Tag: Communist Party of China

The Elusive Fix for China’s Budget Crisis

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Across China, many local governments are on the brink of insolvency. Some cities have reduced pay for civil servants. Cuts to municipal health insurance have triggered street protests. Central government bailouts are a possibility to rescue cities from their deep budget problems, but China hasn’t turned to a source of revenue that would be an obvious option in other countries: property taxes. In China, where the government owns the land, localities almost never tax homeowners to support services like schools. Cities rely instead on selling long-term leases to real estate…

Capvision, a Consulting Firm, is Raided by Chinese Authorities

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China has targeted another global business consulting firm on national security grounds, launching an investigation of the Shanghai-based Capvision Partners as part of a broader crackdown on the industry, state media reported on Monday night. Officers raided several of the firm’s offices in China, including in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Shenzhen, state media said, explaining that the company was not “earnestly fulfilling the responsibilities and obligations” of preventing espionage. Capvision did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Monday night, the company said on its official account on…

Why China’s Censors Are Deleting Videos About Poverty

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A heartbreaking video of a retiree that showed what groceries she could buy with 100 yuan, or $14.50 — roughly her monthly pension and sole source of income — went viral on the Chinese internet. The video was deleted. A singer vented the widespread frustration among young, educated Chinese about their dire finances and gloomy job prospects, like gig work. “I wash my face every day, but my pocket is cleaner than my face,” he sings. “I went to college to help rejuvenate China, not to deliver meals.” His song…

Even as China Reopens, Security Visits Spook Foreign Businesses

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With China’s pandemic restrictions dismantled and its leaders wooing executives flying into the country again, this was supposed to be a springtime of renewed investor confidence in the world’s second-biggest economy. But a drumbeat of government security measures, including a broadening of counterespionage laws, and unannounced visits by investigators to the Chinese offices of several foreign firms have sent a shiver of worry that under Xi Jinping, economic pragmatism could again give way to a heightened focus on state control. International consulting and advisory firms are among those that have…

China Is Cracking Down on Bankers. Here Are Some of the Targets.

Chin@Strategy

For years, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has railed against greed and corruption in the country’s financial sector, making an example of a few prominent figures along the way. But recently, the anti-graft campaign has kicked into overdrive, sweeping up a who’s who from the country’s financial and insurance sector as Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party seek to consolidate control over a critical facet of the economy. China’s anti-corruption officials warned bankers in February that it would “investigate and deal with the people who neglect the party’s leadership.” They…

China Detains Taiwan-Based Publisher in National Security Investigation

Chin@Strategy

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Taiwan-based publisher who disappeared while in China has been detained for suspected violations of security laws, Chinese authorities confirmed on Wednesday, fanning concerns in Taiwan that Beijing is sending a warning to the island’s vibrant publishing sector. The publisher, Li Yanhe, widely known by his pen name, Fu Cha, is a Chinese citizen who has been living in Taiwan since 2009. His company, Gusa Publishing, is well known in Taiwan for books that cast a critical eye on China’s ruling Communist Party. Mr. Li had returned…

China Accuses Liberal Columnist of Espionage After a Lunch With Diplomat

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — A high-ranking editor at a Chinese Communist Party newspaper who often wrote liberal-leaning commentaries is expected to stand trial for espionage in Beijing, after he was arrested while eating lunch with a Japanese diplomat. The editor, Dong Yuyu, was a columnist and deputy editor of the editorial section at Guangming Daily, one of the party’s major newspapers. For decades, he had routinely met with foreigners, including diplomats and journalists, in part to inform his own prolific writing. But now the authorities are eyeing those interactions as proof that…

China Says Chatbots Must Toe the Party Line

Chin@Strategy

Five months after ChatGPT set off an investment frenzy over artificial intelligence, Beijing is moving to rein in China’s chatbots, a show of the government’s resolve to keep tight regulatory control over technology that could define an era. The Cyberspace Administration of China unveiled draft rules this month for so-called generative artificial intelligence — the software systems, like the one behind ChatGPT, that can formulate text and pictures in response to a user’s questions and prompts. According to the regulations, companies must heed the Chinese Communist Party’s strict censorship rules,…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…