tyb
>>7485868 lb
ty for clarify
>JANET Airline @A51
fren who is deceased worked there too.
had to kill you if told you what he actually did. I never found out.
Xi moves right-hand man to Japan affairs as ties with West sour
China turns to a familiar crisis management formula: flatter thy neighbor.
TOKYO – In his last speech to the nation before stepping down as the head of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao, the predecessor to current leader Xi Jinping, declared that China's gross domestic product and per capita GDP would double by 2020, compared to 2010 levels.
That was seven years ago. Today, Xi's China faces the possibility of not being able to deliver on those goals, a potential outcome that has tongues wagging in the economic corridors of Chinese officialdom.
"There was a real possibility that Xi would fail to reach the goal passed on to him by Hu," one person said. "But they appear to have found a way, somewhat forcibly, to achieve it."
Once ridiculed as an incompetent leader who accomplished little, Hu suddenly finds himself being praised for having had a steady economic hand and for overseeing perhaps the end of a golden period for China's economy.
Immediately after the party's 2012 national congress, where Hu made his prediction, a Chinese central bank official expressed confidence that doubling GDP "can be achieved one or two years ahead of schedule."
But the situation has changed dramatically, with the Chinese economy growing 6% in real terms in the July-September quarter of 2019, its slowest pace of growth since 1992, when quarterly figures became available.
The handling of macroeconomic policy and China's trade war with the U.S. continue to add downward pressure on the economy.
Now, somewhat in desperation, the Chinese government is expected to inflate past GDP figures based on a new survey of small companies.
Originally, China was said to need at least 6.2% growth in 2019 and 2020 to achieve the GDP target. But with upward revisions of past GDP figures, the target can be achieved even if growth slips slightly below 6% in 2020.
Call it a magic wand.
China's GDP figures are a politically sensitive issue in a country that tightly regulates what people can say about the economy.
An influential economist who is said to be an adviser to Premier Li Keqiang recently predicted that growth over the next decade "will not exceed 5% on average."
In a video widely circulated within China, the economist said, "Given the severity of the Chinese economy, it is important to secure growth of 4% first."
The video was later scrubbed from the internet, as Chinese authorities decided it was too sensational for this moment.
But there is little doubt that Chinese economic statistics are inflated. The Xi administration itself has continued to warn local bureaucrats not to pump up local growth figures and make false reports to the central government.
Xiang Songzuo, an outspoken professor at Renmin University of China, pointed out that the rate of growth in the July-September quarter might be lower than the official figure of 6%.
In a recent interview with the Nikkei, Xiang said China's growth figures simply do not add up, given factors such as government tax revenues and corporate earnings. He is quite right, and alarm bells are ringing among party leaders.
On Friday, the party's powerful 25-member Politburo held a meeting and reaffirmed the "six stabilities" in relation to next year's economic policies. Topping the list is employment stability, suggesting there are job concerns despite 6% growth, a pace many countries would envy.
Second on the list is financial stability, hinting that China is concerned about the risk of a systemic financial crisis. Meanwhile, there are no references to reducing debt or curbing property speculation. This suggests that greater importance will be attached to boosting the economy than to implementing structural reforms.
There was another interesting passage. The Politburo talked of "transforming external pressure into motivation for deepening reform and further opening-up, and focusing on running China's own affairs well," according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The unfamiliar pronouncement suggests a departure from the hard-line rejection of U.S. demands for structural reforms that the Xi administration has maintained since May.
All in all, Xi is on rough terrain. China's relations with the U.S. are tense. The Chinese economy is in dire straits. And Beijing is coming under international criticism for its hard-line approach to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Hong Kong.
rest at link
https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Xi-moves-right-hand-man-to-Japan-affairs-as-ties-with-West-sour
bigger, did not make
made 'dat d'oh
last night was two planes and a blackhawk doing circles a little southwest of that spot. same call