China’s Position: Ukraine still hopes for the Best

On February 27, Ukraine issued a rejection of sorts of China’s February 24 position paper “on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis”. Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, told “Freedom TV”  that the only effective measure the position paper called for was “immediate cessation of fire.”

“This means that Russia will remain in the occupied territories, we will have a new dividing line, and we will have a slow absorption of Ukraine. That is, the slow death of Ukraine,” the TV station quoted Pdolyak.

The rejection from Zelensky’s office, but only in an unofficial interview, suggests that Kiev doesn’t want to anger Beijing and possibly provoke Chinese lethal-arms supplies to Russia that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

^{中共中央外事工作委员会办公室主任王毅会见乌克兰外长库列巴，慕尼黑，Febr 18, 2023}

In an article published on March 3, “Freedom TV” quotes interviewees as saying that “it is too early to say that China is openly opposing Ukraine”. China’s “global ambitions”, its long common border with Russia, and its dependence on Russian energy supplies as well as the two countries’ traditional alliance are quoted as factors supporting the bilateral relationship, but “Beijing will not sacrifice its own well-being because of Russia, experts are sure”.

Part of China’s “well-beings” is the arable land it owns in Ukraine. It shouldn’t be too difficult to replace, given that Beijing’s investment companies are scouting all continents for farmable land to buy or rent, but it wouldn’t be fun to see the goose being killed by Russia – even if it isn’t quite the “golden” goose.

Besides, at least one of “Voice of America’s” interlocutors, Taiwan International Strategic Study Society director Ching-Sheng Lo (羅慶生), took a rather critical view of China’s food security, a year ago.

Lo Ching-Sheng says: “Having bought that much grain, with storage for a year and a half, there’s nothing to care about – no problem in the short run. If this should turn into an Afghanistan kind of war of twenty years, China’s problems will be very big.”
罗庆生说：“因为中国买了太多粮食的关系，它储存了一年半的粮食，所以一年半之内它不会有事情，所以短期的话没问题。长期的话，如果说变成阿富汗战争那个样子打个20年，那中国的问题就很大了。”

But the Russian hinterland will count more than Ukraine – be it for China’s “global ambitions”, be it for its food security. Beijing took a speaking decision in early February, 2022, a few weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Answer to the unfolding crisis: more grain imports from Russia.

Ukraine’s hopes on China are unreasonably high. As Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow for international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote,

The party can survive setbacks in the chip war, but the stakes are much higher in the fight for food security. Failure on the food security front will threaten the survival of the regime.

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Related

Kuleba addresses Asia, March 22, 2022

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Xinhua: “First Tiger after 19th Party Congress under Investigation”

The CCP’s former Propaganda department deputy director Lu Wei (鲁炜), once also in charge of “internet security”, has been advertised by Xinhua newsagency as the first tiger to be investigated after the CCP’s 19th national congress.

中宣部原副部长鲁炜接受审查|十九大后“首虎”

The joyful and triumphant headline isn’t repeated in the one-line article, however, stating that

this journalist has learned from the central disciplinary department that former Propaganda Department deputy director Lu Wei is suspected of seriously violating discipline and is now under the organizations investigation.

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Related

De machtige partijbons, Volkskrant, Nov 22, 2017
Lu Wei namedropped, Sept 20, 2016

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Cybercrime Report: “Major targets”

The following is a translation of an article by Xinhua newsagency. The cybercrime report reproduced by Xinhua on November 13 was apparently published nearly two weeks earlier, on November 1, with the keywords online fraud (网络诈骗), pretended moonlighting (虚假兼职), false shopping items (虚假购物), red envelopes (红包), finance (理财), cash returns (现返), and false identities (身份冒充).

While the reporting units are located in Beijing, the statistics refer to cases from all over China. According to the report, Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Henan, and Zhejiang provinces topped the list with 13.4%, 6.4%, 5.6%, 5.5%, 5.0%, and another 5.0% respectively.

Main Link: Men most easily fooled online, young users as fraudsters’ major targets

Xinhua Tianjin, Nov 13 2017 (Zhou Runjian reporting) — Online fraud reporting website Liewang’s¹⁾ “2017 third-quarter report on online fraud research” points out that there are more men than women among the victims of online fraud, especially men born from 1990 to 1999²⁾.

新华社天津１１月１３日电（记者周润健）国内网络诈骗信息举报平台——猎网平台最新发布的《２０１７年第三季度网络诈骗趋势研究报告》指出，在网络诈骗中，男性受害者占比大大高于女性，９０后受害者最多。

The report says that among the accounts that reported cases, 67.4 percent were men, and 32.6 percent were women. However, men reported an average loss of 13.404 Yuan RMB, while women reported an average losso f 17.522 Yuan RMB.

报告指出，从报案用户的性别差异来看，男性受害者占比大大高于女性，分别占６７．４％和３２．６％；但从人均损失来看，男性为１３４０４元，女性为１７５２２元。

The report’s analysis says that in cyberlife, chances that women would be fooled are much smaller than with men, but that once women do trust a fraudster, they will frequently pay much more.

报告分析说，在网络生活中，女性的上当几率其实要比男性低得多，但女性一旦相信了骗子，往往会比男性付出更大的代价。

The report also points out that there are also significant differences between the occasions on which men and women are cheated. Those cheated in online gaming transactions, gambling, lotteries and establishing contacts, nearly 80 percent of those cheated are men, while most women become victims of refunding fraud and schemes that seem to offer moonlighting opportunities.

报告进一步指出，男性和女性在不同类型的网络诈骗中被骗几率也有明显不同。其中，在网游交易、赌博博彩、交友诈骗中，被骗的几乎８０％都是男性，而退款诈骗、虚假兼职类诈骗是女性被骗比例最高的诈骗类型。

It is worth noting that there are also big differences in the ways men and women are cheated. Faked concurrent-job offers are the ones that most women are cheated with (28.3 percent), while the most frequent fraud reported by men is financial fraud (19.4 percent).

值得注意的是，男性和女性在被骗类型方面也有很大的区别。虚假兼职是女性被骗最多的类型，占比２８.３％，男性被骗举报数量排名第一的是金融诈骗，占比为１９．４％。

The report also says that 42.0 percent of online fraud victims are 1990ers, 29.7 percent are the second largest group with 29.7 percent, and 11.8 percent of the overall number are 1970ers with 11.8 percent. The specific age group focused on by online fraud are those aged between from 18 and to 31.

报告还指出，从被骗网民的年龄上看，９０后的网络诈骗受害者占所有受害者总数的４２．０％，其次是８０后占比为２９．７％，再次是７０后占比为１１．８％；从具体年龄上来看，１８岁至３１岁的人群是网络诈骗受害者最为集中的年龄段。

The report believes that young people with particular internet skills and extensive online time who, at the same time, lack sufficient social experience, are major targets and victims of online fraud.

报告认为，即具有一定的上网能力，上网时间较长，同时又缺乏足够社会经验的年轻人是网络诈骗的主要对象和主要受害人群。

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Notes

¹⁾ “Liewang” (“internet hunt”) is a cybercrime reporting website run by the “Beijing Alliance for Online Security and against Cybercrime”, which in turn is co-run by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (PBS) and Qihoo 360, an (apparently privately-owned) online security company.

²⁾ ９０后 (1990ers) refers to people born between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 1999

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China’s rising Aggression against Taiwan – is there anything we can do to counter it?

Nigeria told Taiwan earlier this month to move its de-facto embassy from the capital Abuja to Lagos, the country’s biggest city and its capital until 1976, and seat of the federal government until 1991. According to the Chinese foreign ministry,

Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama told journalists after reaffirming the One-China Policy at a joint press conference with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, that Taiwan will now have to function in Lagos with a skeletal staff.

One could condemn the decision of the Nigerian government, who have reportedly been promised $40 bn Chinese investment in the country’s infrastructure, and the Taiwanese foreign ministry did just that.

But there will always be governments who are too weak to be principled – and most governments worldwide, and especially those of “developed” and powerful countries, have long played along with Beijing’s “one-China policy”. Big or small countries’ decisions are based on “national interest” (whichever way national interest may be defined).

Still, what Nigeria is doing to Taiwan shows a new quality in harming the island nation. A Reuters report on January 12 didn’t try to “prove” Beijing’s driving force behind the Nigerian decision, but quotes a Taiwanese perception that would suggest this, writing that Taiwan sees the “request” to move its representative office from the capital as more pressure by China to isolate it.

Reuters also wrote that

[w]hile economic ties between the mainland and Taiwan have grown considerably in recent years, their relations have worsened since Tsai Ing-wen, who heads a pro-independence party, was elected president of the island last year.
Beijing has been stepping up pressure on her to concede to its “one China” principle.

In fact, this isn’t just a move to make Taiwan “lose face”, or to re-emphasize the – in Beijing’s view – inofficial nature of Taiwanese statehood and sovereignty. This is an attempt on Taiwan’s lifelines, even if only a small one – for now. If Taiwan has to reduce staff at one of its embassies, simply because Beijing wants the host country to bully Taiwan, this affects Taiwanese trade. And this means that Beijing is making fun of a World Trade Organization member’s legitimate interests.

Looking at it under less formal aspects, this move via Nigeria is also an aggression against Taiwan’s democracy.

The Tsai administration’s position during the past eight months hadn’t even been “provocative”. All they can be blamed for is that they didn’t bow before Beijing’s hatpole, an alleged “1992 consensus” between the Chinese Communist Party and the Taiwanese National Party (KMT). In her inaugural speech in May, President Tsai Ing-wen still acknowledged the fact that there had been KMT-CCP talks that year, and the role the talks had had in building better cross-strait relations. But  she pointed out that among the foundations of interactions and negotiations across the Strait, there was the democratic principle and prevalent will of the people of Taiwan.

It seems that this position – legitimate and reasonable – was too much for Beijing. This should be food for thought for everyone in the world who wants the will of the people to prevail.

J. Michael Cole, a blogger from Taiwan, wrote in September last year that China’s leadership

behaves very much like a 12-year-old: pouting and bullying when it doesn’t get what it wants. To be perfectly honest, it’s rather embarrassing and hardly warrants the space and scare quotes it gets in the world’s media. […]

Why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has kept at it for so long is because we, the international community, have allowed it to do so. From the hallowed halls of academia to the media, government agencies to the public sphere, we have allowed fear to regulate how we interact with China, with ourselves, and with the rest of the world.

His conclusion: we – and I assume that by “we”, he refers to all freedom-loving people who cherish democracy – need collectively stiffer spines, ; the times when we let the authoritarian-child determine what’s in our best interest should come to an end, not just in the political sphere but in other areas, including the embattled field of free expression, where the 12-year-old has been making a mockery of our proud traditions in journalism and academia.

I wasn’t sure if I agreed when I read this, months ago. Yes, it is true that China’s dollars are corrupting. But aren’t all dollars corrupting, if you are corrupt? Who forces us to take them? I’m wondering if South Africa in the 1980s would have faced sanctions if their white government and elites had had to offer then what Beijing has to offer now. And in that regard, I believe we should see clearly that Western countries frequently put their positions on sale easily, when they are offered the right price.

That was  a main factor in America’s motivation, in the 1970s, to acknowledge Beijing’s “one-China policy”. That’s why the EU is nearly spineless when it comes to interaction with Beijing. And that’s why Taiwan’s own elites are frequently eager to do business with China, even if this limits the island republic’s political scope further.

All the same, China’s measures against democracy are uniquely aggressive in some ways. Above all, they are completely shameless. If they serve their country, Chinese people may advocate them without the least disguise – because it serves China. When an American politician – Donald Trump – does a similar thing by ostensibly “putting America first”, he faces a bewildered global public who can’t believe their own ears. And yes, censorship and records where only the victor writes the history books and declares the defeated parties villains is part of hallowed Chinese tradition. There were Chinese people who were openly critical of that tradition during the 1980s or the 1990s. As far as I can see, there aren’t too many of them any more. (I’m not sure there are any left.)

Chinese “public opinion” may debate measures to optimize business, or CCP rule. But there are no competing visions in China. There is no public opinion. There is only guidance toward totalitarianism.

Can governments play a role in controlling China’s aggression against democracy? Not in the short or medium term, anyway. Any such movement has to start from the grassroots. And it won’t be a terribly big one, let alone a “collective” one, as Cole appears to hope.

But every right move is a new beginning, and a contribution to a better world. We can’t boycott China, and if we could, it might amount to a tragedy.

But we can make new, small, decisions every day: is this really the right time to arrange a students exchange with China? Why not with Taiwan? Is an impending deal with China really in one’s best interest? Could an alternative partner make better sense in the long run, even if the opportunity cost looks somewhat higher right now?

The CCP’s propaganda, during the past ten or twenty years, has been that you have no choice but to do business with China under its rule, no matter if you like the dictatorship and its increasing global reach, or not. The purpose of this propaganda has been to demobilize any sense of resistance, of decency, or of hope.

We need to take a fresh look at China.

As things stand, this doesn’t only mean a fresh look at the CCP, but at China as a country, too. During the past ten years, the CCP has managed to rally many Chinese people behind itself, and to discourage dissenters, apparently a minority anyway, from voicing dissent.

A new personal and – if it comes to that – collective fresh look at China requires a sense of proportion, not big statements or claims. It doesn’t require feelings of hatred or antagonism against China, either. We should remain interested in China, and continue to appreciate what is right with it.

What is called for is not a answer that would always be true, but a question, that we should ask ourselves at any moment when a choice appears to be coming up.

As an ordinary individual, don’t ask how you can “profit” from China’s “rise” (which has, in fact, been a long and steady collapse into possibly stable, but certainly immoral hopelessness).

Ask yourself what you can do for Taiwan.

Happy new year!

Lu Wei “name-dropped” by State-Owned Newspaper(s)

(Former) State Internet Information Office director
Lu Wei and federal interior minister
de Maizière, photo op, July 2, 2015.
Click photo for more info.

Lu Wei (鲁炜) made his first public reappearance today after his resignation as CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) director. He didn’t appear in person, but was mentioned in a news article as a participant in meeting of a Central Committee special working group for the prevention of juvenile deliquency. The article was published this morning by state-owned Legal Daily (法制日报 / 法制网), reports the Financial Times. Lu’s resignation in June reportedly came as a surprise. While giving way to Xu Lin (徐麟) as CAC director, Lu maintained his position as the CCP’s deputy propaganda director.

According to its “About” page, Legal Daily’s website is under direct guidance from the party’s central propaganda department and the CAC. It is published by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China.

People’s Daily also published the article (or rather, its first seven paragraphs), but mentioned China Youth Daily as the original source.

Given the topic, this appears to make sense – however, China Youth online’s article, just as People’s Daily’s, is shorter than Legal Daily’s.

Anyway – who cares. The CCP, and only the CCP, is the author of those articles.

Media Coverage on Ministry of Education’s (MoE) “Blue Book” on Returning Overseas Students and the Labor Market

The Chinese ministry of education (MoE) published a “blue book”, or a government report, on March 25, concerning overseas Chinese students returning to China, and looking for a job there. If Chinese press and government agency coverage on the report is something to go by, this is what the average academic returnee to the motherland looks like:

he is actually mostly a she (59.16 percent of the returnees are female), aged 23 to 33 (absolute average 27.04 yrs old), a masters student (80.7 percent), a postgraduate (9,49 percent), or an undergraduate / a student with a specialized subject (9.81 percent combined). If a postgraduate, his main fields should mainly be chemistry, material science, economics, electronics and electrical engineering, while the masters fields of study are somewhat more into the direction of finance, accounting, business management, management studies, or international business studies.

Statistics seem to suggest that there have been more returnees recently, than the 1978 to 2015 average numbers. Either way, the MoE’s Overseas Students’ Support Center deputy director Xu Peixiang (徐培祥) is quoted as saying that some 70 to 80 percent of students, in recent years, have returned after their studies abroad.¹⁾

97 percent of those who currently study abroad are doing so at their own expense, which appears plausible when looking at the total numbers. In 2015 alone, 523,700 students reportedly left for studies abroad, and 409,100 job-seeking overseas students returned to China that year. By comparison, 248 students left China for studies abroad in 1978, according to Xinhua newsagency.

Very rough calculations with many unknowns: given that 459,800 Chinese left China to study abroad in 2014, according to this government-agency news report, the average of students leaving in 2014 and 2015 combined would be (459,800 + 523,700)/2 = 491,750, and based on an average duration of 22 months (more precisely 21.47 months) of studies abroad among the 2015 returnees,  this would mean that about 901,542 Chinese students would currently be abroad.

Three percent of these would then not study at their own expense (or that of their parents, relatives, etc.). Some 27,000 of the 901,542 abroad would, based on my shoddy calculation, study with a government grant, a scholarship, etc.. And probably, very few, if any, among the 248 who went abroad in 1978, were self-paying students.

23.85 percent of the 2015 returnees have been looking for a job in state-owned companies, 19.4 percent prefer minban operations²⁾, and foreign-invested enterprises, state institutions and financial institutions rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the returnees search settings. Only 3.32 percent want to establish businesses of their own (one percentage point up, compared to the 2014 returnees).

When it comes to location and company types, the returnees haven’t necessarily followed their ideas of perfect companies and locations, but looked at some hard facts (and regulations), and have therefore looked for jobs that appeared to be closer within their reach. Either way, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are still very popular destinations, with 49.34 percent indicating these goals, but this is said to be eight percentage points less than in 2013. This share is now basically focused on other provincial-capital-level cities.

Being in a position to pay for ones studies abroad doesn’t necessarily translate into perfect (or labour-market-oriented) choices, according to the news coverage. Qi Mo (齐默), head of the returnee office at the MoE, is quoted as stating “a certain blindness” in terms of how students (and their parents) are choosing fields of studies (or majors) and places (cities and universities) abroad. Hence, the MoE was trying to provide candidates for self-paid overseas studies, as well as their families, with information to support their choices, according to Qi.

It isn’t strongly highlighted in the news, but it becomes fairly evident that while Xu Peixiang points out how returning overseas students have become a group that receives great attention at our country’s market of talents, there may be particular challenges for returning overseas students, too. When a Xinhua article mentions measures like bases (or opportunities) for practical work as supportive measures for returnees to integrate into the labor market (this might also be translated as internship opportunities), you might suspect some frustration and trouble there. After all, such “opportunities” are hardly the financial return self-paying students (and their families and networks) would expect on their investment (or borrowings).

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Footnotes

¹⁾ According to statistics quoted in the Chinese press coverage on the MoE “blue book”, 4.04 million Chinese students have studied abroad from 1978 to 2015. 2.22 million of them have returned so far.

²⁾ minban is a poorly defined term. There are, of course, many ways to find definitions anyway. Dorothy J Solinger, in “China’s Transition from Socialism”, first published in 1993, suggested that

there are three main types: those […] which are supposedly owned and managed by “people” (minyou-minban); those owned by the state but managed by “people” (guanyou-minban); and those jointly operated and owned by the state and the “people” (guanmingongyou).

And in 1999/2000, Guoqiang Tian, now a professor at Texas A & M University and in China, discussed in a paper on Property Rights and the Nature of Chinese Collective Enterprises why collective enterprises, especially township and village enterprises (TVEs) had – those sixteen years ago, anyway – developed more rapidly than privately owned enterprises, in China.

General note: I have no information about survey’s return rate among the former overseas students.

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“Internet Plus” Updates

As Chinese economic growth isn’t quite itself these days, the innovation buzzword keeps growing. State chief councillor Li Keqiang‘s Internet Plus action plan, described in some detail on March 5 last year in his work report to the Third Session of the 12th “National People’s Congress”, is being revived as a news item and covered here by the Washington Post. The article describes an internet town near Haikou as a place where little else can be done:

According to the local government, the Internet Town project will cover the entire Shishan township in 2018, with the completion of an online trading platform and an operation center as well as other facilities. The project will be a major engine for local growth, creating a new source of income for farmers along with the tourism industry that features volcanic tours.

Meantime, the English-language “Global Times” focuses on places where a lot of things that make sense could be done, and where a number of building owners (you can’t say landlord in China) fell for the business concepts of kids whose first profession was to be their daddies’ sons (reportedly, anyway), and who burnt their business war chests rather than using them mindfully. But obviously, the article is generally optimistic about a phoenix [that] will rise from the ashes of the first wave of China’s tech boom.

Chinese innovation may not be exactly what Japan’s industry is waiting for, but Chinese growth is. Ikuo Hirata, a columnist with a number of Japanese papers, suggests that Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe should stop counting on China’s economy as a booster for Abenomics, and that the government should lower its growth target.

Hirata also warns that

[w]hile working to reduce excess capacity in the steel and other traditional sectors, Chinese policymakers are also trying to help high-tech industries, such as robotics, sophisticated machine tools and aerospace, catch up with their rivals in advanced economies. The technological prowess of a country that has a successful manned space mission under its belt should not be underestimated.

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Related

» Traditional industries, new bones, April 17, 2015

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Human Rights and Economic Records: Botched Measures and Terrible Occurrences

Before the old (lunar) year leaves and a new comes in, things need to be tidied up in China. However, efforts to calm the stock markets by new management measures appear to have been unsuccessful. And in Hong Kong, where RMB trading, is unrestricted, people pay less for China’s currency, according to the New York Times.

There’s still other bad news, and the indicator in this case, too, is Hong Kong.

“Something terrible has happened. We are all afraid. We are leaving now,” an employee told me a few hours before locking the doors for the foreseeable future.

That’s how the BBC‘s correspondent in the former British colony, Juliana Liu, concluded an entry in the broadcaster’s China blog on Monday, and the topic, of course, is the case of five Hong Kong citizens, all associated with the Causeway Bay Bookstore, who have gone missing since October last year. The latest case is Paul Lee, and he went missing late in December.

Hong Kong’s SCMP, one of East Asia’s leading English-language papers, but one with an uncertain future, reported on Monday the first precept speech by a Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. The guy who’s imitating the late great dictator is, of course, current party secretary general, state chairman, and the central military commissions’ (CMC) chairman Xi Jinping. The speech is seen as part of Xi’s efforts to reform China’s military, but obviously, the – probably intended – signal goes beyond the armed forces project.

Given that no other former CMC chairman, from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, had given a military precept, an associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law concludes that Xi’s power and authority is even higher than them.

This may or may not be true. If  Wang Qishan, rather than Li Keqiang, ranks second in terms of power or influence within the party, the assessement may be correct. But then, maybe Deng Xiaoping, who faced open ideological competition at times by more conservative party veterans like Chen Yun, simply didn’t need to show off his autority by admonishing the military.

Back then, too, the party was corrupted. But that was at a time when – or that’s how it felt, anyway – everyone had a chance to become rich. Now, there’s a two-fold challenge of corruption and slowing growth.

This could mean that Xi has powers because potential rivals do not want to challenge him, so as not to rock the not-so-stable boat.

If China’s regime manages the switch from an export-led economy to a more services-oriented economy successfully, the doubts in Beijing’s macro-economic control of the economy won’t persist – some disappeared people, in China or elsewhere, have never been a great concern to business.

All the Xidadamania aside however, confidence in mainland China, in Hong Kong, and abroad, appears to be slipping, at least currently.

In an interview with German national radio on Thursday, Markus Taube, a professor at a university in Germany’s Ruhr region, stated “a massive loss of confidence” in China:

What we see in China at the moment, definitely, is a massive loss of confidence. All market actors can see that the CCP has clearly lost its former control capacity. Until now, the Chinese market was always a very [unreadable] […]. Now, this ability to lead isn’t in place and that the state has failed several times, on its own promises.

Das, was wir in China momentan definitiv sehen ist ein massiver Vertrauensverlust. Alle Marktakteure sehen, dass die Kommunistische Partei offensichtlich ihre frühere Steuerungskapazität verloren hat. Bislang war der chinesische Markt immer ein sehr [unreadable] … Fundamentaldaten haben da kaum eine Rolle gespielt, und es war das Vertrauen einfach da, dass die Partei, der Staat, im Endeffekt die Richtung vorgibt [unreadable]. Jetzt ist es so, dass diese Führungsfunktion fehlt und dass der Staat mehrfach versagt hat, auf seine eigenen Versprechen hin.

Not least, Taube said, the “anti-corruption campaign” has discouraged Chinese decisionmakers in charge of approving (or delaying) investment projects.

Given that Chinese control mechanisms – concerning the financial markets – are out of order, Taube, with an audible sigh, introduces an old friend from the 2009 tool cabinet:

It sounds unorthodox, but probably, in the current situation, it would be more appropriate to issue another stimulus package, in that the state, again, to a great extent, pumps money into the economy. A classical Keynesian stimulus package to create state-induced demand so as to restore the economic dynamics on a basic level.

Es klingt sehr unorthodox, aber wahrscheinlich ist es in der momentanen Situation tatsächlich eher angesagt, ein klassisches Konjunkturpaket wieder aufzusetzen, einen Stimulus, in dem der Staat einfach in großem Maße wieder Geld in die Volkswirtschaft hineinpumpt. Also ein klassisches keynesianisches Konjunkturprogramm, in dem einfach staatlich induziert Nachfrage geschaffen wird, und damit einfach die volkswirtschaftliche Dynamik auf einem grundlegenden Level wieder stabilisiert wird.

That said, Taube doesn’t judge the situation by standards of five-year plans, or by taking the long view, as recommended by the Lord of the Confucius Institutes. Taube advocates a stimulus because the methods tried more recently haven’t worked and wouldn’t turn the tide for the coming six months.

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Updates/Related

» Executives Disappearing, HP, Jan 8, 2016

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