Trade growth slows as China’s market remains fragile
+ China reveals plan to become world leader in space science
Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly update on the latest news and developments from the country.
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— PC
Through the Lens
In Focus
I. “The Panda Factories”
Today, China has removed more pandas from the wild than it has freed, The Times found. No cubs born in American or European zoos, or their offspring, have ever been released. The number of wild pandas remains a mystery because the Chinese government’s count is widely seen as flawed and politicized.
Along the way, individual pandas have been hurt.
Because pandas are notoriously fickle about mating in captivity, scientists have turned to artificial breeding. That has killed at least one panda, burned the rectum of another and caused vomiting and injuries in others, records show. Some animals were partly awake for painful procedures. Pandas in China have flickered in and out of consciousness as they were anesthetized and inseminated as many as six times in five days, far more often than experts recommend.
Breeding in American zoos has done little to improve genetic diversity, experts say, because China typically sends abroad animals whose genes are already well represented in the population.
Yet American zoos clamor for pandas, and China eagerly provides them. Zoos get attention and attendance. Chinese breeders get cash bonuses for every cub, records show. At the turn of the century, 126 pandas lived in captivity. Today there are more than 700.
Read: The Panda Factories (The New York Times)
II. The Party Is Here. Let the Party Begin.
What makes Xi’s New Era different from what came before is the leadership’s public acknowledgement that the party is no longer transitioning but has arrived—and not just in China. Drawing on the party’s domestic lessons and experience, the leadership is offering a range of ‘China solutions’ (中国方案) to the world for meeting the challenges of democracy and development. In the Foreign Ministry’s words, it is ‘providing a new choice for countries and nations in the world that want to accelerate development while maintaining their independence, and contribute Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to solve human problems’. Along with ‘China solutions’, the leadership is selling party values to the world through a series of ‘global initiatives’ promoting the CCP’s ‘core socialist values’ as alternatives to constitutional democracy, and deserving emulation by others.
Looking back, it seems many observers inside and outside China have been laboring under what legal scholar Donald Clarke calls convergence theory bias, attributing anomalies in the structure of party and state to the presumed transitional character of China’s political, economic, social and legal systems on their march toward governmental rationality, if not perhaps constitutional democracy. Clarke argues that we need a theory that can account for apparent anomalies ‘as features, not bugs’.
This would help predict the international behavior of a revisionist revolutionary party seeking recognition as a national state while acknowledging no limits to its authority inside China, and arguably no limits in a world it seeks to refashion in its own image.
Read: After 75 years of the People’s Republic of China, the party is truly the sovereign (The Strategist)
III. Rewriting China's Past
In this episode, Jeremiah [
] and David are joined by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, and a leading expert in modern Chinese history. We discuss the legacies of the Hong Kong protests, the rise of Xi Jinping's historical narrative control, and how academic engagement with China is evolving amidst growing geopolitical tensions.Professor Wasserstrom delves into the shifts in how history is managed in China, particularly the tightening control under Xi Jinping’s regime. He elaborates on Xi’s new patriotic education law, which codifies the regime's control over historical narratives to align with national security. We also examine the challenges academics face when giving talks on sensitive topics and the growing restrictions on public discourse in Hong Kong since the imposition of the national security law.
Listen: Historical Battles: Rewriting China's Past to Shape the Future (Barbarians at the Gate)
Xinjiang
PRC Positive Messaging Frames Successful Colonization in Xinjiang (Jamestown)
Through television broadcasts overseas, like Jongugu Sapar in Kyrgyzstan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) presents an image of ethnic harmony and economic development in Xinjiang, downplaying or omitting signs of colonialism, forced labor, or suppression of Turkic cultural identity.
The PRC’s positive messaging about Xinjiang has been successful in Central Asia, where positive historical narratives about and some nostalgia for the Soviet Union influence perceptions of PRC actions.
By tailoring content to resonate with local beliefs, the PRC successfully projects its foreign policy goals and strengthens its regional influence. For instance, anti-colonial rhetoric, while rife in PRC discourse in Africa, goes unmentioned in Central Asia.
Labour backtracks on push for genocide ruling on China’s treatment of Uyghurs (The Guardian)
Labour has backtracked on plans to push for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in the run-up to David Lammy’s trip to the country this weekend.
Politics & Society
Xi’s Stronger Grip on Legislature Shows Lack of Checks on Power (Bloomberg)
Nearly 70% of laws made this year feature language explicitly affirming the party’s authority, exploding from 4% in 2018, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of legislative records. While the majority of such documents concern the running of state organs, national security or defense, others relate more directly to risks in the economy.
Top lawmakers are poised to pass in the coming months a financial stability measure putting legal control of the sector firmly under party ideology. That same body is expected to rubber stamp trillions of dollars in government spending at a huddle as soon as next week to ensure China hits its annual growth goal of about 5%.
The legal lip service is emblematic of Xi’s campaign to weaken state institutions that’s seen him shift traditional State Council policy areas to party organs and diminish the role of the premier. For investors, erosion of the Chinese government’s already limited checks and balances on the top leader’s swelling power raises the risk of unpredictable policy swings.
“You don’t really have any procedures for course-correction anymore,” said Katja Drinhausen, head of the politics and society program at the Mercator Institute of China Studies in Berlin, calling shifts in lifting Covid controls in 2022 and unleashing big economic stimulus in recent weeks “very late and abrupt efforts at damage control.”
While such clauses are mostly symbolic with little impact on day-to-day operations, one 2020 law showed the potential consequences, by making opposing the party leadership a fire-able offense for civil servants.
Xi Jinping Has Further Boosted the Military-Industrial Group of China (Jamestown)
Since at least the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping has promoted military-industrial officials, whose presence at the vice-ministerial level has grown since the 20th Party Congress in 2022. They represent a potential emerging faction within the Chinese Communist Party.
Military-industrial officials are an unusually cohesive group, as their educational background and the industrial operational models of the defense industry are likely to foster a shared identity, mutual trust, and a high degree of homogeneity within their interpersonal networks.
The military-industrial group has formed a unique Chinese-style military-industrial complex within the 20th Central Committee, with officials holding key roles in resource allocation, policy planning, regulation, local coordination, and opinion transmission, allowing them to significantly control the development of the defense industry.
Choked by ideology - by Murong Xuecun (Sage Journals)
Every scientist needs to study Xi’s speeches and thoughts.
Their Western counterparts may not be able to empathise with this but imagine a group of physicists or astronomy professors sitting in a conference room at MIT or Harvard, studying Donald Trump’s or Joe Biden’s speeches, and then considering how much it would help in their research.
Qin Gang: The Mystery Behind China’s Missing Foreign Minister (WSJ)
The sudden undoing of Qin was one of the most intriguing political mysteries since Xi came to power in late 2012.
Our three-part podcast series on the missing foreign minister is based on interviews with officials and others briefed on Beijing’s probe into Qin, people who said they knew about his affair with a glamorous Chinese TV host as well as intelligence and foreign-policy experts inside and outside China.
Prosecutors Will Seize Fugitive Former Official’s Assets in $400 Million Embezzlement Case (Caixin)
A fugitive former official in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province accused of embezzling over $400 million will have his illegal gains — including over 1,000 properties and 38 vehicles — confiscated by local prosecutors, as China strengthens its efforts to recover the ill-gotten assets of criminals who flee abroad.
Li Chuanliang, who is still at large, allegedly took advantage of his positions in the cities of Jixi and Hegang to pocket public assets worth more than 2.9 billion yuan ($407 million) and accepted nearly 49 million yuan in bribes for helping others “seek improper benefits,” according to a court notice published Friday in People’s Court Daily, a newspaper managed by the Supreme People’s Court.
On Second Anniversary of Sitong Bridge Protest, Lone Protester Peng Lifa’s Fate Remains Unknown (China Digital Times)
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi Jinping and the CCP’s autocratic rule, his whereabouts are still unknown, although it is widely presumed that he remains under detention. During his October 13, 2022 protest, Peng shouted slogans through a megaphone and hung two banners from Sitong Bridge that read: “We want food, not COVID tests; reform, not Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not slaves;” and “Boycott classes. Boycott work. Depose the traitorous despot Xi Jinping.” He was promptly detained by police and has not been seen in public since.
China ends transnational adoptions -- some adoptees say they're relieved (NPR)
China has banned transnational adoption, ending more-than three decades during which more than 160,000 children were adopted abroad. Adoptees say they have conflicted feelings about the ban.
China launches survey to understand 'fear of having children' (Reuters)
China's National Health Commission (NHC) is surveying 30,000 people to understand factors influencing their attitudes towards childbearing and the "fear surrounding having children", as authorities struggle to boost a flagging birthrate.
The survey will include people from 150 counties in China and 1,500 different communities, the state-backed Global Times said late on Thursday, citing the China Population and Development Research Center, which falls under the NHC.
Beijing is trying to encourage young couples to have children after China posted a second consecutive year of population decline in 2023.
The survey aims to analyse "reluctance and fear surrounding having children" and ultimately provide fertility support and incentive measures, the newspaper said.
Chinese City Gives Workers Paid Leave to Care for Aging Parents (Sixth Tone)
A city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province has passed new regulations granting workers extra paid leave to care for elderly parents, the latest in a series of moves by local governments to adapt to the pressures of rapid population aging.
Yangzhou introduced the new policy as part of a wider package of measures announced on Oct. 12, which is being described as the country’s first local regulation specifically dedicated to improving the lives of the elderly.
Population aging is a particularly pressing issue in Yangzhou. The city of 4.5 million has one of the highest proportions of elderly residents in the country, with 28.6% of its population aged 60 or over, according to local officials.
Pets in China are earning ‘snack money’ in cafes as their owners send them to work (CNN)
Jane Xue sent her dog, a 2-year-old Samoyed named OK, off to her first day of work in mid-September. Her employer? A dog cafe in Fuzhou, in southeastern China.
“I feel it’s just like parents sending their kids off to school,” the 27-year-old PhD student told CNN as she dropped OK off for her new part-time job.
Xue wanted her dog to “experience a different life,” as she and her partner are usually out on weekends.
“Sending OK to the cafe is a win-win. She gets to play with other dogs and won’t feel so lonely,” she said.
Pet cafes are a big business in China. Visitors get to interact with the animals that roam the shop, allowing the venue owners to charge more for the experience. Customers visiting China’s cat and dog cafés usually pay an entrance fee, ranging from 30-60 yuan ($4-8.5) per person, or simply need to order something like a cup of coffee.
Why China Stopped Liberalizing ()
In this final installment, we discuss…
The steelman case for why China needed a Xi,
What sets Xi apart from his predecessors,
Succession challenges and the importance of term limits in authoritarian states,
Why engagement with China failed to produce political liberalization,
How the US could have better leveraged economic relations with China,
Creative approaches to human rights advocacy in China.
Where the Malan Blooms - 60 Years After the First Chinese Nuclear Bomb (ChinaFile)
Like the Qing empire’s vaccination effort in Xinjiang, the Chinese nuclear program is not just about expelling an external threat: It also works to eliminate internal differences and pacify the unruly margins, and packages this as development and progress. By labeling native land a wasteland before turning it into one with irradiated barrenness, the Chinese state, like every other nuclear power, has used the bomb to carry out a colonial conquest.
One cannot debase the other without debasing the self. The bomb, through the cynical, twisted logic of its creation, has also colonized the minds of its possessors. The explosions tore through the earth and ruptured the moral fabric. The radioactive dust poisoned the air, the water, and the social foundation. With the bomb, we have condemned future generations and imprisoned our collective imagination. We have sacrificed the safety of humanity for the security of the state. Power is exceedingly monopolized by the powerful. Democratic rights are pawned in the pursuit of a greater speed to deliver death. As the world hovers near the edge of nuclear annihilation, and countries continue in a maniacal race for more lethal weaponry, the toxic waste generated in the name of guarding the nation will outlast every single polity on Earth and become the final legacy of our species.
Is Xi Jinping a Marxist? (China Books Review)
“Xi Jinping Thought” — articulated in texts by China’s leader and dissected in two new books — has the power to reshape China for decades to come. So what exactly does Xi Jinping think?
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