ReportWire

Tag: east asia

  • The greatest risk to China’s Xi Jinping? Himself | CNN

    The greatest risk to China’s Xi Jinping? Himself | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    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.

    screengrab bankrupt victims

    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.

    china corona nyc

    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.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Momentous’: Asian Americans laud Anna May Wong’s US quarter

    ‘Momentous’: Asian Americans laud Anna May Wong’s US quarter

    [ad_1]

    More than 60 years after Anna May Wong became the first Asian American woman to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the pioneering actor has coined another first, quite literally.

    With quarters bearing her face and manicured hand set to start shipping Monday, per the U.S. Mint, Wong will be the first Asian American to grace U.S. currency. Few could have been more stunned at the honor than her niece and namesake, Anna Wong, who learned about the American Women Quarters honor from the Mint’s head legal consul.

    “From there, it went into the designs and there were so many talented artists with many different renditions. I actually pulled out a quarter to look at the size to try and imagine how the images would transfer over to real life,” Anna Wong wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

    The elder Wong, who fought against stereotypes foisted on her by a white Hollywood, is one of five women being honored this year as part of the program. She was chosen for being “a courageous advocate who championed for increased representation and more multi-dimensional roles for Asian American actors,” Mint Director Ventris Gibson said in a statement.

    The other icons chosen include writer Maya Angelou; Dr. Sally Ride, an educator and the first American woman in space; Wilma Mankiller, the first female elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation; and Nina Otero-Warren, a trailblazer for New Mexico’s suffrage movement.

    Wong’s achievement has excited Asian Americans inside and outside of the entertainment industry.

    Her niece, whose father was Anna May Wong’s brother, will participate in an event with the Mint on Nov. 4 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. One of Wong’s movies, “Shanghai Express,” will be screened, followed by a panel discussion.

    Arthur Dong, the author of “Hollywood Chinese,” said the quarter feels like a validation of not just of Wong’s contributions, but of all Asian Americans’. A star on the Walk of Fame is huge, but being on U.S. currency is a whole other stratosphere of renown.

    “What it means is that people all across the nation — and my guess is around the world — will see her face and see her name,” Dong said. “If they don’t know anything about her, they will … be curious and want to learn something about her.”

    Born in Los Angeles in 1905, Wong started acting during the silent film era. While her career trajectory coincided with Hollywood’s first Golden Age, things were not so golden for Wong.

    She got her first big role in 1922 in “The Toll of the Sea,” according to Dong’s book. Two years later, she played a Mongol slave in “The Thief of Bagdad.” For several years, she was stuck receiving offers only for femme fatale or Asian “dragon lady” roles.

    She fled to European film sets and stages, but Wong was back in the U.S. by the early 1930s and again cast as characters reliant on tropes that would hardly be tolerated today. These roles included the untrustworthy daughter of Fu Manchu in “Daughter of the Dragon” and a sex worker in “Shanghai Express.”

    She famously lost out on the lead to white actor Luise Rainer in 1937’s “The Good Earth,” based on the novel about a Chinese farming family. But in 1938, she got to play a more humanized, sympathetic Chinese American doctor in “King of Chinatown.”

    The juxtaposition of that film with her other roles is the focus of one day in a monthlong program, “Hollywood Chinese: The First 100 Years,” that Dong is curating at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles in November.

    “(‘King of Chinatown’) was part of this multi-picture deal at Paramount that gave her more control, more say in the types of films she was going to be participating in,” he said. “For a Chinese American woman to have that kind of multi-picture deal at Paramount, that was quite outstanding.”

    By the 1950s, Wong had moved on to television appearances. She was supposed to return to the big screen in the movie adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” but had to bow out because of illness. She died on Feb. 2, 1961, a year after receiving her star.

    Bing Chen, co-founder of the nonprofit Gold House — focused on elevating representation and empowerment of Asian and Asian American content — called the new quarter “momentous.” He praised Wong as a star “for generations.”

    But at the same time, he highlighted how anti-Asian hate incidents and the lack of representation in media still persist.

    “In a slate of years when Asian women have faced extensive challenges — from being attacked to objectified on screen to being the least likely group to be promoted to corporate management — this currency reinforces what many of us have known all along: (they’re) here and worthy,” Chen said in a statement. “It’s impossible to forget, though, as a hyphenated community, that Asian Americans constantly struggle between being successful and being seen.”

    Asian American advocacy groups outside of the entertainment world also praised the new quarters. Norman Chen, CEO of The Asian American Foundation, plans to seek the coins out to show to his parents.

    “For them to see an Asian American woman on a coin, I think it’d be really powerful for them. It’s a dramatic symbol of how we are so integral to American society yet still seen in stereotypical ways,” he said. “But my parents will look at this. They will be pleasantly surprised and proud.”

    To sum it up, Chen said, it’s a huge step: “Nothing is more American than our money.”

    ———

    Terry Tang is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Under Xi Jinping, zero-Covid is accelerating China’s surveillance state | CNN

    Under Xi Jinping, zero-Covid is accelerating China’s surveillance state | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    As a new, deadly virus overtook the central city of Wuhan and spread throughout China in early 2020, the country’s ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping were faced with a crisis on a scale not seen in decades.

    In Wuhan, there was chaos. The city shut itself off from the outside world, while hospitals were overrun with the sick and dying – but it was too late to stop the virus’ advance. Huge swaths of China, too, locked down, grinding the country to a halt. Online, public outrage over apparent delays in the official release of information – and the silencing of whistleblowers – lit up social media faster than the censors could repress it.

    Outside China, observers watching the start of what would become the Covid-19 pandemic began to ask: could this be a catastrophe so big it calls into question the legitimacy of the Communist Party and its leader?

    Nearly three years later, however, Xi is poised to cement his place as China’s most powerful leader in decades, when he is anointed with a likely norm-breaking third term as the party chief on Sunday.

    In the months following that initial outbreak, Xi oversaw the assembly of a toolbox of brute-force lockdowns, enforced quarantines, and digital tracking. All that was used to bring the virus to heel and largely keep it outside China’s shuttered borders – an approach that initially appeared to earn broad public support as China lived largely virus-free and the pandemic raged overseas.

    But, now, as Xi steps into an expected new era of his rule, that system – known today as the “dynamic zero-Covid” policy – is facing both social and economic pushback.

    Public frustration – the true scale of which is difficult to gauge – appears to be rising over lockdowns that can shutter people in their homes for weeks on end with fleeting advance notice, digital health codes that dictate where people can move, and the constant threat of being sent to centralized quarantine. Meanwhile, the country’s economy is faltering, with both the IMF and World Bank recently downgrading China’s GDP growth forecasts, citing zero-Covid as one of the major drags.

    As China’s Communist Party National Congress meets this week to approve the party’s priorities for the next five years, many are watching for signs restrictions could be loosened. But with Xi having personally tied himself to the policy, any change would need to come straight from the top – and from a leader, who throughout his rule, has sought to extend, not curtail, the party’s control on daily life.

    China’s advanced online ecosystem – run on mobile phone superapps and ubiquitous QR codes – has offered arguably unrivaled convenience for consumers to shop, dine and travel. Now, those technologies play a role in constraining daily life.

    Mobile phone health codes are the backbone of a system designed to track citizens and designate whether they are cleared to enter various venues, upping state control on people’s movement to an extent never before seen in China.

    Across the country, basic activities like going to the grocery store, riding public transport, or entering an office building depend on holding an up-to-date, negative Covid test and not being flagged as a close contact of a patient – data points reflected by a color code.

    Going out in public can be a risk in itself, as being placed under quarantine or barricaded by authorities into a mall or office building as part of a snap lockdown could simply depend on whether someone in the general vicinity ends up testing positive.

    “(You see) all the flaws of big data when it has control over your daily life,” said one Shanghai resident surnamed Li, who spent a recent afternoon scrambling to prove he didn’t need to quarantine after a tracking system pinned his wife to a location near to where a positive case had been detected.

    Li, who’d been with his wife at the time but received no such message, said they were eventually able to reach a hotline and explain their situation, ultimately returning her health code to green.

    “If you don’t complain, the next step is your neighborhood committee seals up your door,” he said.

    The clear message from Beijing is that these steps are necessary to prevent large-scale loss of life and overwhelmed medical systems.

    “The essence of persisting with dynamic zero-Covid is putting people first and prioritizing life,” read a recent editorial in the People’s Daily – one of three along similar lines released by the party mouthpiece last week in an apparent bid to lower public expectation about any policy changes ahead of the Party Congress.

    But as local officials pursue Beijing’s edict of stopping the spread of the virus above all other considerations – the system too, over and over again, has led to human tragedy.

    The past year is marked by grim examples well-known across China: the expectant mother in Xi’an who miscarried after being denied treatment due to expired test results, the off-duty nurse who died from an asthma attack in Shanghai as a hospital branch was closed for Covid-19 disinfection, and, last month, the 27 passengers who died in a crash in the middle of the night as they were bussed into a different jurisdiction for compulsory quarantine.

    “What makes you think that you won’t be on that late-night bus one day?” read a viral comment, which garnered more than 250,000 likes before it was censored – one of a number of glimpses into rising frustration with the cost of the policy.

    Last week, a rare political protest in Beijing saw banners hung from a bridge along the capital’s busy Third Ring Road that zoned in on social controls under the policy.

    “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 read, while the other called for the removal of “dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.”

    Speaking before some 2,300 mostly surgical-mask clad Communist Party members at the opening of the party’s five-yearly leadership reshuffle on Sunday, Xi gave a sweeping endorsement of China’s Covid controls, saying the party had “protected the people’s health and safety to the greatest extent possible” and “made tremendous, encouraging achievements in both epidemic and social development.”

    The impact of those controls is becoming sharper, as lockdowns – which have repeatedly left people struggling for access to food and medicine and grappling with lost income and a mental toll – have become more frequent.

    Last month, CNN counted more than 70 Chinese cities placed under full or partial Covid lockdowns in a period of a couple weeks, impacting more than 300 million people.

    In the run up to the Party Congress, controls amplified – as local authorities around the country sought to tamp down on outbreaks coinciding with the major political event.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping meets with medical workers at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in March 2020.

    “Maintaining the zero-Covid strategy is now substantially more costly than it was a year ago, because the latest (viral) strains are so much more transmissible and outbreaks are occurring more frequently,” said epidemiologist Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health.

    “At the same time, the threat posed by Covid is reduced because of the higher vaccine coverage and the availability of antivirals. Taken together, I think the point has already been crossed where continuing zero-Covid could be considered a cost-effective strategy,” he said, adding that maintaining high vaccine coverage was key for a planned transition away from zero-Covid.

    Xi’s proclaimed success over the virus and China’s accompanying propaganda campaign is one reason why it may be difficult for China to change course.

    “The issue is Xi Jinping already associated himself with the ‘successful’ model of fighting Covid, so the zero-Covid policy now is a de facto Xi Jinping policy,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, adding that China’s handling of the virus in comparison to other countries remains a point of national pride for many Chinese.

    And backing away from the policy will come with significant consequences. Allowing the virus to spread within the country of 1.4 billion would likely increase Covid-19 deaths to unseen levels in the country, experts say – and China so far has staked its policy around preventing those outcomes at all costs.

    Outside experts say that, since the virus will stay in circulation beyond China, keeping tight controls and closed borders is just delaying the inevitable, and the focus should be on preparing, for example through raising elderly vaccination rates and increasing ICU capacity, as well as getting or expanding access to the most effective vaccines and treatments.

    While China backed a massive vaccination campaign since early 2021, it has relied on homegrown shots, which produce lower levels of protective antibodies than mRNA vaccines developed in the West.

    So far, however, China has appeared most focused on bolstering the pillars of zero-Covid: mass testing capacity and mass quarantine facilities.

    “The vaccines take time, the ICU expansion takes time – and if you don’t see effort to prepare for the change, that implies that they are not planning to change the policy any time soon,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

    And while experts say it’s possible economic and other considerations could see China loosen certain controls in the coming year, an eventual end to zero-Covid may not see an end to all of its vestiges – especially as Xi, including in his Sunday address, has made clear his focus on increasing “security” in China.

    Already the health code system has been used to diffuse social protest – with petitioners who lost their savings in rural banks barred from protesting after their health codes inexplicably turned red.

    “One scenario is that (China) might drop the zero-Covid policy, but some of the key components of the policy might be retained and repurposed,” said Huang, pointing to Xi’s focus on maximizing security in China, including via high tech means.

    “Zero-Covid has provided a proof of concept – this actually works,” he said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Allies blast Scholz over Chinese investment in German port

    Allies blast Scholz over Chinese investment in German port

    [ad_1]

    BERLIN — Lawmakers from two of Germany’s governing parties on Thursday slammed plans for Chinese shipping company Cosco to take a major stake in the operator of the country’s biggest container terminal, warning that they pose a national security risk.

    Public broadcaster NDR reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked officials to find a compromise that would allow the investment to happen, after several ministries initially rejected it on the grounds that Cosco, already the port’s biggest customer, could get too much leverage.

    Neither the ministries nor Scholz’s office immediately responded to requests for comment. But lawmakers from the Green party and the Free Democrats, which formed a coalition last year with Scholz’ Social Democrats, criticized the plan.

    “Our critical infrastructure must not become a plaything for the geopolitical interests of others,” Green party lawmaker Marcel Emmerich said. Citing a past government decision by one of Scholz’s fellow Social Democrats to let Russia buy German natural gas storage facilities, he accused the chancellor of wanting to “flog off parts of the port of Hamburg to China, whatever it takes.”

    The pro-business Free Democrats likewise expressed opposition to the deal.

    “The Chinese Communist Party must not have access to our country’s critical infrastructure,” the party’s general secretary, Bijan Djir-Sarai, told German news agency dpa. “That would be a mistake and a risk.”

    “China is an importing trading partner but also a systemic rival,” he was quoted as saying. “We should act accordingly.”

    Another Free Democrat lawmaker, Reinhard Houben, told news portal t-online that the chancellery should respect the decision by six ministries opposing the sale.

    The government dispute over Germany’s stance toward Chinese investments comes days after Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Berlin must avoid repeating with China the mistakes it made with Russia over recent years, leading to a dependence on Russian energy imports.

    German intelligence agencies also warned this week of China’s rising might and how it could become a risk for Germany, particularly because of the strong economic and scientific ties between the two countries.

    In a hearing with lawmakers, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, made a comparison with the current geopolitical turmoil over the war in Ukraine, saying that “Russia is the storm, China is climate change.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • China party congress offers look at future leaders

    China party congress offers look at future leaders

    [ad_1]

    BEIJING — While Xi Jinping is primed to receive a third term as head of China’s ruling Communist Party on Sunday, it is unknown who will join him for the next five years on the party’s leading bodies, the Central Committee and the Politburo.

    Analysts will scrutinize who joins, and who leaves, for any clues about the future direction of policy as well as just how much power the 69-year-old Xi has been able to amass as one of China’s most influential figures in the country’s modern political history.

    Most closely watched will be the Politburo Standing Committee, whose size fluctuates but has stood at seven members under Xi. Based on past practice, the new lineup will be revealed when the members walk out from behind a curtain Sunday, one day after the end of a weeklong party congress.

    The positions they take on stage, to Xi’s left and right, will indicate their rank within what is considered the inner circle of power. Leading contenders include both current members and newcomers:

    ———

    PREMIER LI KEQIANG

    One major question is the future of the party’s No. 2 official, Premier Li Keqiang, who has been on the Standing Committee since 2012 and is primarily responsible for heading the cabinet and managing the world’s second-largest economy.

    The 67-year-old Li is regarded as an advocate of market reforms and private enterprise, in contrast to Xi, who favors state-led development with an emphasis on technological self-reliance and reducing the large gap between rich and poor.

    Li has had little impact on policymaking since Xi sidelined him politically, but he has led efforts to promote consumption-led economic growth and reduce reliance on exports and investment, employing tactics that some other countries say violate China’s free-trade commitments.

    Though he has said he will step down as premier next year, he is still eligible to stay on the Standing Committee. If he remains, analysts say that might indicate that supporters of a more market-driven economy have tempered Xi’s push for greater state control.

    ADVISORY BODY HEAD WANG YANG

    Other possible holdovers include Wang Yang, who joined the Standing Committee in 2017 and is also regarded as a member of the wing that favors markets, private enterprise and economic experimentation.

    Wang heads the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a party-controlled advisory body made up of representatives from various sectors such as religious groups, professional organizations and chambers of commerce.

    He won plaudits in 2011 for defusing protests by residents of the fishing village of Wukan over land sales by local officials.

    POLITICAL THEORIST WANG HUNING

    Longtime party political theorist Wang Huning is seen as likely to stay on the Standing Committee. He may move up to head of the National People’s Congress, the largely ceremonial legislature, which would make him one of the top three party officials.

    VICE PREMIER HU CHUNHUA

    Among possible newcomers, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua is considered one of those with the best chance. He was a top official in Guangdong province from 2012 to 2017, where he led a crackdown on “naked officials” who work in China but have sent their families to live abroad, considered an indication of corruption.

    Hu rose through the party’s Communist Youth League, which is seen as a separate faction from Xi’s circle and politically close to Xi’s predecessor, former party leader and President Hu Jintao.

    Hu Chunhua is known as a boy wonder who ranked first in China’s national university entrance examinations and became the youngest person to hold several official posts.

    He spent the first two decades of his career in Tibet, where he promoted economic development and oversaw efforts to suppress pro-independence sentiment. He was thereafter appointed party secretary for the Inner Mongolia region.

    SHANGHAI CHIEF LI QIANG

    Li Qiang has been party secretary of Shanghai, China’s largest city and financial hub, since 2017. The post was previously held by Xi, former President Jiang Zemin and former Premier Zhu Rongji.

    Li is regarded as being close to Xi after serving under him in the southeastern province of Zhejiang, a center for export-oriented manufacturing and private enterprise.

    His reputation was dented by a lengthy lockdown of Shanghai earlier this year that confined 25 million people to their homes, disrupted the economy and prompted scattered public protests.

    CHONGQING LEADER CHEN MIN’ER

    Chen Min’er, another Xi ally who worked under him in Zhejiang province, has served as party secretary of the vast southwestern city of Chongqing since 2017.

    The 62-year-old Chen is regarded by analysts as a rising star whom Xi might want to promote in order to secure his legacy in the next generation.

    Chen has never held a national-level position but is seen as a capable leader who made Chongqing’s government more responsive and efficient after a turbulent period under the now-imprisoned Bo Xilai, who was a Xi rival.

    He previously held the top post in Guizhou, a relatively poor southern province, from 2012 to 2017.

    ———

    The guessing game aside, some question how much the makeup of the Standing Committee matters given Xi’s steely hold on power and the lack of significant policy or ideological differences.

    With his combative approach, Xi is more of a politician in the mold of communist China’s founder Mao Zedong than his more collegial predecessors, who sought to encourage the private sector and maintain good relations with the West.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Pandas sent by China arrive in Qatar ahead of World Cup

    Pandas sent by China arrive in Qatar ahead of World Cup

    [ad_1]

    AL KHOR, Qatar — A pair of giant pandas sent as a gift from China arrived in Qatar on Wednesday ahead of next month’s World Cup.

    They will take up residence in an indoor enclosure in the desert nation designed to duplicate conditions in the dense forests of China’s mountainous Sichuan province. Eight hundred kilograms (nearly 1,800 pounds) of fresh bamboo will be flown in each week to feed them.

    Jing Jing, a 4-year-old male weighing 120 kilograms (265 pounds), has been given the Arabic name Suhail, and 3-year-old female Si Hai, at 70 kilograms (154 pounds), has been given the Arabic name Thuraya.

    The pandas will quarantine for at least 21 days before visitors will be allowed to see them.

    Qatar is expecting some 1.2 million visitors for the monthlong World Cup beginning Nov. 20. The gas-rich Gulf nation will be the first Muslim or Arab country to host the world’s biggest sporting event.

    Tim Bouts, the director of Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, said that in addition to providing the perfect indoor climate for the pandas, the enclosure will also shield them from stressful noises while allowing them to interact with visitors.

    “There was a lot of thinking which went into this building to make it, I think, the best building for pandas in the world,” he said.

    Pandas, which reproduce rarely in the wild and rely on a diet of bamboo in the mountains of western China, remain among the world’s most threatened species. An estimated 1,800 pandas live in the wild, while another 500 are in zoos or reserves, mostly in Sichuan.

    They are the unofficial national mascot of China, which has gifted pandas to 20 countries.

    China’s ambassador to Qatar, Zhou Jian, said the two pandas “will live a happy life here and bring more happiness, joy and a love to the people of Qatar and in this world.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Kakao’s co-CEO steps down after widespread outage at South Korea’s top chat app | CNN Business

    Kakao’s co-CEO steps down after widespread outage at South Korea’s top chat app | CNN Business

    [ad_1]

    Kakao Corp’s co-CEO Namkoong Whon has stepped down, the company said on Wednesday, after an outage that shut down South Korea’s largest mobile chat app and other services, triggering widespread backlash from authorities and the public.

    The resignation, effective Wednesday, leaves co-CEO Hong Euntaek as sole CEO.

    The company apologized for the outage that started on Saturday due to a fire at a data center run by SK C&C near Seoul.

    Most of its systems were restored by Wednesday, but miscellaneous functions remain shaky and disruptions to a wide range of services from payments to taxis and restaurant bookings have raised questions about public reliance on the app.

    KakaoTalk, launched in 2010, has more than 47 million active accounts in South Korea, making it one of the most ubiquitous apps in the country of 51.6 million.

    Hong, who is also leading the company’s response to the outage, said Kakao would look into why service recovery work was slow, prepare compensation for users and businesses affected by service disruptions and build its own data centers.

    “We’ll build our own infrastructure including data centers to ensure our services will not be affected by similar incidents going forward,” Kakao said in a statement.

    The company plans to invest 460 billion won ($325 million) to start operating its own data center from next year, and another one will be completed in the following year, it said.

    More than 500 small businesses complained about lost sales due to the Kakao outage, lobby group Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • North Korea fires artillery shells near border with S. Korea

    North Korea fires artillery shells near border with S. Korea

    [ad_1]

    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired artillery shells near its sea boundaries with South Korea late Tuesday, a day after the South began annual military drills to better deal with North Korean provocations.

    South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement early Wednesday that North Korea fired about 100 shells off its west coast and 150 rounds off its east coast. It said the South Korean military broadcast messages several times asking North Korea to stop the firing, but there were no reports of violence between the rivals.

    South Korea’s military said the shells didn’t land in South Korean territorial waters but fell inside the northern part of the maritime buffer zones the two Koreas established under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement aimed at reducing front-line animosities.

    It’s the second time North Korea has fired shells into the buffer zones since last Friday, when it shot hundreds of shells there in its most significant direct violation of the 2018 agreement.

    South Korea’s military said North Korea must halt provocations that undermine peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. It added that it is boosting its military readiness and, in coordination with the United States, is closely monitoring North Korea’s moves.

    Hours later, an unidentified spokesperson for the North Korean People’s Army’s General Staff issued a statement describing the latest artillery firings as a response to the South Korean artillery training that it claimed took place earlier Tuesday at a border area. Seoul didn’t immediately confirm it had conducted such artillery drills on Tuesday.

    “The enemies should immediately stop the reckless and inciting provocations escalating the military tension in the forefront area,” the North Korean military spokesperson said.

    The North Korean spokesperson also lashed out at the South Korean military for kicking off an annual 12-day field exercise on Monday, calling it an invasion rehearsal. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the training is aimed at improving operational capabilities to counter various types of North Korean provocations and that an unspecified number of U.S. troops will take part in this year’s drills.

    The North’s artillery tests draw less outside attention than its missile launches. But its forward-deployed long-range artillery guns pose a serious security threat to South Korea’s populous metropolitan region, which is about 40 to 50 kilometers (25 to 30 miles) from the border with North Korea.

    In recent weeks, North Korea has conducted a spate of weapons tests in what it calls simulations of nuclear strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets in response to their “dangerous military drills” involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. North Korea views regular military exercises between Washington and Seoul as an invasion rehearsal.

    North Korea has test-launched 15 missiles since it resumed testing activities on Sept. 25. One of them was an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan and demonstrated a range capable of reaching the Pacific U.S. territory of Guam and beyond.

    Some foreign experts say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would eventually aim to use his expanded weapons arsenal to pressure the United States and others to accept his country as a legitimate nuclear state and lift economic sanctions on the North.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

    ———

    See more AP Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Concerns mount over Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi after she competed without hijab | CNN

    Concerns mount over Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi after she competed without hijab | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A female Iranian climber, who did not wear a hijab at an international competition in South Korea, left for Iran on Tuesday as Iranian groups based abroad raised alarms over her fate back home.

    Elnaz Rekabi, 33, competed without a hijab during the International Federation of Sport Climbing’s Asian Championships in Seoul on Sunday. Videos of her wearing a headband with her hair in a ponytail while competing, spread on social media.

    Her return to Iran comes amid nationwide protests in Iran calling for greater freedoms for women, following the death of a 22-year-old woman who died in police custody after her arrest for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly.

    Protester says Iranian security forces firing ‘military-grade bullets’ at houses

    In a story posted on Rekabi’s Instagram page on Tuesday, the athlete said she was called to climb the wall “unexpectedly” which “unintentionally” created a problem with her hair covering.

    “Due to bad timing and unexpectedly being called to climb the wall, I inadvertently created a problem with my head covering,” she wrote.

    “Apologizing for the worries that I caused … currently, according to the pre-determined schedule I am returning to Iran with the team,” the IG story post said.

    Iran mandates women wear a hijab when officially representing the country abroad.

    A news website critical of the Iranian regime, IranWire, alleged that Rekabi will be transferred to prison upon arrival, prompting rights groups to worry about what would happen to her.

    Amnesty International said Monday it was alarmed by the prospect of Rekabi’s return.

    “Elnaz Rekabi should not be forcibly returned to Iran,” Amnesty said in a statement, adding that “she is at real risk of arbitrary arrest, torture, and other ill-treatment for violating the authorities’ compulsory veiling rules,” Amnesty wrote.

    CNN cannot independently verify reports of Rekabi being forced to return to Iran.

    The Iranian embassy in Seoul said that Rekabi departed on Tuesday along with “other members of the team” and “strongly denied all the fake, false news and disinformation.”

    In the Twitter post, the embassy posted a picture of Rekabi from previous games in Russia where she was competing wearing the hijab.

    “It is understood that all members of the Iranian delegation including Elnaz Rekabi have already left Korea after attending the sport event,” South Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told CNN in a statement.

    Iran mandates women wear a hijab when officially representing the country abroad.

    “The punishment has already started,” director of Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights Mahmood Reza Amiry-Moghaddam told CNN on Tuesday.

    “You know, the fact that she was incommunicado for one full day…and then she just wrote this one message on her Instagram. So, the pressure on her started already from South Korea,” he said, “I don’t think anyone believes in what Iranian authorities say.”

    The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) said it’s “fully aware of news” regarding Rekabi and it’s their “understanding” that she is returning to Iran.

    “There is a lot of information in the public sphere regarding Ms Rekabi and as an organisation we have been trying to establish the facts. We have also been in contact with Ms Rekabi and the Iranian Climbing Federation,” a statement by the IFSC said.

    “We will continue to monitor the situation as it develops on her arrival,” the statement said.

    In response to an inquiry, the South Korean government said they could not reveal private information on whether a person has left the country.

    Calls placed to two Iranian team coaches currently in Seoul were not answered.

    Correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the day Rekabi was said to depart Seoul.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    During a December 2019 Oval Office interview with then-President Donald Trump, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward asked whether his bellicose rhetoric toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been intended to drive Kim to the negotiating table.

    “No. No. It was designed for whatever reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let’s talk instinct, okay?” Trump said. “Because it’s really about you don’t know what’s going to happen. But it was very rough rhetoric. The roughest.”

    Trump then instructed his aides to show Woodward his photos with Kim at the DMZ. “This is me and him. That’s the line, right? Then I walked over the line. Pretty cool. You know? Pretty cool. Right?” the president said.

    Trump on his interactions with Kim

    Trump’s take on his relationship with Kim – and his admission that he didn’t have a broader strategy behind the threats he made about having a “much bigger” nuclear button – are part of a new audiobook that Woodward is releasing. Titled, “The Trump Tapes,” the book contains the 20 interviews Woodward conducted with Trump from 2016 through 2020.

    CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its October 25 release, which includes more than eight hours of the journalist’s raw interviews with Trump interspersed with Woodward’s commentary.

    Simon & Schuster

    The interviews offer unvarnished insights into the former president’s worldview and are the most extensive recordings of Trump speaking about his presidency — including explaining his rationale for meeting Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s detailed views of the US nuclear arsenal. The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.

    “And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?” Trump told Woodward.

    Woodward said in the book’s introduction that he is releasing the recordings in part because “hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.”

    He describes Trump as “raw, profane, divisive and deceptive. His language is often retaliatory.”

    “Yet, you will also hear him engaging and entertaining, laughing, ever the host. He is trying to win me over, sell his presidency to me. The full-time salesman,” Woodward said. “I wanted to put as much of Trump’s voice, his own words, out there for the historical record and so people could hear and judge and make their own assessments.”

    Most of the interviews were conducted for Woodward’s second Trump book, “Rage,” which revealed that Trump told Woodward on February 7, 2020, that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” but still downplayed it publicly.

    While the blockbuster revelations were published in Woodward’s book, the audio clips of the interviews are a stark reminder of how Trump acted as president and provide a candid look into Trump’s thinking and motivations as he gears up for another potential run for the White House in 2024.

    In the interviews, Trump shares his views about the strongmen he admires – including Kim, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and reveals his overarching conviction that he’s the smartest person in the room.

    In a June 2020 interview, which followed the nationwide protests over George Floyd, Woodward asked Trump whether he had help writing his speech in which Trump declared himself the “president of law and order.”

    “I get, I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine,” Trump told Woodward in a June 2020 interview. “Want to know something? Everything is mine. You know, everything. Every part of it.”

    The 20 interviews contained in the audiobook begin in March 2016, when Woodward and his then-Washington Post colleague Robert Costa interviewed Trump while he was a presidential candidate. The rest of the interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020.

    Trump on process of writing his speeches

    In the December 2019 interview, Woodward questioned Trump about North Korea’s nuclear program, prompting the president to boast about US nuclear weapons capabilities while seemingly revealing a new – and likely highly classified – weapons system, which was one of the more eye-raising episodes from “Rage.”

    Woodward says that he never could establish what Trump was referring to, though he notes that Trump’s comment reaffirmed the “casual, dangerous way” the former president treated classified information.

    “I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump told Woodward. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

    Throughout the interviews, Trump references his relationship with Putin, blaming the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference for ruining his chances to improve the relationship between the two countries.

    “I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f***ing warheads.”

    In a moment of rare self-reflection, Trump noted that he had better relationships with leaders “the tougher and meaner they are.”

    “I get along very well with Erdogan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy. But you know for me it works out good,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

    “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know?” he continued. “Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

    Woodward’s audiobook also includes never-before-heard interviews with Trump’s then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy Matthew Pottinger, as well as behind-the-scenes audio with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

    During a call with Woodward in February 2020, Trump hands the phone over to Kushner to set up interviews with other Trump advisers.

    “What I heard from the president is basically that I now work for you, so I will make myself available around that schedule and I will make sure I get you a good list,” Kushner said.

    Jared Kushner on plans for Woodward to talk to other Trump advisers

    “I want you to know I have no illusions that you work for me. I know you work for Ivanka, right?” Woodward joked.

    Kushner laughed. “Okay, fine, you get it. You get it. That’s probably why you’re Bob Woodward. That’s true.”

    Throughout the recordings, a cast of Trump advisers, allies and family – including Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Hope Hicks and others – can be heard in the background. The audio gives an inside glimpse of Trump’s inner circle, like an exchange from 2016 when Trump was asked whether he expects government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, and his son chimed in.

    “I’m not getting next week’s paycheck until I sign one,” Donald Trump Jr. joked.

    Donald Trump Jr. on signing non-disclosure agreements

    In the epilogue of “The Trump Tapes,” Woodward declares that his own past assessments critical of Trump’s presidency did not go far enough. In “Rage,” Woodward wrote, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

    Now, Woodward says, “Trump is an unparalleled danger. The record now shows that Trump has led — and continues to lead — a seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which in effect is an effort to destroy democracy.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hong Kong protester allegedly beaten at Chinese consulate in UK | CNN

    Hong Kong protester allegedly beaten at Chinese consulate in UK | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Police in Manchester have launched an investigation after a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was allegedly beaten on the grounds of the Chinese consulate in the English city.

    A pro-democracy group called Hong Kong Indigenous Defence Force had staged a protest outside the consulate in the northern city on Sunday, in opposition to the Chinese Communist Party Congress happening the same day in Beijing.

    Video of the incident shared widely on social media shows a confrontation breaking out on the sidewalk outside the consulate, with loud shouts heard as people rush towards the gated entrance. The video then appears to show one Hong Kong protester being dragged through the gate into the consulate grounds and beaten by a group of men.

    The video appears to show local police entering the grounds of the consulate to break up the violence.

    Hong Kong Indigenous Defence Force alleges that Chinese consular staff were involved in the alleged beating, and that the protester was taken to hospital in stable condition.

    Greater Manchester Police said Monday they were investigating the incident, in which a man “suffered several physical injuries.”

    “We understand the shock and concern that this incident will have caused not just locally, but for those much further afield who may have connections with our communities here in Greater Manchester,” assistant chief constable Rob Potts said in a statement.

    “Shortly before 4 p.m. a small group of men came out of the building and a man was dragged into the Consulate grounds and assaulted. Due to our fears for the safety of the man, officers intervened and removed the victim from the Consulate grounds.”

    “The man – aged in his 30s – suffered several physical injuries and remained in hospital overnight for treatment. He is continuing to receive our support for his welfare.”

    The statemented added that currently “no arrests have been made” and that the investigation was ongoing.

    A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Liz Truss described the incident as “deeply concerning.”

    On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said he was “not aware of the situation.”

    “Chinese Embassy and consulates in the UK have always abided by the laws of the countries where they are stationed,” he said in a regular news briefing. “We also hope that the British side, in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, will facilitate the normal performance of the duties of the Chinese Embassy and consulates in the UK.”

    CNN approached the Chinese Embassy in London for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

    Video of the scuffle has been shared online by multiple UK lawmakers, who have called for an investigation into the alleged involvement of Chinese consular staff.

    “The UK Government must demand a full apology from the Chinese Ambassador to the UK and demand those responsible are sent home to China,” ruling Conservative Party lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith wrote on Twitter.

    Conservative Party member of Parliament Alicia Kearns also tweeted on Sunday that authorities “need to urgently investigate,” and that the Chinese Ambassador should be summoned. “If any official has beaten protesters, they must be expelled or prosecuted,” she wrote.

    Both lawmakers have previously been vocal critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

    Prominent Hong Kong activists have also spoken out. Nathan Law, a former lawmaker and pro-democracy figure who fled to the UK in 2020, tweeted: “If the consulate staff responsible are not held accountable, Hong Kongers would live in fear of being kidnapped and persecuted.” He urged the British government to “investigate and protect our community and people in the UK.”

    Britain is home to large numbers of Hong Kong citizens, many of whom left the territory following the introduction of a sweeping national security law in 2020 that critics say stripped the former British colony of its autonomy and precious civil freedoms, while cementing Beijing’s authoritarian rule.

    According to an online statement by organizers of Sunday’s protest, around 60 demonstrators had gathered outside the Manchester consulate to protest “the re-election of Xi Jinping.”

    The Chinese Communist Party Congress, a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle and meeting of the party’s top officials, kicked off on Sunday. Chinese leader Xi, who came to power in 2012, is widely expected to break with convention and take on a third term, paving the way for lifelong rule.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Worry grows for Iran woman athlete who climbed without hijab

    Worry grows for Iran woman athlete who climbed without hijab

    [ad_1]

    SEOUL, South Korea — An Iranian female competitive climber left South Korea on Tuesday after competing at an event in which she climbed without her nation’s mandatory headscarf covering, authorities said. Farsi-language media outside of Iran warned she may have been forced to leave early by Iranian officials and could face arrest back home, which Tehran quickly denied.

    The decision by Elnaz Rekabi, a multiple medalist in competitions, to forgo the headscarf, or hijab, came as protests sparked by the Sept. 16 death in custody of a 22-year-old woman have entered a fifth week. Mahsa Amini was detained by the country’s morality police over her clothing.

    The demonstrations, drawing school-age children, oil workers and others to the street, represent the most-serious challenge to Iran’s theocracy since the mass protests surrounding its disputed 2009 presidential election.

    Rekabi left Seoul on a Tuesday morning flight, the Iranian Embassy in South Korea said. The BBC’s Persian service, which has extensive contacts within Iran despite being banned from operating there, quoted an unnamed “informed source” who described Iranian officials as seizing both Rekabi’s mobile phone and passport.

    BBC Persian also said she initially had been scheduled to return on Wednesday, but her flight apparently had been moved up unexpectedly.

    IranWire, another website focusing on the country founded by Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari who once was detained by Iran, alleged that Rekabi would be immediately transferred to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison after arriving in the country. Evin Prison was the site of a massive fire this weekend that killed at least eight prisoners.

    In a tweet, the Iranian Embassy in Seoul denied “all the fake, false news and disinformation” regarding Rekabi’s departure on Tuesday. But instead of posting a photo of her from the Seoul competition, it posted an image of her wearing a headscarf at a previous competition in Moscow, where she also took a bronze medal.

    Calls to the Iranian Embassy in Seoul were unanswered Tuesday.

    Rekabi didn’t put on a hijab during Sunday’s final at the International Federation of Sport Climbing’s Asia Championship, according to the Seoul-based Korea Alpine Federation, the organizers of the event.

    Federation officials said Rekabi wore a hijab during her initial appearances at the one-week climbing event. Rekabi was a member of Iran’s 11-member delegation, which comprises of eight athletes and three coaches, to the event, according to the federation.

    Federation officials said they were not initially aware of Rekabi competing without the hijab but looked into the case after receiving inquires about her. They said the event doesn’t have any rules on requiring female athletes wearing or not wearing headscarves. However, Iranian women competing abroad under the Iranian flag always wear the hijab.

    South Korea’s Justice Ministry refused to confirm whether the Iranian athlete is still in South Korea or has left the country, citing privacy-related regulations. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it has no comments on the issue.

    Rekabi, 33, has finished on the podium three times in the Asian Championships, taking one silver and two bronze medals for her efforts.

    ———

    Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers John Marshall in Phoenix and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • China delays the release of GDP and other economic data without explanation amid Party Congress | CNN Business

    China delays the release of GDP and other economic data without explanation amid Party Congress | CNN Business

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    China has abruptly delayed the publication of key economic data, one day before its scheduled release, as the ruling Communist Party gathers at a major political meeting against the backdrop of a faltering economy.

    The country’s National Bureau of Statistics updated its schedule on Monday, with the dates for a series of economic indicators – including the closely-watched GDP growth – marked as “delayed.” The indicators, which had been scheduled for release on Tuesday, also include quarterly retail sales, industrial production and monthly unemployment rates.

    The bureau did not give a reason for the delay or set a new publication date.

    Separately, the country’s customs authority also postponed the release of monthly trade data, which were initially scheduled to come out on Friday.

    The delay of the highly anticipated data coincides with the week-long 20th Communist Party National Congress in Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to secure a norm-breaking third term in power. Priorities presented at the gathering will also set China’s trajectory for at least the next five years.

    “The delay suggests that the government believes that the 20th Party Congress is the most important thing happening in China right now and would like to avoid other information flows that could create mixed messages,” said Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Group, in a research note on Tuesday.

    Other analysts believe it could be because the data sets are not pretty.

    “My forecast is for a further decline of 1.2% [on a quarterly basis for China’s GDP]. This would mean China had joined the US in a technical recession,” said Clifford Bennett, Chief Economist at ACY Securities.

    The delay would make sense “from an image management perspective,” he said. Some economists call two consecutive quarters of contraction a technical recession.

    China’s GDP declined 2.6% in the second quarter from the previous one, reversing a 1.4% growth in the January-to-March period. On a year-on-year basis, the economy expanded 0.4% in the second quarter.

    Analysts have widely expected third-quarter growth to remain weak, as strict Covid curbs, an intensifying crisis in real estate, and slowing global demand continue to pressure the economy.

    Economists polled by Reuters have expected China’s GDP to expand by 3.4% in the third quarter from a year earlier. That would fall far short of the government’s full-year growth target of around 5.5%.

    Many international organizations, including the IMF and World Bank, have recently downgraded China’s GDP growth forecasts for this year.

    Bennett expected the third-quarter GDP data to be released after the Party Congress.

    “Whenever the release occurs, we should all be prepared for some global financial market reaction if the world’s two largest economies are both in recession this year, ” he said.

    China’s economy is facing mounting challenges. Growth has stalled, youth unemployment is at a record high, and the housing market is in shambles. Constant Covid lockdowns have not only wreaked havoc on the economy, but also sparked rising social discontent.

    In the 20th Party Congress report released on Sunday, Xi renewed his pledge to grow China into a “medium developed country” by 2035.

    That would mean China needs to grow at an average growth rate of around 4.7% a year from 2021 to 2035, according to Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group.

    Hu added that the target might be hard to meet, as the economy faces several structural headwinds, such as the property downturn, an aging population, and rising US-China tensions.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Xi Jinping’s speech: yes to zero-Covid, no to market reforms? | CNN Business

    Xi Jinping’s speech: yes to zero-Covid, no to market reforms? | CNN Business

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    Even though China’s economy is beset by problems ranging from a real estate crisis to youth unemployment, Xi Jinping did not offer any grand ideas to set the country back on track during his two-hour opening speech at the Communist Party Congress on Sunday.

    The Chinese leader is expected to secure an unprecedented third term in power at the week-long congress. Priorities presented at the political gathering of more than 2,000 party members will also set China’s trajectory for the next five years or even longer.

    In his speech Sunday, Xi struck a confident tone, highlighting China’s growing strength and rising influence under his first decade in power. He also repeatedly underscored the risks and challenges the country faces, including the Covid pandemic, Hong Kong and Taiwan — all of which he claimed China had come away from victorious.

    But experts are concerned that Xi offered no signs of moving away from the country’s rigid zero-Covid policy or its tight regulatory stance on various businesses, both of which have hampered growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

    “Yesterday’s speech confirms what many China watchers have long suspected — Xi has no intention of embracing market liberalization or relaxing China’s zero-Covid policies, at least not anytime soon,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a DC-based think tank.

    “Instead, he intends to double down on policies geared towards security and self-reliance at the expense of China’s long-term economic growth.”

    China is the world’s last major economy still enforcing strict zero-Covid measures, which aim to stamp out chains of transmission through border restrictions, mass testing, extensive quarantines, and uncompromising snap lockdowns.

    And China’s economy is in bad shape. Growth has stalled, youth unemployment is at a record high, and the housing market is in shambles. Constant Covid lockdowns have not only wreaked havoc on the economy, but also sparked rising social discontent.

    Last week, two large banners were hung on an overpass of a major thoroughfare in Beijing, protesting against Xi’s Covid policy and authoritarian rule. It was a rare protest against the top leadership in the country, signaling the frustration and anger among the public.

    Many international organizations, including the IMF and World Bank, have recently downgraded China’s GDP growth forecasts for this year, citing zero-Covid as one of the major drags.

    Xi, however, praised the government’s adherence to zero-Covid, saying it has “achieved significant positive results.”

    Xi’s speech — a summary of the Communist Party’s work report, or action plan — was similarly short on concrete solutions to other challenges facing the economy in the near term.

    “We believe the ongoing Party Congress may not be an inflection point for major policy changes,” Goldman Sachs analysts said on Sunday, adding that they believe China may not loosen its Covid restrictions until at least the second quarter of 2023.

    On the property sector, Xi emphasized the need to provide affordable housing and dampen speculative demand — but there was no specific mention of the slump in real estate, which has mushroomed into a major crisis over the past few years, threatening both economic and social stability.

    “We maintain our view that a comprehensive solution to the beleaguered property sector might not be introduced until after March 2023, when the political reshuffle is fully completed,” said Nomura analysts on Monday.

    Nor did Xi mention record youth unemployment, which is mainly a result of his year-long crackdown on the tech industry set against the backdrop of punishing zero-Covid policies.

    In the full version of the official 20th Party Congress work report, which was published shortly after his speech, Xi emphasized the need to continue the party’s “anti-monopoly” crackdown and regulate “excessive incomes,” a sign that he will continue to get tough on big businesses and wealthy individuals.

    Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the country’s private sector, under the banner of Xi’s “common prosperity” campaign, has pummeled several companies in sectors ranging from tech and finance to gaming and private education.

    The government has defended the campaign as necessary for “social fairness” and narrowing income gaps.

    In his speech, Xi also made clear that development was the “top priority” and stressed continued focus on “high-quality growth.”

    That may dispel some market concerns that the government no longer cared much about economic growth, UBS analysts said.

    However, to achieve Xi’s target of making China a “medium developed country” by 2035, the country’s annual real GDP growth needs to average around 4.7% a year from 2021 to 2035, the UBS analysts said. That could be “quite challenging,” they noted, adding they expect China’s potential growth to average between 4% to 4.5% a year this decade, and fall lower after 2030.

    Meantime, a comparison between this year’s speech and the last one delivered by Xi in 2017 at the 19th party congress revealed a potentially worrying trend.

    The frequency of words such as “security,” “people,” and “socialism” used in 2022 had increased compared to 2017, while that of “economy,” “market” and “reform” declined, Goldman analysts said.

    The change was also noticed by Nomura analysts, who said it could point to “a shift in the party’s mandate.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Walled-in’ China under Xi Jinping poses long-term global challenges | CNN

    ‘Walled-in’ China under Xi Jinping poses long-term global challenges | CNN

    [ad_1]

    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.


    Beijing
    CNN
     — 

    During China’s National Day holiday in early October, several expatriate friends and I took our young children – who are of mixed races and tend to stand out in a Chinese crowd – to the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing.

    As we climbed a restored but almost deserted section of the ancient landmark, a few local families on their way down walked past us. Noticing our kids, one of their children exclaimed: “Wow foreigners! With Covid? Let’s get away from them…” The adults remained quiet as the group quickened their paces.

    That moment has lingered on my mind. It feels like a snapshot that illustrates how China has changed since its strongman leader Xi Jinping took power a decade ago – it’s become an increasingly walled-in nation physically and psychologically – and such transformation will have long-term global implications.

    Understanding the big picture is timely as Xi is poised to break convention to assume a third term as the head of the Chinese Communist Party – the real source of his power instead of the ceremonial presidency – at the ruling party’s twice-a-decade national congress, which opened in Beijing on Sunday.

    The Great Wall, a top tourist attraction that normally draws throngs of visitors during holidays, stood nearly empty when we went thanks to Xi’s insistence – three years into the global pandemic – on a policy of zero tolerance for Covid infections while the rest of the world has mostly moved on and re-opened.

    China’s borders have remained shut for most international travelers since March 2020, while many foreigners who once called the country home have chosen to leave.

    With the highly contagious Omicron variant raging through parts of the country, authorities had discouraged domestic travel ahead of National Day holiday. They are also sticking to a playbook of strict quarantine, incessant mass testing and invasive contact tracing – often locking down entire cities of millions over a handful of cases.

    Unsurprisingly, holiday travel plummeted during the so-called “Golden Week” along with tourism spending, which fell to less than half of that in 2019, the last “normal” year.

    And it’s not just one industry: Pessimism blankets other sectors, from automobile to real estate, as the world’s second-largest economy falters.

    Children visit the Great Wall of China on October 6, 2022.

    The Chinese economic slowdown poses a massive political challenge for Xi, whose party’s legitimacy in the past few decades has relied on rapid growth and rising incomes for 1.4 billion people. It’s also a harsh reality check for the international community: the world’s longtime growth engine is sputtering, just as the prospect of a global recession emerges.

    But Xi’s costly “zero-Covid” intransigence is a natural outcome of the unprecedented amount of power he has amassed. For many Chinese officials, this policy is less about science and more about political loyalty to the country’s most powerful leader in decades.

    Online videos abound of local health workers swabbing fruits, animals and even shoes for Covid testing despite the absence of sound scientific basis. China’s only Covid-related deaths in September were 27 people who were killed when their bus crashed on its way to a quarantine facility. Still, officials nationwide have doubled down on enforcing draconian rules, especially ahead of the party congress, helped by the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technologies.

    China had boasted more security cameras than any other country even before Covid. Now, in the age of smartphones, mandatory apps allow the government to check people’s Covid status and track their movement in real time. Authorities can easily confine someone to their home by remotely switching the health app to code red – and they did just that on several occasions to stop potential protesters from taking to the streets.

    Whether physical lockdowns or digital manipulation, these measures born out of “zero-Covid” have proven such effective means of control in a system obsessed with social stability that many worry Xi and his underlings will never ditch the policy.

    A series of recent articles published by the party’s mouthpieces had reinforced such concern by stressing the policy’s “correctness” and “sustainability,” even before Xi hailed “zero-Covid” as a resounding success story in his two-hour speech Sunday. And state media fills its coverage with depictions of the “grim reality” in foreign countries where leaders supposedly turn a blind eye to mass fatalities and suffering caused by Covid – in contrast to China’s apparent triumph in saving lives with “minimal overall cost.”

    For years, Xi’s cyber police have been fortifying the country’s so-called “Great Firewall” – perhaps the world’s most extensive internet filtering and censorship system that blocks and deletes anything deemed “harmful” by the party. Now supported by artificial intelligence, censors quickly scrub clean any posts seen as contradicting the party line – including on Covid.

    This potent mix of propaganda and control under Xi appears to have had its desired effect on a large segment of Chinese society, creating a buffer for the leadership by convincing enough people of the superiority of China’s system even as millions of their fellow countrymen grow resentful of “zero-Covid.” But this approach, combined with prolonged border closure and escalating geopolitical tensions, also provides fertile ground for xenophobia.

    The local child’s remarks on the Great Wall reflected that. But the true danger of the “blame the foreigners” sentiment comes when adults in powerful positions take advantage of it in the face of mounting pressure on the domestic front.

    screengrab xi speech 2021

    Here’s Xi Jinping’s vision to make China great again

    Since his ascent to the top in 2012, Xi’s ruling philosophy has become increasingly clear: Only he can make China great again by restoring the party’s – thus his – omnipresence and dominance, as well as the country’s rightful place on the global stage.

    With China’s increasing economic and military might, coexistence with the West has given way to confrontation with the United States and its allies. Gone are the days of “hiding your strength and biding your time” – Chinese diplomats under Xi are proud warriors training fire on anyone who dares to question their government.

    Underpinned by rising nationalism, China has started flexing military muscle beyond its shores. Tensions over Taiwan poses a real threat of war in Asia, as few doubt that “reunification” with the self-governed democratic island – long claimed by the Communist leadership despite having never ruled it – would be seen as the crown jewel of Xi’s legacy.

    That outward power projection goes hand in hand with China’s sense of besiegement in a US-led world order, which Xi has made no secret of trying to reshape along with other autocrats like Russian President Vladmir Putin. Until that happens, though, the Chinese strongman’s instinct and demand for total control at home seem to have meant the erection of ever-higher barriers – in the real world and cyberspace – to keep out pesky outsiders, the perceived source of dangerous viruses and ideas.

    A history paper released recently by a government-run research institute has gone viral as it, like Xi, upended a long-held consensus. Instead of denouncing the isolationist policy adopted by China’s last two imperial dynasties as a cause of their backward turn and eventual collapse, the authors defended its necessity to protect national sovereignty and security when faced with Western invaders.

    The emperors of those dynasties, who also rebuilt parts of the Great Wall, failed to reverse their country’s decline back then. But the tools at their disposal were no match to the high-tech ones in the hands of China’s current ruler. Xi seems confident that his “walls” – among other things – will help him realize his oft-cited ultimate goal: the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

    Whether or not he succeeds, the world will feel the impact for years to come.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Musk has a ‘super app’ plan for Twitter. It’s super vague

    Musk has a ‘super app’ plan for Twitter. It’s super vague

    [ad_1]

    Elon Musk has a penchant for the letter “X.” He calls his son with the singer Grimes, whose actual name is a collection of letters and symbols, “X.” He named the company he created to buy Twitter “X Holdings.” His rocket company is, naturally, SpaceX.

    Now he also apparently intends to morph Twitter into an “everything app” he calls X.

    For months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has expressed interest in creating his own version of China’s WeChat — a “super app” that does video chats, messaging, streaming and payments — for the rest of the world. At least, that is, once he’s done buying Twitter after months of legal infighting over the $44 billion purchase agreement he signed in April.

    There are just a few obstacles. First is that a Musk-owned Twitter wouldn’t be the only global company in pursuit of this goal, and in fact would probably be playing catch-up with its rivals. Next is the question of whether anyone really wants a Twitter-based everything app— or any other super app — to begin with.

    Start with the competition and consumer demand. Facebook parent Meta has spent years trying to make its flagship platform a destination for everything online, adding payments, games, shopping and even dating features to its social network. So far, it’s had little success; nearly all of its revenue still comes from advertising.

    Google, Snap, TikTok, Uber and others have also tried to jump on the super app bandwagon, expanding their offerings in an effort to become indispensable to people as they go about their day. None have set the world on fire so far, not least because people already have a number of apps at their disposal to handle shopping, communicating and payments.

    “Old habits are hard to break, and people in the U.S. are used to using different apps for different activities,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. Enberg also notes that super apps would likely suck up more personal data at a time when trust in social platforms has deteriorated significantly.

    Musk kicked off the latest round of speculation on Oct. 4, the day he reversed his attempts to get out of the deal and announced that he wanted to acquire Twitter after all. “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” he tweeted without further explanation.

    But he’s provided at least a little more detail in the past. During Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in August, Musk told the crowd at a factory near Austin, Texas, that he thinks he’s “got a good sense of where to point the engineering team with Twitter to make it radically better.”

    And he’s dropped some strong hints that handling payments for goods and services would be a key part of the app. Musk said he has a “grander vision” for what X.com, an online bank he started early in his career that eventually became part of PayPal, could have been.

    “Obviously that could be started from scratch, but I think Twitter would help accelerate that by three to five years,” Musk said in August. “So it’s kind of something that I thought would be quite useful for a long time. I know what to do.”

    But it’s not clear that WeChat’s success in China means the same idea would translate for a U.S. or global audience. WeChat usage is almost universal in China, where most people never had a computer at home and skipped straight to going online by mobile phone.

    Operated by tech giant Tencent Holding Ltd., the platform has made itself a one-stop shop for payments and other services and is starting to compete in entertainment. It is also a platform for health code apps the public is required to use prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

    China has 1 billion internet users, and nearly all of them go online by mobile phone, according to the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center. Only 33% use desktop computers at all — and mostly in addition to mobile phones. Tencent says WeChat had 1.3 billion users worldwide as of the end of June.

    Tencent and its main Chinese competitor, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, aim to make apps that offer so many services that users can’t easily switch to another app. They’re not the only ones.

    WeChat has added video calls and other message features as well as shopping, entertainment and other features. Government agencies use it to send out health, traffic and other announcements. WeChat’s payment function, meanwhile, is so widely used that coffee shops, museums and some other businesses refuse cash and will take payment only through WeChat or the rival Ant app.

    There is no comparable app in the U.S., despite tech companies’ efforts.

    It’s worth remembering that Musk’s grand visions don’t always work out the way he appears to expect. Humans are nowhere near colonizing Mars and his promised fleet of robotaxis remains about as far from reality as the metaverse.

    Twitter’s user base is also tiny relative to those at its social-platform competitors. While Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all passed the 1 billion mark long ago, Twitter has about 240 million daily users.

    “Musk would not only have to overcome the hurdle of convincing consumers to change how they behave online, but also that Twitter is the place to do it,” Enberg said.

    ——

    Associated Press Writer Joe McDonald contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Musk has a ‘super app’ plan for Twitter. It’s super vague

    Musk has a ‘super app’ plan for Twitter. It’s super vague

    [ad_1]

    Elon Musk has a penchant for the letter “X.” He calls his son with the singer Grimes, whose actual name is a collection of letters and symbols, “X.” He named the company he created to buy Twitter “X Holdings.” His rocket company is, naturally, SpaceX.

    Now he also apparently intends to morph Twitter into an “everything app” he calls X.

    For months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has expressed interest in creating his own version of China’s WeChat — a “super app” that does video chats, messaging, streaming and payments — for the rest of the world. At least, that is, once he’s done buying Twitter after months of legal infighting over the $44 billion purchase agreement he signed in April.

    There are just a few obstacles. First is that a Musk-owned Twitter wouldn’t be the only global company in pursuit of this goal, and in fact would probably be playing catch-up with its rivals. Next is the question of whether anyone really wants a Twitter-based everything app— or any other super app — to begin with.

    Start with the competition and consumer demand. Facebook parent Meta has spent years trying to make its flagship platform a destination for everything online, adding payments, games, shopping and even dating features to its social network. So far, it’s had little success; nearly all of its revenue still comes from advertising.

    Google, Snap, TikTok, Uber and others have also tried to jump on the super app bandwagon, expanding their offerings in an effort to become indispensable to people as they go about their day. None have set the world on fire so far, not least because people already have a number of apps at their disposal to handle shopping, communicating and payments.

    “Old habits are hard to break, and people in the U.S. are used to using different apps for different activities,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. Enberg also notes that super apps would likely suck up more personal data at a time when trust in social platforms has deteriorated significantly.

    Musk kicked off the latest round of speculation on Oct. 4, the day he reversed his attempts to get out of the deal and announced that he wanted to acquire Twitter after all. “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” he tweeted without further explanation.

    But he’s provided at least a little more detail in the past. During Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in August, Musk told the crowd at a factory near Austin, Texas, that he thinks he’s “got a good sense of where to point the engineering team with Twitter to make it radically better.”

    And he’s dropped some strong hints that handling payments for goods and services would be a key part of the app. Musk said he has a “grander vision” for what X.com, an online bank he started early in his career that eventually became part of PayPal, could have been.

    “Obviously that could be started from scratch, but I think Twitter would help accelerate that by three to five years,” Musk said in August. “So it’s kind of something that I thought would be quite useful for a long time. I know what to do.”

    But it’s not clear that WeChat’s success in China means the same idea would translate for a U.S. or global audience. WeChat usage is almost universal in China, where most people never had a computer at home and skipped straight to going online by mobile phone.

    Operated by tech giant Tencent Holding Ltd., the platform has made itself a one-stop shop for payments and other services and is starting to compete in entertainment. It is also a platform for health code apps the public is required to use prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

    China has 1 billion internet users, and nearly all of them go online by mobile phone, according to the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center. Only 33% use desktop computers at all — and mostly in addition to mobile phones. Tencent says WeChat had 1.3 billion users worldwide as of the end of June.

    Tencent and its main Chinese competitor, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, aim to make apps that offer so many services that users can’t easily switch to another app. They’re not the only ones.

    WeChat has added video calls and other message features as well as shopping, entertainment and other features. Government agencies use it to send out health, traffic and other announcements. WeChat’s payment function, meanwhile, is so widely used that coffee shops, museums and some other businesses refuse cash and will take payment only through WeChat or the rival Ant app.

    There is no comparable app in the U.S., despite tech companies’ efforts.

    It’s worth remembering that Musk’s grand visions don’t always work out the way he appears to expect. Humans are nowhere near colonizing Mars and his promised fleet of robotaxis remains about as far from reality as the metaverse.

    Twitter’s user base is also tiny relative to those at its social-platform competitors. While Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all passed the 1 billion mark long ago, Twitter has about 240 million daily users.

    “Musk would not only have to overcome the hurdle of convincing consumers to change how they behave online, but also that Twitter is the place to do it,” Enberg said.

    ——

    Associated Press Writer Joe McDonald contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • China kicks off 20th Communist Party Congress as Xi Jinping prepares to expand power | CNN

    China kicks off 20th Communist Party Congress as Xi Jinping prepares to expand power | CNN

    [ad_1]

    Protest banners hanging off Sitong Bridge in Beijing on October 13.

    China’s online censorship went into overdrive after a rare protest took place on a busy overpass in Beijing which openly criticized Xi Jinping’s uncompromising zero-Covid policy and authoritarian rule, stoking pent-up tensions among the Chinese public.

    Photos circulated on Twitter on Thursday showing two protest banners strewn over the Sitong Bridge in Beijing’s Haidian district in broad daylight, with plumes of smoke billowing from the bridge.

    “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,” read one banner.

    “Go on strike, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping,” reads the other.

    When CNN arrived at Sitong Bridge around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, no protesters or banners could be seen – as if nothing ever happened.

    Some context: Public protest against the top leadership is extremely rare in China with dissenters facing imprisonment or worse.

    Thursday’s show of discontent was even more striking given the run-up to important political meetings, when authorities turn Beijing into a fortress to maintain security and stability.

    Censorship: Users on Chinese social spoke out to express their support and awe of the brazen defiance. Some shared the Chinese pop hit “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, who some called a “hero,” while others swore never to forget, posting under the hashtag: “I saw it.”

    Many posts were taken down and accounts were suspended indefinitely after commenting on – or alluding to – the protest on Chinese social media such as Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, and WeChat, the super app.

    Key words were immediately restricted from search results on the apps, such as “Sitong Bridge” and ”Haidian” – the site of the protest. Terms like “Beijing,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were also restricted.

    Lockdown, test, repeat: China’s zero-Covid strategy means that even one infection can trigger a city-wide lockdown, ordering people to stay at home or be transported to a quarantine center for isolation.

    The Chinese government’s draconian zero-Covid policy has fueled growing public frustration, as unpredictable cycles of lockdowns and mass testing upended daily life and wreak havoc on the economy.

    What to watch for: Hopes that China might ease pandemic restrictions after the Party Congress have all but been crushed as the Communist Party maintained its hardline approach.

    In the week leading up to the important meeting, state-run mouthpiece People’s Daily published three commentaries reiterating that China will not let its guard down.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • China opens meeting expected to give Xi Jinping 5 more years

    China opens meeting expected to give Xi Jinping 5 more years

    [ad_1]

    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.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Xi’s expected coronation begins as China’s Communist Party convenes congress to extend leader’s rule | CNN

    Xi’s expected coronation begins as China’s Communist Party convenes congress to extend leader’s rule | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    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.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link