in the hands of Xi Jinping,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong Baptist University. The new appointees are “all loyal to Xi,” he said. “There is no counterweight or checks and balances in the system at all.”
On Saturday, Xi’s predecessor, 79-year-old Hu Jintao, abruptly left a meeting of the party Central Committee with an aide holding his arm. That prompted questions about whether Xi was flexing his powers by expelling other leaders. The official Xinhua News Agency later reported Hu was in poor health and needed to rest.
Xi and other Standing Committee members — none of them women — appeared for the first time as a group before reporters in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s ceremonial legislature in central Beijing.
The No. 2 leader was Li Qiang, the Shanghai party secretary. That puts Li Qiang, who is no relation to Li Keqiang, in line to become premier, the top economic official. Zhao Leji, already a member, was promoted to No. 3, likely to head the legislature. Those posts are to be assigned when the legislature meets next year.
Leadership changes were announced as the party wrapped up a twice-a-decade congress that was closely watched for initiatives to reverse an economic slump or changes in a severe “zero-COVID” strategy that has shut down cities and disrupted business. Officials disappointed investors and the Chinese public by announcing no changes.
The lineup appeared to reflect what some commentators called “Maximum Xi,” valuing loyalty over ability. Some new leaders lack national-level experience as vice premier or Cabinet minister that typically is seen as a requirement for the post.
Li Qiang’s promotion served as apparent confirmation, as it puts him in line to be premier with no background in national government. Li Qiang is seen as close to Xi after they worked together in Zhejiang province in the southeast in the early 2000s.
Li Keqiang was sidelined over the past decade by Xi, who put himself in charge of policymaking bodies. Li Keqiang was excluded Saturday from the list of the party’s new 205-member Central Committee, from which the Standing Committee is picked.
Another departure from the Standing Committee was Wang Yang, a reform advocate suggested by some as a possible premier. Wang, 67, is below retirement age.
Other new Standing Committee members include Cai Qi, the Beijing party secretary, and Ding Xuexiang, a career party functionary who is regarded as Xi’s “alter ego” or chief of staff. Wang Huning, a former law school dean who is chief of ideology, stayed on the committee. The No. 7 member is Li Xi, the party secretary of Guangdong province in the southeast, the center of China’s export-oriented manufacturing industry.
The Central Committee has 11 women, or 5% of the total. Its 24-member Politburo, which has had only four female members since the 1990s, has none following the departure of Vice Premier Sun Chunlan.
Party plans call for creating a prosperous society by mid-century and restoring China to its historic role as a political, economic and cultural leader.
Those ambitions face challenges from security-related curbs on access to Western technology, an aging workforce, and tensions with Washington, Europe and Asian neighbors over trade, security, human rights and territorial disputes.
Xi has called for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and a revival of the party’s “original mission” as social, economic and culture leader in a throwback to what he sees as a golden age after it took power in 1949.
During the congress, Xi called for faster military development, “self-reliance and strength” in technology and defense of China’s interests abroad, which raises the likelihood of further conflict.
The party has tightened control over entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth, prompting warnings that rolling back market-oriented reforms will weigh on economic growth that sank to 2.2% in the first half of this year — less than half the official 5.5% target.
“Clearly, it’s a return to a much more state-controlled type of economy,” said Cabestan. “This means, for private business, they will be on an even shorter leash, with party committees everywhere.”
Under a revived 1950s propaganda slogan, “common prosperity,” Xi is pressing entrepreneurs to help narrow China’s wealth gap by raising wages and paying for rural job creation and other initiatives.
Xi, in a report to the congress last week, called for “regulating the mechanism of wealth accumulation,” suggesting entrepreneurs might face still more political pressure, but gave no details.
“I would worry if I were a very wealthy individual in China,” said economist Alicia Garcia Herrero of Natixis.
In his report, Xi stressed the importance of national security and control over China’s supplies of food, energy and industrial goods. He gave no indication of possible changes in policies that prompted then-President Donald Trump to launch a tariff war with Beijing in 2018 over its technology ambitions.
The party is trying to nurture Chinese creators of renewable energy, electric car, computer chip, aerospace and other technologies. Its trading partners complain Beijing improperly subsidizes and shields its suppliers from competition.
Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has kept punitive tariff hikes on Chinese goods and this month increased restrictions on China’s access to U.S. chip technology.
The party has tightened control over private sector leaders, including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Under political pressure, they are diverting billions of dollars into chip development and other party initiatives. Their share prices on foreign exchanges have plunged due to uncertainty about their future.
The party will “step up its industrial policy” to close the “wide gap” between what Chinese tech suppliers can make and what is needed by smartphone, computer and other manufacturers, said Garcia Herrero and Gary Ng of Natixis in a report.
Abroad, Chinese efforts to assert leadership will lead to “more tension and difficulty,” because “countries are not just going to follow the Chinese model,” said Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s China Institute.
With potential dissenters forced out, “there is nobody in Beijing who can advise Xi Jinping that this is not the way to go,” Tsang said.
Xi gave no indication Beijing will change its “zero-COVID” strategy despite public frustration with repeated city closures that has boiled over into protests in Shanghai and other areas.
Xi’s priorities of security and self-sufficiency will “drag on China’s productivity growth,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, Sheana Yue and Mark Williams of Capital Economics in a report. “His determination to stay in power makes a course correction unlikely.”
The central bank governor, Yi Gang, and bank regulator, Guo Shuqing, also were missing from Saturday’s Central Committee list, indicating they will retire next year, as expected.
Xi suspended retirement rules to keep Gen. Zhang Youxia, 72, on the Central Committee. That allows Zhang, a veteran of China’s 1979 war with Vietnam, to stay as Xi’s deputy chairman on the commission that controls the party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army.
The party elite agreed in the 1990s to limit the general secretary to two five-year terms in hopes of avoiding a repeat of power struggles in previous decades. That leader also becomes chairman of the military commission and takes the ceremonial title of president.
Xi has led an anti-corruption crackdown that snared thousands of officials, including a retired Standing Committee member and deputy Cabinet ministers. That broke up party factions and weakened potential challengers.
Xi is on track to become the first leader in a generation to pick his own successor but has yet to indicate possible candidates. Hu Jintao and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, both were picked in the 1980s by then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.
Ahead of the congress, banners criticizing Xi and “zero COVID” were hung above a major Beijing thoroughfare in a rare protest. Photos of the event were deleted from social media. The popular WeChat messaging app shut down accounts that forwarded them.
Xi’s government also faces criticism over mass detentions and other abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic groups and the jailing of government critics.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of China’s … [+] ruling Communist Party at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
The Chinese Communist Party Congress held in Beijing over the past week started out slow but has ended with a bang.
China President Xi Jinping, as expected, has won a new term as Communist Party secretary at a congress that will be memorable for his display of political power and the dramatic exit of his predecessor Hu Jintao.
“This is the most unforgettable meet in CCP (Chinese Communist Party) history,” Tweeted Yawei Lu, director of the China Program at The Carter Center. Lu cited the secrecy around the event, “massive revision” of the party charter, party secretary’s Xi Jinping’s third term in the position, and the “humiliating exit” of Xi predecessor Hu Jintao, among other factors.
Former party leader Hu Jintao, once one of China’s most powerful figures, was stunningly led out of the closing ceremony of the party gathering from his chair next to Xi. (See earlier post here.)
Besides Xi – who won a new five-year term, the six members selected for the party’s powerful Politburo are Xi allies Li Qiang, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Zhang Leji, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi.
As Shanghai party secretary, Li Qiang – now seen as the country’s next premier — has been closely associated with unpopular “zero-Covid” policies that disrupted global supply chains in the international business hub this year, harming foreign investors such as Tesla. Incumbent, reform-minded Premier Li Keqiang wasn’t named to the new Politiburo at a time when private sector business leaders are concerned about new income redistribution measures and a government tilt in favor of state-owned enterprises.
The party meeting came amid geopolitical tension with the U.S. over Taiwan and Beijing’s close ties with Russia, and has been watched by governments, businesses and investors globally for signs of future policy directions in the world’s most populous nation and second-largest economy. Reform to the party charter added opposition to Taiwan independence and support for various existing Xi policies.
Speaking to the press at a noontime gathering, Xi, 69, fused praise for Marxism with nationalistic themes and reassurance that China’s once high-flying economy will advance anew. The “strong fundamentals will not change,” said Xi, who didn’t take any questions from reporters.
“China will open its door even wider” to the rest of the word, he pledged.
The congress until today had been notable for a consistency of policy statements (see related post here). How much personnel and factional changes at the top lead to policy shifts will test that read.
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, increased his dominance when he was named Sunday to another term as head of the ruling Communist Party in a break with tradition and promoted allies who support his vision of tighter control over society and the struggling economy.
Xi, who took power in 2012, was awarded a third five-year term as general secretary, discarding a party custom under which his predecessor left after 10 years. The 69-year-old leader is expected by some to try to stay in power for life.
On Saturday, Xi’s predecessor, 79-year-old Hu Jintao, abruptly left a meeting of the party Central Committee with an aide holding his arm. That prompted questions about whether Xi was flexing his powers by expelling other party leaders. The official Xinhua News Agency later reported Hu was in poor health and needed to rest.
The party also named a seven-member Standing Committee, its inner circle of power, dominated by Xi allies after Premier Li Keqiang, the No. 2 leader and an advocate of market-style reform and private enterprise, was dropped from the leadership on Saturday. That was despite Li being a year younger than the party’s informal retirement age of 68.
Xi and the other Standing Committee members appeared for the first time as a group before reporters Sunday in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s ceremonial legislature in central Beijing.
Xi announced Li Qiang, a former Shanghai party secretary who is no relation to Li Keqiang, was the No. 2 member and Zhao Leji, a member of the previous committee, was promoted to No. 3. The No. 2 committee member since the 1990s has become premier while the No. 3 heads the legislature. Those posts are to be assigned when the legislature meets next year.
Leadership changes were announced as the party wrapped up a twice-a-decade congress that was closely watched for signs of initiatives to reverse an economic slump or changes in a severe “zero-COVID” strategy that has shut down cities and disrupted business. Officials disappointed investors and the Chinese public by announcing no changes.
The lineup appeared to reflect what some commentators called “Maximum Xi,” valuing loyalty over ability. Some new Standing Committee members lack national-level government experience that typically is seen as a requirement for the post.
The promotion of Li Qiang was especially unusual because it puts him in line to be premier despite not having experience as a Cabinet minister or vice premier. However, he is regarded as close to Xi after the two worked together early in their careers in Zhejiang province in the early 2000s.
Li Keqiang is the top economic official but was sidelined over the past decade by Xi, who put himself in charge of policymaking bodies and wants a bigger state role in business and technology development.
Li Keqiang was excluded Saturday from the list of the party’s new 205-member Central Committee, from which the Standing Committee is picked. He is due to step down as premier next year.
Jolie’s nerves were running high as she walked into the campus of Goldsmiths, the University of London, last Friday morning. She’d planned to arrive early enough that the campus would be deserted, but her fellow students were already beginning to filter in to start their day.
In the hallway of an academic building, Jolie, who’d worn a face mask to obscure her identity, waited for the right moment to reach into her bag for the source of her nervousness – several pieces of A4-size paper she had printed out in the small hours of the night.
Finally, when she made sure none of the students – especially those who, like Jolie, come from China – were watching, she quickly pasted one of them on a notice board.
“Life not zero-Covid policy, freedom not martial-lawish lockdown, dignity not lies, reform not cultural revolution, votes not dictatorship, citizens not slaves,” it read, in English.
The day before, these words, in Chinese, had been handwritten in red paint on a banner hanging over a busy overpass thousands of miles away in Beijing, in a rare, bold protest against China’s top leader Xi Jinping.
Another banner on the Sitong Bridge denounced Xi as a “dictator” and “national traitor” and called for his removal – just days before a key Communist Party meeting at which he is set to secure a precedent-breaking third term.
Both banners were swiftly removed by police and all mentions of the protest wiped from the Chinese internet. But the short-lived display of political defiance – which is almost unimaginable in Xi’s authoritarian surveillance state–has resonated far beyond the Chinese capital, sparking acts of solidarity from Chinese nationals inside China and across the globe.
Over the past week, as party elites gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to extoll Xi and his policies at the 20th Party Congress, anti-Xi slogans echoing the Sitong Bridge banners have popped up in a growing number of Chinese cities and hundreds of universities worldwide.
In China, the slogans were scrawled on walls and doors in public bathrooms – one of the last places spared the watchful eyes of the country’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.
Overseas, many anti-Xi posters were put up by Chinese students like Jolie, who have long learned to keep their critical political views to themselves due to a culture of fear. Under Xi, the party has ramped up surveillance and control of the Chinese diaspora, intimidating and harassing those who dare to speak out and threatening their families back home.
CNN spoke with two Chinese citizens who scribbled protest slogans in bathroom stalls and half a dozen overseas Chinese students who put up anti-Xi posters on their campuses. As with Jolie, CNN agreed to protect their identities with pseudonyms and anonymity due to the sensitivity of their actions.
Many said they were shocked and moved by the Sitong Bridge demonstration and felt compelled to show support for the lone protester, who has not been heard of since and is likely to face lifelong repercussions. He has come to be known as the “Bridge Man,” in a nod to the unidentified “Tank Man” who faced down a column of tanks on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
Few of them believe their political actions will lead to real changes on the ground. But with Xi emerging triumphant from the Party Congress with the potential for lifelong rule, the proliferation of anti-Xi slogans are a timely reminder that despite his relentless crushing of dissent, the powerful leader may always face undercurrents of resistance.
As China’s online censors went into overdrive last week to scrub out all discussions about the Sitong Bridge protest, some social media users shared an old Chinese saying: “A tiny spark can set the prairie ablaze.”
It would appear that the fire started by the “Bridge Man” has done just that, setting off an unprecedented show of dissent against Xi’s leadership and authoritarian rule among mainland Chinese nationals.
The Chinese government’s policies and actions have sparked outcries online and protests in the streets before. But in most cases, the anger has focused on local authorities and few have attacked Xi himself so directly or blatantly.
Critics of Xi have paid a heavy price. Two years ago, Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese billionaire who criticized Xi’s handling of China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak and called the top leader a power-hungry “clown,” was jailed for 18 years on corruption charges.
But the risks of speaking out did not deter Raven Wu, a university senior in eastern China. Inspired by the “Bridge Man,” Wu left a message in English in a bathroom stall to share his call for freedom, dignity, reform, and democracy. Below the message, he drew a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a crown, with a “no” sign drawn over it. (Xi has been compared to the chubby cartoon bear by Chinese social media users.)
“I felt a long-lost sense of liberation when I was scribbling,” Wu said. “In this country of extreme cultural and political censorship, no political self-expression is allowed. I felt satisfied that for the first time in my life as a Chinese citizen, I did the right thing for the people.”
There was also the fear of being found out by the school – and the consequences, but he managed to push it aside. Wu, whose own political awakening came in high school when he heard about the Tiananmen Square massacre by chance, hoped his scribbles could cause a ripple of change – however small – among those who saw them.
He is deeply worried about China’s future. Over the past two years, “despairing news” has repeatedly shocked him, he said.
“Just like Xi’s nickname ‘the Accelerator-in-Chief,’ he is leading the country into the abyss … The most desperate thing is that through the [Party Congress], Xi Jinping will likely establish his status as the emperor and double down on his policies.”
Chen Qiang, a fresh graduate in southwestern China, shared that bleak outlook – the economy is faltering, and censorship is becoming ever more stringent, he said.
Chen had tried to share the Sitong Bridge protest on WeChat, China’s super app, but it kept getting censored. So he thought to himself: why don’t I write the slogans in nearby places to let more people know about him?
He found a public restroom and wrote the original Chinese version of the slogan on a toilet stall door. As he scrawled on, he was gripped by a paralyzing fear of being caught by the strict surveillance. But he forced himself to continue. “(The Beijing protester) had sacrificed his life or the freedom of the rest of his life to do what he did. I think we should also be obliged to do something that we can do,” he said.
Chen described himself as a patriot. “However I don’t love the (Communist) Party. I have feelings for China, but not the government.”
So far, the spread of the slogans appears limited.
A number of pro-democracy Instagram accounts run by anonymous Chinese nationals have been keeping track of the anti-Xi graffiti and posters. Citizensdailycn, an account with 32,000 followers, said it received around three dozen reports from mainland China, about half of which involved bathrooms. Northern_Square, with 42,000 followers, said it received eight reports of slogans in bathrooms, which users said were from cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.
The movement has been dubbed by some as the “Toilet Revolution” – in a jibe against Xi’s campaign to improve the sanitary conditions at public restrooms in China, and a nod to the location of much of the anti-Xi messaging.
Wu, the student in Eastern China, applauded the term for its “ironic effect.” But he said it also offers an inspiration. “Even in a cramped space like the toilet, as long as you have a revolutionary heart, you can make your own contribution,” he said.
For Chen, the term is a stark reminder of the highly limited space of free expression in China.
“Due to censorship and surveillance, people can only express political opinions by writing slogans in places like toilets. It is sad that we have been oppressed to this extent,” Chen said.
For many overseas Chinese students, including Jolie, it is their first time to have taken political action, driven by a mixture of awe and guilt toward the “Bridge Man” and a sense of duty to show solidarity.
Among the posters on the notice boards of Goldsmiths, the University of London, is one with a photo of the Sitong Bridge protest, which showed a plume of dark smoke billowing up from the bridge.
Above it, a Chinese sentence printed in red reads: “The courage of one person should not be without echo.”
Putting up protest posters “is the smallest thing, but the biggest I can do now – not because of my ability but because of my lack of courage,” Jolie said,pointing to her relative safety acting outside China’s borders.
Others expressed a similar sense of guilt. “I feel ashamed. If I were in Beijing now, I would never have the courage to do such a thing,” said Yvonne Li, who graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year.
Li and a friend put up a hundred posters on campus and in the city center, including around China Town.
“I really wanted to cry when I first saw the protest on Instagram. I felt politically depressed reading Chinese news everyday. I couldn’t see any hope. But when I saw this brave man, I realized there is still a glimmer of light,” she said.
The two Instagram accounts, Citizensdailycn and Northern_square, said they each received more than 1,000 submissions of anti-Xi posters from the Chinese diaspora. According to Citizensdailycn’s tally, the posters have been sighted at 320 universities across the world.
Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer and visiting professor at the University of Chicago, said he is struck by how fast the overseas opposition to Xi has gathered pace and how far it has spread.
When Xi scrapped presidential term limits in 2018, posters featuring the slogan “Not My President” and Xi’s face had surfaced in some universities outside China – but the scale paled in comparison, Teng noted.
“In the past, there were only sporadic protests by overseas Chinese dissidents. Voices from university campuses were predominantly supporting the Chinese government and leadership,” he said.
In recent years, as Xi stoked nationalism at home and pursued an assertive foreign policy abroad, an increasing number of overseas Chinese students have stepped forward to defend Beijing from any criticism or perceived slights – sometimes with the blessing of Chinese embassies.
There were protests when a university invited the Dalai Lama to be a guest speaker; rebukes for professors perceived to have “anti-China” content in their lectures; and clashes when other campus groups expressed support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
But as the widespread anti-Xi posters have shown, the rising nationalistic sentiment is by no means representative of all Chinese students overseas. Most often, those who do not agree with the party and its policies simply choose to stay silent. For them, the stakes of openly criticizing Beijing are just too high. In past years, those who spoke out have faced harassment and intimidation, retaliation against family back home, and lengthy prison terms upon returning to China.
“Even liberal democracies are influenced by China’s long arm of repression. The Chinese government has a large amount of spies and informants, monitoring overseas Chinese through various United Front-linked organizations,” Teng said, referring to a party body responsible for influence and infiltration operations abroad.
Teng said Beijing has extended its grip on Chinese student bodies abroad to police the speech and actions of its nationals overseas – and to make sure the party line is observed even on foreign campuses.
“The fact that so many students are willing to take the risk shows how widespread the anger is over Xi’s decade of moving backward.”
Most students CNN spoke with said they were worried about being spotted with the posters by Beijing’s supporters, who they fear could expose them on Chinese social media or report them to the embassies.
“We were scared and kept looking around. I found it absurd at the time and reflected briefly upon it – what we were doing is completely legal here (in the Netherlands), but we were still afraid of being seen by other Chinese students,” said Chen, the recent graduate in Rotterdam.
The fear of being betrayed by peers has weighed heavily on Jolie, the student in London, in particular while growing up in China with views that differed from the party line. “I was feeling really lonely,” she said. “The horrible (thing) is that your friends and classmates may report you.”
But as she showed solidarity for the “Bridge Man,” she also found solidarity in others who did the same. In the day following the protest in Beijing, Jolie saw on Instagram an outpouring of photos showing protest posters from all over the world.
“I was so moved and also a little bit shocked that (I) have many friends, although I don’t know them, and I felt a very strong emotion,” she said. “I just thought – my friends, how can I contact you, how can I find you, how can we recognize each other?”
Sometimes, all it takes is a knowing smile from a fellow Chinese student – or a new protest poster that crops up on the same notice board – to make the students feel reassured.
“It’s important to tell each other that we’re not alone,” said a Chinese student at McGill University in Quebec.
“(After) I first hung the posters, I went back to see if they were still there and I would see another small poster hung by someone else and I just feel really safe and comforted.”
“I feel like it is my responsibility to do this,” they said. If they didn’t do anything, “it’s just going to be over, and I just don’t want it to be over so quickly without any consequences.”
In China, the party will also be watching closely for any consequences. Having tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state, the party’s hold on power appears firmer than ever.
But the extensive censorship around the Sitong Bridge protest also betrays its paranoia.
“Maybe (the bridge protester) is the only one with such courage and willingness to sacrifice, but there may be millions of other Chinese people who share his views,” said Matt, a Chinese student at Columbia University in New York.
“He let me realize that there are still such people in China, and I want others to know that, too. Not everyone is brainwashed. (We’re) still a nation with ideals and hopes.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping at left looks on as former Chinese President Hu Jintao is assisted to … [+] leave the hall during the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of China’s ruling Communist Party at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor as party leader, was helped off the stage shortly after foreign media came in. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Former China President Hu Jintao was unexpectedly led out of the closing ceremony of the Communist Party Congress in Beijing today from his chair next to his successor Xi Jinping, CNN reported, citing meeting video.
Li’s departure was “a moment of drama during what is typically a highly choreographed event,” the network reported. “The circumstances surrounding Hu’s exit are not clear.”
Hu was led out “shortly after foreign media came in,” the Associated Press said.
The week-long gathering on Saturday selected 205 party leaders of its central committee for the next five years. The meeting comes amid geopolitical tension with the U.S. over Taiwan and Beijing’s close ties with Russia, and has been watched by governments, businesses and investors globally for signs of China’s future policy directions.
Hu, 79, was seated next to Xi “when he was approached by a staff member,” CNN said. “While seated, Hu appeared to talk briefly with the male staff member, while China’s third most senior leader, Li Zhanshu, who was seated to his other side, had his hand on the chair behind Hu’s back,” CNN reported.
“Hu then appeared to rise after being lifted up by the staff member, who’d taken the former leader by the arm, while Kong Shaoxun, head of the party’s secretariat came over. Hu spoke with the two men briefly and initially appeared reluctant to leave.”
“At one point, while Hu was still seated, Xi appeared to place his hand over a document that Hu was attempting to reach for preventing him from doing so,” CNN said.
Chinese state-run media, as it has all week, lauded the meeting today, without explaining why Hu was led out.
“The congress noted that the establishment of Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has set the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on ‘an irreversible historical course,’” Xinhua News Agency reported today.
The party’s powerful Politburo and standing committee will be named on Sunday and meet the domestic and foreign press, Xinhua said.
The congress until today had been notable for consistency of policy statements (see related post here).
China’s economy is faltering. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Endless Covid lockdowns are wreaking havoc on businesses and people’s lives. The property sector is in crisis. Ties between Beijing and major global powers are under strain.
The list of problems faced by the world’s second-largest economy goes on – and many of those long-term challenges have only worsened under a decade of Xi Jinping’s rule. Yet the Chinese leader’s grip on power is unwavering.
In the past decade, Xi has consolidated control to an extent unseen since the era of Communist China’s strongman founder, Mao Zedong. He’s the head of the Chinese Communist Party, the state, the armed forces, and so many committees that he’s been dubbed “chairman of everything.” And now, he is poised to step into a norm-breaking third term in power, with the potential to rule for life.
But absolute power can often mean absolute responsibility, and as problems mount, analysts warn Xi will have less room to avoid blame.
“I think the worst enemy of Xi Jinping’s longevity in ruling China is Xi Jinping himself,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “It is when he makes a huge policy mistake that causes havoc in China that could potentially start the process of unraveling Xi Jinping’s hold to power.”
Mao’s rule from 1949 until 1976 was marked by rash policy decisions that led to tens of millions of deaths and destroyed the economy. After those decades of turmoil, the Communist Party developed a system of collective leadership designed to prevent the rise of another dictator who could make arbitrary and dangerous decisions.
China’s next leader, Deng Xiaoping, set an unwritten rule and precedent that the Communist Party’s General Secretary – the role from which China’s leader derives true power – would step down after two terms.
From Mao to Xi: A history of China’s leadership
When Xi assumed power in 2012, China’s economy was booming as it integrated more closely with the rest of the world. Just four years before, China had stunned the world with the extravagant Beijing Summer Olympics. But to Xi, the party was in a state of crisis: overrun by corruption, infighting, and inefficiencies.
Xi’s solution was to return to dictatorial and personalistic rule. He purged political enemies in a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, silenced internal dissent, abolished presidential term limits and enshrined “Xi Jinping Thought” into the party’s constitution.
According to analysts, many dictatorships fall into a pattern of abuse of power and poor decision-making when a lack of critical advice reaches the leader. They point to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly costly war against Ukraine as a concern that Xi’s similarly unquestionable power to the Russian President could one day lead to equally disastrous consequences.
Putin and Xi “suffer from the same strongman-syndrome problem, which is that they turned their policy advice circles into echo chambers, so people are no longer able to speak their mind freely,” Tsang said. “We are seeing big mistakes being made because that internal policy debate has been reduced or indeed eliminated in terms of its scope.”
In recent history, no country has modernized as rapidly as China. The Communist Party claims its leadership helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, turning backwater villages into stunning megacities. But that growth miracle has slowed. And many longstanding challenges in China’s economy have only been exacerbated by Xi’s policies.
Xi has made it his mission to strengthen the party and its control over business and society. He unleashed a crackdown on the once-vibrant private sector that’s led to mass layoffs. Beijing claims the tougher regulations restrict overly powerful corporations and protect consumers, but the measures have suffocated private businesses, sending chills through the economy and sparking fears about future innovation.
China’s once vibrant private sector suffocating under Xi’s crackdown
Beijing started clamping down on easy credit for property firms in 2020, which led to cash crunches and defaults for many developers, including giant conglomerate Evergrande. Housing projects have stalled and desperate homebuyers across the country are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished homes. Disruptions in the property sector have an outsized impact on China’s broader economy, as it accounts for as much as 30% of the country’s GDP.
But during Xi’s leadership, nothing has rocked China’s economy and society as much as zero-Covid. In year three of the pandemic, China has clung to the harsh policy, which relies on mass testing, extensive quarantines and snap lockdowns to stamp out infections at all costs, even as the rest of the world has learned to live with the virus.
The country continues to lock down entire cities over a handful of infections, while sending all positive cases and close contacts to government quarantine facilities. Lining up for Covid tests and scanning a tracking health code to enter any public space have become normalized. Beijing argues the policy has prevented China from spiraling into a health care disaster like the rest of the world, but zero-Covid is wielded at enormous and growing costs.
Artist wears 27 hazmat suits to protest China’s policies
Constant lockdowns have dramatically shrunk the pace of growth in China’s economy. Record youth unemployment has reached nearly 20%. Pocketbooks are shrinking. Heavily indebted local governments are forced to spend on mass Covid testing. Experts say resources would be better spent on increasing vaccination rates rather than building costly testing sites and quarantine facilities. China has still not approved any foreign mRNA vaccines proven to be more effective against the highly contagious Omicron variant than the inactivated vaccines used in China.
At the start of the pandemic, Beijing censored – and in some cases punished – doctors, experts, and citizen journalists who tried to warn of a deadly in virus in Wuhan.
Nearly three years on, as most international experts advise China to find a way to live with the virus, Beijing has doubled down. Earlier this year, Shanghai – a metropolis with a population more than three times that of New York City – was locked down for two months. People struggled to get enough food and basic necessities. Desperate residents broke out of home confinement and clashed with enforcement workers in rare street protests. Many patients were denied life-saving health care.
When the World Health Organization criticized the zero-Covid policy as “not sustainable,” China censored the statement on social media.
Susan Shirk, director of the 21st Century China Center and author of “Overreach,” a book on Xi’s leadership, says China’s leaders “compete with one another to prove how loyal they are to him because Xi promotes loyalists, not the most competent people.” That leads to subordinates going over the top in executing policies to try to please Xi, she said.
Shirk said this has played out with zero-Covid, as Xi has directly tied his leadership to the strategy, so local officials have zealously followed it to show loyalty to the leader and protect their careers.
“A lot of the pain in China’s economy has been self-inflicted by China’s leader,” Shirk said.
“So what this suggests, and this is a pretty disturbing idea, is that the Chinese Communist Party no longer brands itself as a developmental party, putting economic development as its primary objective. But instead, it’s Xi Jinping’s hold on power.”
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials say they have shut down at least 214 illegal Chinese offshore gambling operations and deported the first six of nearly 400 Chinese workers who have been detained under a renewed crackdown.
A spate of crimes victimizing Chinese workers at illegal online gambling businesses, including kidnappings and sexual abuses, sparked the crackdown and calls for the banning of even legitimate operators in the lucrative industry.
Called Philippine offshore gaming operators, or POGOs, the Chinese-run gambling firms are based in the Philippines, but their customers are overseas. They began growing rapidly in 2016, generating about 30 billion pesos ($508 million) in gambling revenues and fees from 2016 to this year, officials said.
The current crackdown is directed against Chinese operators who have not paid taxes or revenue shares or have committed other violations of the law. The visas of their estimated 48,000 mostly Chinese workers will be canceled, and they can either leave on their own or face mass deportations, Justice Assistant Secretary Jose Dominic Clavano said by telephone.
“All of these illegal POGOs cannot operate in the country and the people who work for them are violating our laws and we should make sure that they leave our country,” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla told reporters at Manila’s international airport, where the six deported Chinese workers boarded a commercial flight on Wednesday back to China.
Beijing has backed the crackdown on online gambling operations, which cater to clients in China despite Beijing’s ban on gambling.
“Crimes induced by and associated with POGO not only harm China’s interests and China-Philippines relations, but also hurt the interests of the Philippines,” the Chinese Embassy said in a statement last week.
“It is, therefore, widely believed that social costs of POGO far outweigh its economic benefits to the Philippines in the long run,” the embassy said.
The six deported Chinese were among 372 mostly Chinese workers who have been detained by Philippine authorities starting in September from different offshore gambling sites, Clavano said.
The identities of the other Chinese are still being verified with Chinese authorities in an often-tedious process prior to their deportation, Clavano said.
Remulla said authorities are also checking how many of the more than 48,000 Chinese workers currently remain in the country because some may have left.
More than 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese were believed to have worked in the online gambling operations when the business peaked starting in 2016, boosting real estate, transport and food businesses in cities where they were based. But a considerable number were forced to leave due to sporadic government crackdowns, a more stringent tax law and the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.
Philippine legislators have debated whether to ban the online Chinese gambling industry altogether.
“It is true that they contribute to the coffers, but it comes at significant social costs, which in turn pose a reputational risk that can affect our business and investment climate,” Sen. Grace Poe told a Senate hearing on the issue early this month.
BEIJING (AP) — China plans to boost coal production through 2025 to avoid a repeat of last year’s power shortages, an official said Monday, adding to setbacks in efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source.
China is a big investor in wind and solar, but jittery Communist Party leaders called for more coal-fired power after economic growth slumped last year and shortages caused blackouts. That prompted warnings that carbon emissions will rise faster through 2030, when they government says they should peak.
The ruling party aims for annual coal production to rise to 4.6 billion tons in 2025, a deputy director of the Cabinet’s National Energy Administration, Ren Jingdong, said at a news conference held during a ruling party congress. That would be a 12% increase over last year’s 4.1 billion tons.
Ensuring an adequate power supply is especially sensitive after economic growth slid to 2.2% over a year earlier in the first six months of this year, less than half the official target of 5.5%. The ruling party earlier called for this year’s production to rise by 300 million tons, or about 7% of last year’s output.
The challenges of relying on renewable sources were highlighted by a dry summer that left reservoirs in China’s southwest too low to generate hydropower. That forced power cuts in Sichuan province and the major city of Chongqing.
Beijing will “give full play to the ‘ballast role’ of coal and the basic regulating role of coal power,” Ren said. He said the country will “vigorously enhance oil and gas exploration and development.”
Ren said officials are trying to ensure China meets targets in the ruling party’s latest five-year development plan for non-fossil fuel sources to supply 20% of power by 2025 and 25% by 2030. He said that includes wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and geothermal.
China will “comprehensively build a clean energy supply system,” Ren said.
Another official, Zhao Chenxin, deputy director of the Cabinet’s planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said plans include building 450 million kilowatts of “large-scale wind and solar bases” in the Gobi Desert in China’s north.
Beijing has spent tens of billions of dollars on solar and wind farms to reduce reliance on imported oil and gas and clean up its smog-choked cities. China accounted for about half of global investment in wind and solar in 2020.
Still, coal is expected to supply 60% of its power in the near future.
Authorities say they are shrinking carbon emissions per unit of economic output. The government reported a reduction of 3.8% last year, an improvement over 2020′s 1% gain but down from a 5.1% cut in 2017.
Last year’s total energy use increased 5.2% over 2020 after a revival of global demand for Chinese exports propelled a manufacturing boom, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
China’s President Xi Jinping kicks off the ruling party’s 20th National Congress — held once every five years — with an opening speech at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 16, 2022. The week-long event is expected to pave the way for him to stay on for an unprecedented third five-year term.
Noel Celis | AFP | Getty Images
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed Sunday the country’s recent shift away from rapid growth and greater focus on national self-sufficiency, especially in technology.
Xi was speaking at the opening ceremony of the ruling Communist Party of China’s 20th National Congress, held once every five years. His same speech in 2017 had begun with much discussion of China’s economic growth.
In contrast, Xi on Sunday began his remarks with greater emphasis on China’s “national rejuvenation” and opposition to Taiwan independence.
Xi briefly mentioned in that opening section how the country’s Covid policy has achieved “positive results” in coordination with economic development. He did not state whether the policy would end or continue.
China’s Covid controls helped the country quickly return to growth in 2020. But the controversial “zero-Covid” policy has become increasingly stringent this year, prompting investment banks to repeatedly slash growth estimates for China.
Looking ahead, Xi emphasized the country needed a solid technological foundation in order to achieve its modernization goals. Some areas he mentioned included boosting the quality of China’s manufactured products, the country’s capabilities in space transportation and digital development.
“Without solid material and technological foundations we cannot hope to build a great modern socialist country,” Xi said in Chinese, according to an official English translation.
Since the party’s 19th National Congress, the U.S. has increased its pressure on China. The Biden administration has called China a strategic competitor and this month announced new export controls on semiconductors — in an effort to maintain a U.S. edge in tech over China.
Xi did not mention specific countries in his nearly two-hour-long speech.
However, he dedicated one section to stating how the country would emphasize education for developing its own talent in science, and accelerate the launch of national projects with “strategic” and “long-term importance.” He did not provide further details.
He also did not leave out growth plans altogether. Xi said the country would aim to boost productivity, make its supply chains more resilient and expand overall economic output.
The speech in general laid out a framework for Xi’s near-term plan for China, which he said is to “basically realize socialist modernization” between the years 2020 and 2035.
He cast prior success — in building the world’s second-largest economy and becoming a “major destination for global investment” — as achievements already in the books.
The Chinese Communist Party has already announced 100-year development goals — to “build a moderately prosperous society in all respects” by 2021 and “build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious” by 2049.
Xi’s list of “essential requirements” for Chinese modernization began with upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China, followed by “high-quality development.”
The list included achieving common prosperity — moderate wealth for all rather than just a few — and “harmony between humanity and nature.”
On Sunday, Xi spoke of promoting a “healthy” online environment. He said the country would encourage getting rich through hard work and expand its middle class. He indicated China would standardize an unspecified mechanism for wealth accumulation.
He did not specifically address China’s ongoing troubles in real estate, but repeated prior statements about speeding up measures to encourage both house purchases and rentals.
Xi warned of “dangerous storms” on the journey ahead, and called for commitment to the party’s leadership, “reform and opening up” and other principles.
BEIJING — China opened a twice-a-decade Communist Party conference Sunday at the end of which leader Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term, breaking with recent precedent and establishing him as arguably the most powerful Chinese politician since Mao Zedong.
Xi was delivering a lengthy report at the opening in which he extolled the achievements of the past five years and said the party would strive to meet its modernization goals to achieve what it calls the “rejuvenation” of the nation.
“The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is an irreversible, historical course,” he said to the more than 2,000 delegates attending the opening, held in the massive Great Hall of the People that overlooks Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing.
With Xi expected to remain, little change is foreseen in China‘s economic and foreign policies, as well as his intolerance of criticism and hardline approach to COVID-19 including quarantines and travel bans.
The weeklong congress is the 20th in the history of the century-old party, which has ruled China for more than 70 years. As with most Chinese political events, little information has been released beforehand and the outcome will only be announced next weekend, after days of closed-door sessions.
The congress will likely approve an amendment to its charter that could further elevate Xi’s status as leader.
The spokesperson for the congress, Sun Yeli, offered few details at a news conference Saturday about what changes would be enacted, He said they would “meet new requirements for advancing the party’s development and work in the face of new circumstances and new tasks.”
The previous congress in 2017 incorporated Xi’s ideology, known as Xi Jinping Thought, into the party constitution. The ideology is vague but emphasizes reviving the party’s mission as China’s political, economic, social and cultural leader and its central role in achieving national rejuvenation.
Xi, who has been leader for 10 years, has already amassed great power, placing himself in charge of domestic affairs, foreign policy, the military, the economy and most other key matters through party working groups that he leads.
The congress comes as China’s economy is facing major headwinds from a sharp slowdown in the real estate sector and the toll on tourism, shops and manufacturing from COVID-19 quarantines and other restrictions.
The expected coronation for China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping has officially begun, as the ruling Communist Party convenes a week-long meeting to extoll his first decade in power – and to usher in a likely new era of strongman rule.
Amid heightened security, escalated zero-Covid restrictions and a frenzy of propaganda and censorship, the party kicks off its most consequential national congress in decades in Beijing on Sunday morning.
At the 20th Party Congress, Xi, who came to power in 2012, is poised to secure a third term as the party’s general secretary, breaking with recent precedent and paving the way for potential lifelong rule.
The expected anointment will cement the 69-year-old’s status as China’s most powerful leader since late Chairman Mao Zedong, who ruled China until his death aged 82. It will also have a profound impact on the world, as Xi doubles down on an assertive foreign policy to boost China’s international clout and rewrite the US-led global order.
At the heart of the Chinese capital, nearly 2,300 handpicked party delegates from around the country have gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the highly choreographed event.
Sitting in neat rows with face masks on, they await Xi to deliver a lengthy work report that will take stock of the party’s achievements over the past five years and lay out in broad strokes its policy priorities for the next five.
Observers will be closely watching for signs of the party’s policy direction when it comes to its uncompromising zero-Covid policy, handling of steep economic challenges, and stated goal of “reunifying” with Taiwan – a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own despite never having controlled.
The meetings will be mostly held behind close doors throughout the week. When delegates reemerge at the end of the congress next Saturday, they will conduct a ceremonial vote to rubber stamp Xi’s work report and approve changes made to the party constitution – which might bestow Xi with new titles to further strengthen his power.
The delegates will also select the party’s new Central Committee, which will hold its first meeting the next day to appoint the party’s top leadership – the Politburo and its Standing Committee, following decisions already hashed out behind the scenes by party leaders before the congress.
The congress will be a major moment of political triumph for Xi, but it also comes during a period of potential crisis. Xi’s insistence on an uncompromising zero-Covid policy has fueled mounting public frustration and crippled economic growth. Meanwhile, diplomatically, his “no-limits” friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin has further strained Beijing’s ties with the West following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
In the lead-up to the congress, officials across China drastically ramped up restrictions to prevent even minor Covid outbreaks, imposing sweeping lockdowns and increasingly frequent mass Covid tests over a handful of cases. Yet infections caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant have continued to flare. On Saturday, China reported nearly 1,200 infections, including 14 in Beijing.
Public anger toward zero-Covid came to the fore Thursday in an exceptionally rare protest against Xi in Beijing. Online photos showed two banners were unfurled on a busy overpass denouncing Xi and his policies, before being taken down by police.
“Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” one banner reads.
“Go on strike, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping,” read the other.
The Chinese public have paid little attention to the party’s congresses in the past – they have no say in the country’s leadership reshuffle, or the making of major policies. But this year, many have pinned their hopes on the congress to be a turning point for China to relax its Covid policy.
A series of recent articles in the party’s mouthpiece, however, suggest that could be wishful thinking. The People’s Daily hailed zero-Covid as the “best choice” for the country, insisting it is “sustainable and must be followed.”
On Saturday, on the eve of the congress, party spokesman Sun Yeli told a news conference China’s Covid measures have ensured the country’s extremely low rate of infections and deaths, and enabled “sustained and stable operations of the economy and society.”
“With everything considered, China’s epidemic prevention measures are the most economical and effective,” Sun said.
“Our prevention and control strategies and measures will become more scientific, more accurate, and more effective,” he said. “We firmly believe that the dawn is ahead, and persistence is victory.”
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
Hong Kong CNN
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When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he inherited a country at a crossroads.
Outwardly, China seemed an unstoppable rising power. It had recently overtaken Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, the country still basking in the afterglow of the dazzling 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
But deep within the high walls of Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound where Xi spent time as a child visiting his late father Xi Zhongxun, a liberal-minded vice premier, China’s new leader saw a country in crisis.
Rampant corruption plagued the Communist Party and stoked popular discontent, chipping away at the legitimacy of a regime Xi’s father helped bring to power. The quest to get rich over decades of economic reform created a gaping wealth gap and hollowed out the official socialist ideology, fueling a crisis of faith. And as the Arab Spring toppled dictators in the Middle East, the rise of social media in China offered a rare space for public dissent, amplifying calls for social justice and political change.
Xi took these perceived challenges head on. Born a “princeling” – the offspring of revolutionary heroes who founded Communist China – the Chinese leader saw himself as savior, entrusted by the party to steer it away from threats to its survival.
But instead of following in the reformist footsteps of his father, Xi opted for a path of total control. Combining the old authoritarian playbook and new surveillance technology, he has eliminated his rivals, tightened his grip on the economy and made the party omnipresent in China – embedding his own cult of personality in daily life.
Xi also touted the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation, offering a tempting vision to restore China to its past glory and reclaim its rightful place in the world.
“Xi Jinping sits on top of the party, the party sits on top of China, and China sits on top of the world. That’s basically the program,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Australia.
Ten years on, Xi’s China is richer, stronger and more confident than ever, yet it is also more authoritarian, inward-looking and paranoid than it has been in decades. It has bolstered its international clout, at the expense of its relations with the West and many of its neighbors.
At a key party congress beginning on Sunday, Xi is poised to be appointed to a norm-breaking third term. It will be his coronation as China’s most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong, paving the way for potential lifelong rule.
But as Xi grapples with a sharp economic downturn, growing frustration with his uncompromising zero-Covid policy and surging tensions with the United States and its allies, the sense of crisis that beset his rise to power has continued to haunt him, and is set to shape his rule in the years – if not decades – to come.
Xi saw the party’s crisis up close during his ascent to the top in 2012, when a sensational scandal brought down a prominent political rival and threatened to derail the leadership handover.
Bo Xilai, a fellow “princeling” and charismatic leader of the mega city of Chongqing, was vying for promotion into the top leadership when his police chief attempted to defect to a US consulate, accusing Bo of trying to cover up his wife’s murder of a British businessman. Party leaders feuded over how to deal with the fallout. Eventually, Bo was investigated and expelled from the party weeks before the five-yearly power reshuffle. Bo and his wife are today both serving life in prison.
Having risen through the ranks in the bustling coastal provinces during China’s reform and opening up, Xi would have seen no shortage of local corruption. But the blatant abuse of power and deep rifts at the very top of the leadership exposed in Bo’s scandal likely aggravated Xi’s sense of peril for the party’s survival.
“Our party faces many grave challenges and there are many pressing problems within the party that need to be solved, in particular corruption,” Xi said in his first speech hours after being appointed the top leader.
Within weeks, he launched the most brutal and long-lasting “war on graft” the party had ever seen. The sweeping purges targeted not only the corrupt, but also Xi’s political enemies, including powerful leaders who were accused of plotting a coup with Bo to seize power.
The crackdown instilled discipline, loyalty and a culture of fear, stifling opposition as Xi moved to amass power into his own hands. He styled himself as a strongman, eschewing the collective rule that was alleged to have exacerbated factionalism under his comparably weak predecessor Hu Jintao. In just four years, Xi asserted himself as the “core” of the party leadership, demanding its 96 million members to “unify their thinking, willpower and action” around him.
“(Xi) thinks the only instrument with which he can rule China at home and make gains abroad is a unified, strong, and powerful Communist Party. So he has made it his mission to strengthen the party under his rule,” said McGregor at the Lowy Institute. “He’s both strengthened himself, and he’s strengthened the party as a vehicle for himself.”
Consolidating the party from within was only part of his plan. Xi also set out to fortify the party’s grasp over the country. “Government, the army, society and schools, east, west, south, north and center – the party leads them all,” he said at the party congress in 2017.
Under Xi, the party reasserted itself in all aspects of life. It revitalized once-dormant grassroots party cells and set up new branches in private and foreign companies. It tightened its grip on the media, education, religion and culture, strangled civil society, and unleashed harsh crackdowns on Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Xi also ramped up the party’s control of the economy, especially its once-vibrant private sector. His sweeping regulatory crackdown brought tycoons to heel and wiped out trillions of dollars of market value from Chinese firms.
In the online sphere, extensive censorship and real-life retaliation tamed social media. Instead of serving as a catalyst for social and political reforms, it became an amplifier for party propaganda and a breeding ground for nationalism.
The pervasive social control reached new heights during the pandemic. In the name of fighting Covid, 1.4 billion Chinese citizens lost their freedom of movement to the whims of the party and the prowess of the surveillance state. Cities across China are trapped in rolling, draconian lockdowns, sometimes for months on end, with millions of people confined to their homes or massive quarantine camps.
For Xi, safeguarding the party’s primacy is a painful lesson drawn from the Cultural Revolution, when the Communist establishment was attacked by Mao’s “red guards” and lost control over society.
Hundreds of thousands died in the turmoil, including Xi’s half-sister who was persecuted to death. Xi’s father was purged and tortured. Xi himself was incarcerated, publicly humiliated and sentenced to hard labor in an impoverished village at age 15.
“Arguably, his emphasis on party authority, and stopping individuals who disagree with the party from criticizing (it), is a result of his phobia of chaos because of what he saw happened to himself, his mother, his father and siblings,” said Joseph Torigian, an expert on Chinese politics at American University and author of an upcoming biography on the elder Xi.
Many Chinese who survived the Cultural Revolution – including some party elites – came away with a conviction to prevent a similar catastrophe from happening again, China needed the rule of law, constitutionalism and protection of individual rights. But Xi arrived at a very different conclusion.
“(He) believed that to achieve political order you needed to have a powerful leader, a powerful party, not creating a system in which people had rights that went too far, because they would only abuse them and hurt other individuals,” Torigian said.
So instead of turning against the party, Xi devoted himself to it. In interviews with state media, Xi spoke of how his seven years as a “sent-down youth” toughened him up and strengthened his resolve to serve the party and the people. “I was distilled and purified, and felt like a completely different man,” he told the People’s Daily in 2004.
Xi’s obsession for control was also shaped by the trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he has repeatedly cited as a cautionary tale for the Chinese Communist Party.
“Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and beliefs had been shaken,” Xi told senior officials in a speech months after taking the helm of the party.
To address China’s own crisis of faith, Xi cracked down on religion, reinvigorated the party’s official Marxist ideology and promoted his own eponymous philosophy. “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” is enshrined in the party charter and dominates party speeches and meetings. It also permeates billboards, newspaper front pages and cinema screens, and is taught in classrooms across the country – to children as young as 7.
At the center of “Xi Jinping Thought” is the notion of the Chinese dream: the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” – a vision Xi unveiled just weeks after coming to power.
It has since become a hallmark of his rule, shaping many of his policies at home and abroad.
“Xi Jinping is a man with a mission. He believes that he knows the ways to take China to the promised land of national rejuvenation,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London.
“He is going back to his mythical visions of Chinese history, when China was the greatest civilization and country in the world. And the rest of the world (should) just respect, admire and follow the leadership of China.”
To be sure, many Chinese are proud of their country’s achievements. Under Xi, China declared an end to extreme poverty, modernized its military, emerged as a leader in next-generation technology and greatly expanded its global influence. It is striving to become the dominant power in space, commands the world’s largest navy, and makes its weight felt as an emerging superpower.
For others, Xi’s Chinese dream has turned into their living nightmare. In the country’s far west, Muslim minorities are arbitrarily incarcerated, forcibly assimilated and closely surveilled. In Hong Kong, pro-democracy supporters saw their freedom and hope crushed in a city changed beyond recognition. Across the country, numerous rights lawyers, activists, journalists, professors and businessmen are languishing in jail, or silenced by fear. In Xi’s eyes, they are all perceived threats to his quest for a strong and unified nation, and thus must be remolded or eliminated.
But increasingly, the sheen of the Chinese dream is coming off for ordinary people, too – young professionals who chose to “lie flat” in the face of intense pressure, depositors who lost their life savings in rural banks, homebuyers who refused to pay mortgages on unfinished homes, as well as business owners, laid-off workers and residents pushed to the brink by Xi’s relentless zero-Covid lockdowns. Some of them might have previously rooted for Xi and his vision, but are now paying the price for his policies.
The most disillusioned are seeking a way out. “Run philosophy” has become a Chinese buzzword, advocating emigration to escape what some see as a doomed future under Xi’s rule. Xi has repeatedly touted that China is rising and the West is in decline – a conviction strengthened by America’s political polarization, and his belief that China’s superior political model has enabled it to fight Covid better than Western democracies. But the growing number of disciples of “run philosophy” is an outright rejection of that narrative, showing many Chinese have no faith in his promise to make China great again.
Underpinning Xi’s Chinese dream is a bitter sense of resentment toward the West, rooted in the nationalistic narrative that before the party took power, China suffered a “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers and was invaded, carved up, occupied and weakened.
In recent years, American measures to counter China’s rising influence has only reinforced its sense of being under siege from Western powers, McGregor said.
“It has a visceral, emotional appeal in China. It’s very powerful. I think Xi understands that and he intends to harness that to his own ends,” he said.
As a leader-in-waiting, Xi had already shown a strong disdain for foreign criticism of China. “There are some foreigners with full bellies who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us,” Xi told members of the Chinese community in Mexico on a visit as vice-president in 2009. “China does not export revolution, hunger or poverty. Nor does China cause you headaches. Just what else do you want?”
But Xi’s starkest warning to the West came last summer, when he presided over a grand celebration marking the party’s centenary. Standing on top of Tiananmen, or the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the towering entrance to the Forbidden City palace of imperial China, Xi declared the Chinese nation will no longer be “bullied, oppressed or subjugated” by foreign powers. “Anyone who dares to try, will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people,” he said to thundering applause from the crowd.
Since coming to power, Xi has repeatedly warned against the “infiltration” of Western values such as democracy, press freedom and judicial independence. He has clamped down on foreign NGOs, churches, Western movies and textbooks – all seen as vehicles for undue foreign influence.
Abroad, Xi embarked on an aggressive foreign policy. “Xi thinks this is China’s moment. And to seize that moment, he has to be assertive and take risks,” McGregor said.
Under Xi, China has openly competed for global clout with the United states, leveraging its economic heft to gain geopolitical influence. Its ties with the West are at their most fraught since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre – and they were further soured by Beijing’s tacit support for Moscow following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin share a deep suspicion and hostility toward the US, which they believe is bent on holding China and Russia down. They also share a vision for a new world order – one that better accommodates their nations’ interests and is no longer dominated by the West.
But it remains to be seen how many countries are willing to join that alternative perspective. Views of China have grown more negative during Xi’s decade in power across many advanced economies, and in some, unfavorable views reached record highs in recent years.
Beijing’s sweeping claims of sovereignty have also antagonized many of its neighbors in the region. China built and militarized islands in the South China Sea, raised military tensions over a disputed island chain with Japan, and engaged in bloody border conflicts with India. It has also ramped up military intimidation of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Xi has vowed to “reunify” with the mainland.
For its part, the US has awakened to the competition with China, and is working with allies and like-minded partners to take a raft of measures against Beijing on geopolitics, trade and technology.
That difficult international environment, along with the toll of zero-Covid and the economic headwinds, poses a big challenge for Xi in the years ahead.
But for the coming week, the party congress will be all about celebrating Xi’s victory. According to the party’s most updated official history, Xi has brought China “closer to the center of the world stage than it has ever been.”
Mao may have founded Communist China. But according to the party’s narrative, it is Xi who will lead the country to its rebirth as the new global superpower. Whether he can succeed will have a profound impact on the world.
Just days before the key 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, a rare protest reportedly took place in China against President XI Jinping and his zero-Covid policy, the toughest in the world. On Thursday, various photos circulating on social media showed posters and banners on Sitong Bridge overpass in Beijing against the authoritarian rule of Jinping, who is set to get the record third term during the National Congress starting this Sunday, October 16.
The banners hanging on the bridge demanded freedom from Covid lockdowns and reforms in the country. One banner even goes to the extent of calling Xi Jinping a dictator and demands his removal. “Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to the cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to the great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” reads one banner as per CNN.
The other says: “Go on strike, remove the dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.”
Member of the European Parliament Reinhard Bütikofer also tweeted about the protest in China. He said the protest was against Xi Jinping, which is rare in China. “Protest in #Beijing against Xi Jinping personally: “Overthrow the dictator and thief of the country Xi Jinping”. “No PCR tests but foods, no lockdown but freedom, no lies but dignity, no Cultural Revolution but reforms, no figureheads but ballots. Don’t be a slave but a citizen”,” he wrote on Twitter.
Protest in #Beijing against Xi Jinping personally: “Overthrow the dictator and thief of the country Xi Jinping”. “No PCR tests but foods, no lockdown but freedom, no lies but dignity, no Cultural Revolution but reforms, no figureheads but ballots. Don’t be a slave but a citizen”. pic.twitter.com/P9IWKJDNiG
While the social media account suggests the protest did take place in Beijing, CNN, which visited the spot on Thursday, did not find any protesters or banners on the bridge. However, it said that security personnel were on the overpass and in the vicinity. The security personnel were also spotted patrolling every overpass, according to CNN.
China has adopted a very strict lockdown policy to prevent any further spread of Covid. Some videos on social media show people locked up not only in their houses but in jail-like cells built to isolate infected patients. There have been videos showing people being picked up from airports and public places and locked up in enclosures. These actions of the authoritative government have irked the people who, after almost three years of restrictions, want to run a normal life.
As tensions between China and Taiwan simmer at their highest point in decades, officials in both places have clashed in recent days over an unsolicited idea from billionaire Elon Musk.
The world’s richest man suggested in an interview that hostilities between the two could be resolved if Taipei handed some control of the democratically governed island to Beijing, prompting praise from China and predictable outrage in Taiwan.
“My recommendation … would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy,” Musk told the Financial Times in an interview published on Friday. “And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong.”
China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, thanked Musk for his suggestion in a tweet Saturday, calling for “peaceful unification and one country, two systems.”
ButTaiwan’s representative to the US, Bi-khim Hsiao, wrote: “Taiwan sells many products, but our freedom and democracy are not for sale.”
China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never governed it, and has long vowed to “reunify” the island with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary. Taiwan, a democracy of 23 million people, strongly objects to Beijing’s claims to the island.
Beijing has offered Taiwan a “one country, two systems” system of governance, similar to Hong Kong, but that has been rejected by all of the island’s mainstream political parties and the proposal has received very little public support.
In a briefing on October 7, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the “Taiwan question is China’s internal affair.”
“China’s position on resolving the Taiwan question is consistent and clear. We remain committed to the basic principle of peaceful reunification and ‘one country, two systems,’” she said. “At the same time, we will resolutely defeat attempts to pursue the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist agenda, push back interference by external forces, and safeguard our sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Wang Ting-yu, a senior lawmaker for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, slammed Musk in a Facebook post on Saturday. “Musk’s solution is all about victim concessions,” he said.
Musk’s comments about Taiwan come days after he angered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for tweeting a “peace” plan between Russia and Ukraine, proposing that Kyiv permanently cede Crimea to Moscow and hold new referendums in regions annexed by Russia – this time under the supervision of the United Nations.
“Which Elon Musk do you like more?” Zelensky asked his Twitter followers, using the social media platform’s poll function.
“One who supports Ukraine,” or “One who supports Russia.”
