Thread: The View, from China

Worth a look

Oh dear, it seems the chinkies think Russian's supposed "hypersonic" missiles are actually a pile of shit.

I think we knew that anyway though.



Chinese analysts disappointed by Russian Kinzhal missiles' performance / The New Voice of Ukraine

Post the article, Harry

Originally Posted by helge

Post the article, Harry

There's a link in the post you fucking idiot.

Try clicking it.

The complex will consist of a mixed feed steam cracker with an expected maximum annual ethylene capacity of 1.8 million tons and world-class downstream facilities including ethylene glycols, polyethylene, polypropylene, polycarbonate and several other units using world-leading technologies, with nine technologies from SABIC.

That's clever of the Saudis.

When it breaks, it will spill the shit in Chinkystan, not the magic kingdom.

Good news coming from China:

On average, Chinese people save much higher proportions of their income than the population in the EU, for example, and for years they have invested a large part of it in housing. However, many buildings are now empty, especially in smaller cities. According to estimates, hundreds of millions or even the entire population of China could live there.

Evergrande Was Once China’s Biggest Property Developer. Now, It Has Been Ordered to Liquidate

wsj.com

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Evergrande Was Once China’s Biggest Property Developer. Now, It Has Been Ordered to Liquidate


wsj.com

Has assets of $240Bn (How much of that is over-valued, decaying, abandoned real estate?)

Has debts of $300Bn.

Good to see Mr. Shithole running a tight ship.

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Evergrande Was Once China’s Biggest Property Developer. Now, It Has Been Ordered to Liquidate


wsj.com

Yes, ordered to liquidate in HK. Which now has a liquidation agreement with PRC. Anyone betting they'll honour that agreement any time soon.

Originally Posted by Shutree

Yes, ordered to liquidate in HK. Which now has a liquidation agreement with PRC. Anyone betting they'll honour that agreement any time soon.

Or perhaps they'll miraculously find some money from "somewhere".

"Public consultation"

Q1: "Would you like to be renditioned to a chinky torture site or keep your mouth shut?"

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong begun public consultation Tuesday on enacting its own national security law, beginning a process to implement legislation that for years was widely opposed by residents who feared the erosion of their civil liberties.
Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 and a crackdown on dissent followed. Many of the city’s leading pro-democracy activists have been arrested, silenced or forced into self-exile. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, and outspoken media outlets like Apple Daily and Stand News have been forced to shut down.
Both the Hong Kong and Beijing governments have hailed the law for restoring stability after the massive pro-democracy protests in 2019.
But the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, requires the city to enact its own national security law.

Hong Kong begins public consultation to implement domestic national security law | AP News

China’s economy is about to implode. We will all feel the aftershocks

Evergrande, the embattled Chinese real estate giant with debts of $300 billion, has just been ordered to liquidate by a court in Hong Kong. What effect will this have, both within China and across the global economy?


This latest twist is no surprise. Evergrande has long been dead in the water. The point to grasp is that Evergrande’s latest setback will not trigger a financial crisis in China; it is rather the result of the financial crisis which has been deepening for at least four years.


For far too long, up to 30 per cent of the Chinese economy had depended on a grossly inflated domestic property bubble. By 2020, when the government finally took urgent measures to limit this debt, its corrosive effects had distorted and disabled both the formal banking sector and also the much less accountable and manageable Shadow Banking system. Both are now in serious disarray as a result.


Ramifications of this unregulated borrowing and lending crisis have spread across the economy at large. The collapse of the property and construction bubble has weakened domestic economic confidence, deepening the unemployment crisis and posing major challenges to local government budgets. These domestic concerns have led to the current implosion of the Chinese stock market. In turn this has compelled foreign investors to take a more realistic position on China risk than believing the golden goose fables still being peddled by Beijing. Meanwhile, with some notable exceptions such as EVs, contraction of markets abroad for Chinese products has highlighted how much China remains export-dependent in a cooling global economy.


All of this calls into question the capacity of the Chinese leadership to halt and reverse the decline of the wider economy. Western commentators have been saying for years that China still has significant potential to revitalise its stagnant economy. Provided swift and deep-rooted reform policies are driven through, China could still pull itself out of the current downward spiral.


But this prospect is rapidly vanishing. The piecemeal efforts Beijing has made to prop up failing property giants like Evergrande and their backers, including the likes of Zhongzhi and Wanxiang, have had no fundamental impact. The CCP needs to devolve more economic powers to the private sector, and reverse the trend to ever-tightening centralisation. Yet Xi Jinping, seemingly unable to relinquish the self-defeating Marxist-Leninist ideology of strengthened Party and personal control, has abandoned the former and doubled down on the latter.


Evergrande had effectively defaulted by late 2021. It lost around 66.3 billion that year. Its founder sold $343 million of shares that November. Losses in 2022 were around 14.6 billion. Complex efforts since to manage debt down have all failed, which is reflected in Monday’s Hong Kong ruling. Evergrande’s operation in the US applied for bankruptcy in August last year. The chances are minimal that Evergrande creditors, whether in China or abroad, will see any of their money back.


The Hong Kong ruling may not in itself deliver the death-blow to Evergrande; the chances of full PRC co-operation in the process of liquidation in mainland China are slim. Some other formula will probably be adopted to disperse its toxic fragments more discreetly. But this too symbolises the issue of credibility the CCP is facing. Beijing remains astride the obsolete economic tiger on which Party power and authority has long depended. Now the tiger’s days are plainly numbered, the Chinese leadership still lacks both the vision and courage to dismount.


But the risks of clinging to this misguided orthodoxy are growing. The new generation of Chinese workers, who should drive forward the revival of their nation, no longer enjoys the growth which brought their parents out of poverty and into the now disintegrating housing market. Their inheritance has been frittered away buying millions of properties that will never be completed. Local government, in default of any more realistic strategy, has become largely dependent for its budgets on questionable land sales to developers who are now going under in their tens of thousands. Public resentment and disaffection with the CCP is on the rise. Xi and his henchmen, as yet safe in their Party citadel, may have fewer and fewer choices to make.

China’s economy is about to implode. We will all feel the aftershocks

On the bright side, less pesky chinky tourists.

Not much of a "view from china" when Mr. Shithole is busy censoring anyone who points out what a shit job he's doing.

China’s top intelligence agency issued an ominous warning last month about an emerging threat to the country’s national security: Chinese people who criticize the economy.
In a series of posts on its official WeChat account, the Ministry of State Security implored citizens to grasp President Xi Jinping’s economic vision and not be swayed by those who sought to “denigrate China’s economy” through “false narratives.” To combat this risk, the ministry said, security agencies will focus on “strengthening economic propaganda and public opinion guidance.”
China is intensifying its crackdown while struggling to reclaim the dynamism and rapid economic growth of the past. Beijing has censored and tried to intimidate renowned economists, financial analysts, investment banks and social media influencers for bearish assessments of the economy and the government’s policies. In addition, news articles about people experiencing financial struggles or the poor living standards for migrant workers are being removed.

How China Censors Critics of the Economy - The New York Times

Countries are clamoring to join BRICS group, South Africa says, as Russia takes up leadership

By Simone McCarthy, CNN

3 minute read

Updated 2:37 AM EST, Thu February 1, 2024

CNN Hong Kong

"Nearly three dozen countries are seeking entry into the China and Russia-backed BRICS economic group, member state South Africa said Wednesday, weeks after the body expanded its membership for the first time in more than a decade.

Thirty-four countries have submitted an expression of interest in joining the bloc of major emerging economies, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told reporters, without naming the nations.

Russia was accepting those applications after assuming rotating chairmanship of the group this year – and will be the first member to oversee the body since it significantly expanded its global footprint at the start of the year, when Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, and Egypt formally joined.

The growing membership is widely viewed as a win for China and Russia, which have sought to reshape an international system they see as unfairly dominated by the United States amid growing frictions with Washington and the West.

BRICS, which since 2011 had been made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, roughly positions itself as the Global South’s answer to the Group of Seven (G7) major developed economies.

China has been a key driver of its expansion as leader Xi Jinping pushes an alternative world order, forging closer partnerships with key global players from Russia to the Middle East and strengthening international bodies where Beijing holds sway. ....

Continues here:

China news - breaking news, video, headlines and opinion | CNN

Uneven path to finish Evergrande's abandoned housing in Chinese city

SHIJIAZHUANG, HEBEI, Feb 2 - In the heart of the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, a fence displaying the slogan "Happy Every Day" hides an unfinished apartment complex, a daily reminder of the unresolved costs of the collapse of China’s once-largest developer.


Construction on the Central Plaza project that promised buyers about 1,800 new homes stalled in 2021 after China Evergrande Group 3333.HK defaulted. A government notice on the site says the project is seeking a new developer.


Buyers, who paid in full years ago, have been stuck watching and waiting for a lifeline.

“We seem to have no way of resolving this issue," said a 38-year-old Shijiazhuang resident, who bought two still-unfinished units for more than $350,000 in 2017 and who asked not to be named.


A Hong Kong court on Monday ordered Evergrande to be liquidated, a process expected to take years and to include consideration of some kind of restructuring of more than $300 billion in liabilities.


Evergrande has said it would work to finish ongoing projects despite the order. China has said that completing the unfinished homes is a policy priority.


But the project in Shijiazhuang, an industrial city with about 11 million people, shows the scale and difficulty of working through the overhang of unfinished construction left by Evergrande and just how much its downfall has damaged confidence.


"This has made me lose faith in the housing authorities' management capabilities as well as real estate," the Evergrande home buyer told Reuters.


Shijiazhuang's housing bureau and China's housing ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Evergrande did not reply to a request for comment.


Investment bank Nomura estimated in November there were around 20 million units of unfinished homes across China, left by Evergrande and other failed developers. The total funding gap for completing those projects stood at around $446 billion, the report estimated.


Gavekal Dragonomics, a China-focused research firm, estimated that as of last year, Evergrande had received payments in advance from homebuyers equivalent to about 600,000 housing units.


HOME DELIVERY ‘GUARANTEE’


State-owned developers and local governments have taken over some stalled projects under a government-run "guarantee home delivery" policy in recent months, according to official announcements and media reports.


Reuters could not verify the total number of unfinished Evergrande projects in Shijiazhuang. Last month, the local government announced the completion of 40 out of 44 unfinished housing projects it had taken over in 2021. None of them belonged to Evergrande.


In Shijiazhuang's rural outskirts, construction has resumed on another Evergrande development of 48 residential blocks with nearly 3,600 units, although few workers were on site this week in the run-up to Lunar New Year.


The project includes two castle-like community buildings with decorative spires next to an unfinished retail strip and more traditional apartment buildings that appeared to be nearly finished. Weeds have grown through the yet-unpaved shopping lane.


Workers and two people who identified themselves as local officials said construction had resumed last year after the project was taken over by the local government. A developer-run WeChat page for the project said last month that the masonry on some buildings had been completed.


China has not disclosed how much funding has been provided to complete stranded developments or the number of projects authorities have taken on. China's housing ministry said in August more than 1.65 million pre-sold units had delivered under the programme.


The Shijiazhuang resident waiting for work to resume on the Central Plaza project said buying a new apartment in China was just too risky. He regrets not putting the money he committed to the project to buy a property in Tokyo or Osaka.


"I will never invest in this place again,” he told Reuters.

Uneven path to finish Evergrande's abandoned housing in Chinese city | Taiwan News | 2024-02-03 1426

Why is Xi Jinping so worried about food security?

China’s State Council has ordered local governments and rural communities to ensure grain production never dips below minimum levels, to “safeguard food security and ensure there is no large-scale relapse into poverty.”


To achieve this, national grain output must remain above 1.3 trillion jin (650 million tons) in 2024, the annual agricultural and rural policy document, known as “Document No. 1,” says.


The Feb. 3 directive also calls on local authorities to learn from ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s poverty alleviation project in rural Zhejiang in 2003, by “storing food in the land,” a slogan referring to a system of fallow agricultural land that can be quickly sown with food crops if grain stores are running low.


The paper also calls for “strengthening the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party on work regarding agriculture, rural areas, and farmers,” state news agency Xinhua reported.


Current affairs commentator Guo Min said food security is once more cropping up as a major preoccupation for China’s leadership, citing the large-scale abandonment of agricultural land by farmers in recent years.


He said the fact that this year’s Document No. 1 once more mentions food security shows that securing rural grain production levels remains a big headache for the authorities.

While Xi’s government declared in November 2020 that it had eliminated extreme poverty due to the mass and often enforced relocation of younger migrant workers to cities, it has also stepped up its day-to-day controls over farming activities, deploying controversial “agricultural management” enforcement officials to tighten state control over the supply of grain and to facilitate the transfer of rural land away from farmers if needed.


Guo said the mention of “a return to poverty” highlights something that has already happened.


“My understanding of the phrase ‘preventing a large-scale return to poverty’ is that the Chinese people are on the road to extreme poverty, and that this is inevitable,” he said.


“China now doesn’t even have the money for the government to take care of its own people,” Guo said, in a reference to empty local government coffers in the wake of the three-year zero-COVID policy, and unpaid civil service wages.


Storehouses running low


Yang Haiying, a professor at Japan’s Shizuoka University, said the authorities likely fear food shortages could lead to widespread social unrest.


“Chen Yun, a friend of Deng Xiaoping, the [late] former leader of ... the Communist Party of China, once said that the Chinese people are easy to manage,” Yang said. “As long as they have enough to eat, they will be fine, and won’t rebel.”


“Since Xi Jinping came to power, they have [supposedly] solved the problem of poverty, [but] I think they know that there isn’t much food in the granaries.”


“They expect food shortages around the world following the Russia-Ukraine war, and they have a sense that there could be a crisis both at home and internationally,” Yang said.


Faced with rising living costs, residents of China’s rural areas have typically turned to factory or construction work in cities to supplement their incomes in recent decades, and have even been spotted asking for unofficial “tolls” on rural roads in recent months.

Now, the government is trying to revitalize rural areas through business partnership initiatives, according to state media reports on Document No. 1, in the hope of attracting entrepreneurs and farmers alike to settle in rural areas.


“I sometimes go to rural areas, and most of it is unused wasteland,” Guo said. “Farmers can’t make money growing crops, so, unless they just grow food for themselves, who will do the farming?”


“They can only farm with government support,” he said. “If they want to ensure food security, they will need to introduce a series of policies, for example, raising purchase prices for grain.”

Why is Xi Jinping so worried about food security? — Radio Free Asia

Originally Posted by misskit

Why is Xi Jinping so worried about food security?

Because if a billion people want the useless fucker gone, he'll be gone.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Countries are clamoring to join BRICS group

China-Laos Railway builds on momentum in new year as cargo and passenger numbers grow

By Global Times
Published: Feb 08, 2024 04:13 PM

"The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) flagship project of China-Laos Railway has facilitated 27.87 million passenger journeys and 32.56 million tons of cargo since it entered operation on December 3, 2021, China Media Group reported on Thursday, reflecting the strong momentum in China-Laos business trade and personnel exchanges.
So far in 2024, the railway has transported 2.01 million tons of cargo, of which 55,000 tons are cross-border cargo, an increase of 29.7 percent year-on-year. Over half of railway cargo transport with ASEAN countries was facilitated by the China-Laos Railway, according to the report.

The China-Laos Railway is now a common means of importing tropical fruits and beer from Thailand and Laos that is then sold in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and South China's Guangdong Province. In addition, China's vegetables, fruits, photovoltaics and home appliances were transported to Southeast Asian countries via the rail link, the report said.

With the increasing number of cargo categories and volume, the regular Kunming-Vientiane Express shortens travel time between the two cities to 26 hours. It has also formed an international logistic artery by linking with China-Europe freight train network, which made the travel time from countries such as Laos and Thailand to European railway to 15 days.

For passenger transport, the China-Laos Railway facilitated 1.86 million passenger trips, of which 23,000 were cross-border passenger trips in January of 2024.

In order to meet the surging demand for cross-border train tickets, the railway operator in Kunming has lifted daily passenger limit. Since China-Laos Railway's cross-border passenger service first opened on April 13, 2023, the railway has facilitated a total 130,000 cross-border travelers from 83 countries and regions.

The China-Laos Railway, now running for over two years, has further integrated regional logistics, capital flow, and personnel communication between the two countries.

There were only about 10 types of cross-border cargos being transported when the railway first began operation. Currently, that figure has surpassed 2,900 categories, from electronics and photovoltaics to cold-chain fruits, boosting economic development along the railway. "

China-Laos Railway builds on momentum in new year as cargo and passenger numbers grow - Global Times

More of the loan sharking to build something that benefits the chinkies at the expense of Laos and Thai citizens.

Pushing the prices of local goods up of course, since the chinkies are taking most of them.

FEBRUARY 6, 2024 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR


China, Russia pip US to the Taliban hearth

"The diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan on January 31, 2024 by China must be bracketed with two other far-reaching regional policy moves by Beijing in the post-cold war era —the Shanghai Five in 1996 — later renamed as Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2001— and the Belt and Road Initiative announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013.
A regional security architecture is emerging with the above three legs reinforcing, supplementing and interchanging in a creative response to the rapidly transforming international environment. If the SCO marked China’s return to Central Asia after nearly a century and the BRI creates massive strategic depth for China’s global rise, the move on Afghanistan has geopolitical characteristics in relation to the Asian Century.

At its most obvious level, Beijing has outwitted the US’ surreptitious, attempts in the recent months to return to Afghanistan after its humiliating military defeat and exit in 2021. The Biden Administration produced in the public domain a back-dated document titled Integrated Country Strategy for Afghanistan on the same day that Xi Jinping received the letter of credentials from the Taliban ambassador at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on January 30.

The document contained the following core elements:

“Predatory powers like Iran, China and Russia seek strategic and economic advantage (in Afghanistan) or at a minimum to put the US at a disadvantage;
“Even as, –- and for as long as –- the United States does not recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, we must build functional relationships that fulfil our (US) objectives”;
“With diaspora Afghans, we discourage support for a new armed conflict through resistance group proxies in Afghanistan — more violence or regime change is not the solution to the Taliban”;
“we must simultaneously pump unprecedented amounts of humanitarian assistance into the country, convince the Taliban to adopt international economic norms and advocate tirelessly for education”;
“With the Taliban we advocate for consular access…”
The document is a shameful retreat from the thundering US rhetoric that unless the Taliban fulfilled its conditions, Washington would ostracise the government in Kabul and freeze its bank accounts. Apparently, the Biden administration no longer insists on its demands and is knocking at Kabul gates for entry.

Interestingly, the document, while taking note of the human rights conditions in Afghanistan and the absence of a broad-based government in Kabul, acknowledges that regime change is no longer an option. It calls on the diaspora Afghans (who are largely in the West) to reconcile with the Kabul government, and seeks a consular presence for the US in Afghanistan.

The US is nervous about the Russian and Chinese approaches vis-a-vis the Taliban government. Conceivably, we need to reassess the US invitation to the Pakistani army chief Gen. Asim Munir to pay a 5-day visit to America in end-December, engaging in discussions with senior officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence General Lloyd Austin. Going back even further, it is also necessary to contextualise the ouster of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan (“Taliban Khan”) from power by the military, with American support. Pakistan’s role becomes crucial as Central Asian states harmonise with Russia and China. (See my blog Decoding Iran’s missile, drone strikes, Indian Punchline, Jan. 18, 2024)

Sensing the American moves to return to Central Asia and reboot the great game, Russia and China are determined to stay two steps ahead in engaging with the Taliban government. Most certainly, China’s diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government is in coordination with Russia. On the same day that Xi Jinping received the credentials letter from the Taliban ambassador, the special envoys of Russia and China visited Kabul and took part in a meeting under the rubric Regional Cooperation Initiative convened by the Taliban government which was attended by diplomats from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Indonesia. Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi addressed the meeting.

All the same, the Chinese decision to recognise the Taliban government cannot be seen through the prism of the great game. In the economic sphere, China is already a big stakeholder in Afghanistan and its equity is growing. Equally, Kabul is an enthusiastic votary of the Belt and Road and potentially, Afghanistan is another gateway for China to the Gulf region and beyond. China is planning a direct road link connecting Xinjiang with Afghanistan via Wakhan Corridor.

At long last, the construction work on the missing link in the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is also commencing — a new strategic Eurasia logistic network along the Belt and Road route that can connect Afghanistan with both China and the European market.

Indeed, the geopolitical significance of the China-Afghanistan normalisation is to be measured in global terms in the contemporary world situation. A friendly government in Kabul gives China enormous strategic depth to push back the US’ hostile moves in Asia-Pacific.

The bottom line is that China is establishing formal links with a militant Islamist movement that once harboured Osama bin Laden and that is happening at a time when the US is demonising the resistance movements in the Muslim Middle East and has unleashed a vicious boring campaign against them in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Of course, the resistance movements in the Muslim Middle East will draw inspiration from China’s example.

Equally, the participation of 9 regional states — Indonesia and India, in particular — in the regional meeting hosted by the Taliban government in Kabul is an assertion of the Asian Century. Addressing the meeting in Kabul, Taliban’s foreign minister Muttaqi emphasised that these nations “should hold regional dialogues to increase and continue the positive interaction with Afghanistan.” Muttaqi asked the participants to take advantage of emerging opportunities in Afghanistan for the development of the region and to also “coordinate the management of potential threats”.

He stressed the need for positive interactions with the countries of the region and asked the diplomats to convey the Taliban’s message of a “region-oriented initiative” to their countries so that Afghanistan and the region can jointly take advantage of new opportunities for the benefit of all. Reports in the Afghan media quoted Muttaqi as saying that the meeting was focused on discussions for establishing a “region-centric narrative aimed at developing regional cooperation for a positive and constructive engagement between Afghanistan and regional countries”. (here)

Without doubt, China has now shown the way that the era of imperialism is buried forever and erstwhile colonial powers should realise that their dubious methods of “divide and rule” no longer works.

The State Department’s Integrated Country Strategy for Afghanistan is quintessentially old wine in a new bottle. Reading between the lines, the US hopes to revive its interventionist policies in Afghanistan for geopolitical purposes, while shedding crocodile tears over the human rights situation. Its strategic calculus is a morbid mix of geopolitics and Neo-mercantilism.

However, Taliban is unlikely to fall for it, being witness to the US’ bombing campaign against Muslim nations on an industrial scale that harks back to the two-decade long western occupation of Afghanistan.

The back-dated state department document is a knee-jerk reaction by the Biden Administration as word spread that Beijing is moving towards diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government with the active support of Moscow and Beijing aiming at creating a firewall to prevent further manipulation of the Afghan situation by the West. Short of an outright recognition, Moscow has extended a vital lifeline for Kabul.

It was no coincidence that Xi Jinping received the new Taliban ambassador at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the very same day that the Taliban government unveiled its regional initiative."

China, Russia pip US to the Taliban hearth - Indian Punchline

Oh my...