Inside a popular but now deleted article

#Newspaper

Editor’s note: "Nanfengchuang" is a biweekly magazine owned by the Chinese state media Guangzhou Daily Group. On 23 Jul in Jilin, Xi did mention about People’s Commune, which is a product from Mao's period. The way Xi thinks might be highly similar to Mao, or actually Xi is just mimicking Mao (even if that method didn't work in the past)

(27 Jul) An article in the Chinese media "Nanfengchuang" that interviewed Qin Shuo, a Chinese media person, was deleted after it went viral on the Internet recently. Without naming any specific politicians in the article, Qin Shuo said that China’s enemy is not the virus nor the United States. "Ideological isolation and imprisonment" are things that make people worry. The article also called on the Chinese government to be a "service-oriented government" and "maintain the rules" instead of directly allocating resources. How much does this say about the voice of Chinese private enterprises?

Qin Shuo said in the interview that he was worried about the social atmosphere in China,"a large number of people are caught in a war of words with no actual contribution all day long, and they attribute their own situation as consequences of other people's actions, thereby increasing social tension"; He also talked about thecurrent sense of insecurity in China's small and medium-sized enterprises, and called on the Chinese government to be a "service-oriented government" and maintainer of rules, rather than dominate the market.

Such an article mainly focused on the economy and reform was published for more than a month and was reposted extensively on the Internet. It was almost completely deleted on China’s major portal websites, and even removed from Nanfengchuang’s WeChat public account.

Wang Ruiqin, a former member of the CPPCC Qinghai Province of the Communist Party of China, abandoned education and went into business more than 30 years ago. After experiencing the booming development of Chinese private enterprises, she established Qinghai Donghu Hotel. But in 2019 she abandoned everything and moved to the United States. She said that China's scarce rule by law has left private entrepreneurs like her lacking institutional protection.Her life experience is a microcosm of the difficulties and high levels of insecurity faced by private enterprises.

"One is that the government does not have credibility, and the other is that enterprises are precarious, and at the judicial level, they are not equal to private enterprises, so why do private enterprises have no sense of security?(Because) the legal status and market players are very low and there isno guarantee. Then, the government would look for private enterprises for food, take, card, demand, exploits and bribes. They do not dare to target state-owned enterprises (in this way), nor did they dare to target foreign enterprises lightly."

Wang Ruiqin told reporters that China is not a fair business environment, and companies are divided into different levels. For the Chinese government, state-owned enterprises, from central SOEs to county-level SOEs, are "the eldest sons of the Republic" and foreign companies are the "adopted sons." Chinese President Xi Jinping recently held an "Entrepreneur Forum" and mentioned that "over 80 million individuals Industrial and commercial households have created more than 200 million jobs in China." These backbones of China's economy have the status of "illegitimate children." When the economic situation is not good, the Chinese government thinks of private enterprises and seeks talks. However, the key to the policy "say one thing and do another thing" is that there is no systematic guarantee of the rule by law system.

However, it is not only small and medium-sized private enterprises in China, but also Chinese "red-top businessmen" who used to have party and government officials as their backers, such as Wu Xiaohui, chairman of China Anbang Group, and Xiao Jianhua, founder of the "Tomorrow Department" and Chinese tycoon. Sentenced or arrested, property confiscated, assets and companies "taken over" by the Chinese government.

Chinese independent financial scholar He Jiangbing told this station that the situation of these red-top businessmen highlights that "Chinese entrepreneurs are either in prison or on their way to prison." For Chinese entrepreneurs, of course, this will be something to heart.

He said, "Chinese entrepreneurs are the most pragmatic and knowledgeable about risk aversion, looking for safe places to invest. The core of China's economic problems lies in enterprises, and the biggest problem facing enterprises is uncertainty."

Wu Xiaohui, the grandson of the late Communist Party of China (CCP) former leader Deng Xiaoping, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for illegal fund-raising and embezzlement.The Shanghai court confiscated RMB 10.5 billion in property in 2019 and recovered RMB 75.2 billion in illegal gains, totaling 85.7 billion. Setting a record for the highest amount of fines awarded by a mainland court.

After Xiao Jianhua was taken from Hong Kong to China for investigation on 27 Jan 2017, his whereabouts are still unknown.On July 17, the Chinese financial regulator took over the four insurance companies, two trust companies, and three securities companies of the "Tomorrow Department" that Xiao Jianhua once helmed. Tomorrow Holdings is a rare private enterprise in China with a "full financial" operating license. The 3 trillion financial empire built by Xiao Jianhua for more than 20 years and starting from 300 yuan collapsed overnight.

And Xi Jinping recently said that "entrepreneurs must be patriotic," and he also refers to the "internal circulation of China's economy", "it is by no means a closed door and closed operation."

Hu Ping, editor-in-chief of "Beijing Spring" magazine, told this media station that it is now rumored that even the Beidaihe meeting where retired elders in the party used to talk about opinions may not be held. This highlights that under Xi Jinping's rule, even the different voices in the CCP do not want to pretend to listen. Xi Jinping now has the confidence to compete with the world but in fact, it was the predecessors planted trees so that he can enjoy the shade.

Hu Ping said, "He (Xi Jinping) is totally eating the dividends of Deng, Jiang, and Hu(Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao) to make China's economy have such a remarkable economic development. He has done a lot of retrogressive things and has already done a lot to China. The economy has a lot of negative effects."

Hu Ping pointed out that Xi Jinping will not return to the Cultural Revolution period of the "People's Commune."

But in 2020, the closing year of a well-off society in an all-round way, what kind of report card will Xi Jinping leave behind? The deletion of an article on how Chinese companies find vitality in the crisis shows that Qin Shuo is worried that "the ideological closure and confinement restrict people's enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity." This is still China's current style.

Source: Radio Free Asia 

Translated by: Hong Kong Echo

#China #MediaControl #BannedActicle #XiJinping #Economics #Censorship #BusinessEnvironment #QinShuo