China’s economy takes a hit after the party congress
Chinese spies face charges in the US
And Hong Kong is doing just great. Welcome to China
Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Every year, the Chinese Communist Party sets a growth target for the
Chinese economy. This year, they set that GDP growth target at 5.5 percent.
But because of their Zero Covid policy, China’s economy has been way underperforming. Even
according to official statistics. Which, shall we say, are sometimes slightly “massaged”.
According to GDP numbers released this week, China’s economy showed
higher-than-expected growth this quarter…
Of 3.9 percent.
Yes, that is below 5.5 percent. But no one actually expected it to be that high.
Analysts polled by Reuters were forecasting 3.4 percent growth. So the
economy technically exceeded expectations! Hey, that’s what my third grade teacher Mrs.
Murphy said about me! I’m…suddenly realizing that’s not a good thing.
Anyway, the big reason this looks better than expected is that China’s economy
actually shrank by 2.7 percent last quarter compared to the beginning of the year.
So China really needs a big rebound to make the Party’s growth target of 5.5 percent by the end
of the year. Now I’m no economist, but I think I can predict what’s going to happen next quarter:
China’s economy is going to bounce back! It’s going to grow just quickly enough to either meet
or slide right under the Communist Party’s target growth rate. Let’s say 5.4 percent.
Everyone will write headlines about how China’s economy technically exceeded expectations.
While China’s GDP grew, that’s about the end of the good financial news this week.
Chinese stocks fell around the world,
as investors suddenly realized that China is ruled by a Communist Party.
The top 10 Chinese companies listed on US stock
exchanges lost almost 70 billion dollars in market value on Monday.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index had its largest one-day drop since the 2009 financial crisis.
So why were investors freaking out?
One reason could be because Chinese leader Xi
Jinping keeps talking about how great the Zero Covid policy is.
There’s no indication that Zero Covid is going to end anytime soon, and many economists see that
as the primary thing wrecking the economy. And investors are also concerned that the Communist
Party’s “ideology-driven policies would be prioritized at the cost of private sector growth.”
So foreign investors have been pumping billions into China for decades,
a country ruled by a Communist Party that literally has Marxism-Leninism
and a whole bunch of other ideological theories written into its Constitution.
It’s also a country where the Party has a massive amount of
control over both state-run and private companies.
For example, this is Bytedance, the company that owns TikTok.
And these investors just realized that the Party might be driven by ideology? Good for them.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang , who currently oversees economic policy,
will be stepping down next March. Li Keqiang’s likely replacement,
Li Qiang, is a diehard Xi Jinping loyalist.
Li is also the top party official who oversaw the crushing two-month lockdown of Shanghai
earlier this year. At the time, many people thought that would be the end of his career.
But loyalty to Xi Jinping was apparently more important.
By the way, a little General Hostility side note here, if Li Qiang does become the premier,
that’s a sign that Xi is going to make some big changes to how the Party handles the economy.
So stop investing in China.
And after the break, the FBI charges Chinese spies.
Welcome back. Could Elon Musk’s honeymoon with China be ending?
Tesla is cutting the price of its cars in China, a possible sign of slowing demand.
Tesla didn’t give a reason for the price cuts.
But analysts say it’s because of competition from Chinese electric carmakers and a sluggish economy.
Tesla *raised* prices earlier this year to deal with increasing materials costs.
Despite that, the China Passenger Car Association said Tesla had record sales in China last month.
If Chinese demand for Teslas *does* dry up though, this could be really bad news for Tesla.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that up to half of
Tesla’s profits come from the Chinese market. Which is why Elon Musk could be sucking up to
Beijing. He was praised by China for suggesting that Taiwan, a fully independent country,
could keep some, maybe most, of its democracy if it became a part of China.
The US Justice Department unveiled charges on Monday against two Chinese spies working
on behalf of a Chinese telecommunications company. That company is likely Huawei.
The spies were accused of trying to steal information on a criminal
investigation into Huawei in the Eastern District of New York.
They did that by allegedly “paying a $41,000 Bitcoin bribe to a U.S. government employee
who the defendants believed had been recruited to work for the PRC”
“The defendants believed they had recruited the U.S. government employee as an asset. But in fact,
the individual they recruited was actually a double agent, working on behalf of the FBI.”
Oooo double agent, very Spy vs Spy. “The double agent provided the defendants
with documents that appeared to present some of the information they sought.
In fact, the documents were prepared by the U.S. government for the purpose of
this investigation and did not reveal actual meetings, communications, or strategies.”
The US government says the two spies are still at large.
But overall, this is good news. I’m glad to see the US government
is actually shedding light on these things.
Also on Monday, the Justice Department charged 7 Chinese nationals it says were
part of China’s Operation Fox Hunt. Operation Fox Hunt is how the Chinese
Communist Party tracks down fugitives all over the world. Sometimes these fugitives are former
officials. Other times, they’re dissidents who have spoken out against the Communist Party.
The goal of Operation Fox Hunt is to get them to return to China to face punishment.
In this case, the 7 are accused of trying to force one Chinese
national living in the US to go back to China. “The indictment alleges that the defendants,
working at the direction of the government of the PRC, engaged in a campaign of harassment,
threats, surveillance, and intimidation aimed at coercing the victim to return to China.”
Two of the seven Chinese nationals have been arrested.
And finally, the Justice Department also charged four Chinese nationals, three of whom work for
China’s Ministry of State Security, with trying to recruit Americans to act as agents of China.
The four targeted university professors and a former federal
law enforcement official, among others.
One of the things they asked the former law enforcement official was to help stop protests
along the 2008 Olympics torch route in the US, because it would be embarrassing to China.
So when you think of the Chinese Communist Party, remember that they’re so scared and
petty they’ll use spies to stop people from holding up a Free Tibet sign in another country.
And after the break, China’s other extralegal law enforcement network is getting exposed.
Welcome back.
Last month we reported that underground Chinese police stations
were popping up all over the world. Well, the Netherlands says it’s now
investigating two such police stations, one in Amsterdam and another in Rotterdam.
A Dutch broadcaster said that the offices were supposedly set up to help Chinese
nationals with administrative things like renewing a driver’s license in China.
But that apparently wasn’t their only mission. The offices had “also been used
to track and harass critics of Beijing.” The Dutch foreign Ministry said they were
never notified that China was sending law enforcement into the country. It called
the Chinese police offices illegal. China’s foreign ministry claimed they
were just “overseas Chinese service centers”, not police stations at all.
Yeah, they’re not police stations if you don’t call them police stations. A rose
by any other name doesn’t smell as sweet. Sorry, Shakespeare.
And finally, in our periodic “Hong Kong is doing just great” segment…
Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai, who owned the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper,
has been convicted of fraud.
The US State Department has called those fraud charges “spurious.”
Many are worried that Hong Kong courts are being politicized by the Chinese regime.
So far, almost 3000 people have been prosecuted
for protesting against the Hong Kong government in 2019.
And in an ongoing national security trial,
one Hong Kong activist has been told she can’t say the words “Tiananmen massacre” in court.
The prosecutor suggested she use the term “June 4th incident” instead.
Like I said, Hong Kong is doing just great.
And this episode of China Uncensored was sponsored by you.
We’re able to keep making episodes like this
because of fans who support us on the crowdfunding site Patreon.
And as a thank you, I answer your questions at the end of each episode.
Today’s question comes from Ken Filbert: Chris, how can I watch full episodes off
YouTube? I will continue to donate to you. Your content is pleasant to watch,
even the most distressing issues, you can make us smile. Thank you sir!
No Ken, thank *you* sir, for helping us keep the show going!
I’ve heard from some of you on Patreon that you can’t episodes that YouTube has age-restricted
there. That’s because we’re embedding those videos from YouTube. We’re looking for a fix for that.
But we do also upload to Odysee.
And Rumble.
And we also have our own website, Chinauncensored.tv.
Where you can also check out our cool merch.
So Ken, Thanks for supporting the show.
If you’d like to be just as cool as Ken, visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching China Uncensored.