The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to hide the condition of the nation’s post-pandemic struggling economy continue as the CCP has censored Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s speech, where he compared the Asian major’s ailing economy to a “sick patient”.
The Epoch Times reported, quoting China analysts, that the Xi Jinping-led Communist regime has censored the premier’s “disparaging” remarks, which he delivered at the Summer Davos Forum last month, in an attempt to conceal the nation’s ailing current economic state amid power struggles in the CCP.
The 15th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, or Summer Davos Forum, was hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Dalian city of China from June 25 to 27, where the premier, during his speech, compared the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery to that of a person recovering from a serious illness, suggesting a solution to boost China’s ailing economy.
“Instead of administering strong medication, it should be adjusted accurately and slowly following the practice of traditional Chinese medicine so that its roots can be gradually restored,” said Premier Li Qiang, adding that the foundation of the ill economy needs to be “consolidated and strengthened.”
Beijing has responded to the premier’s speech by censoring it and removing his comment on fixing China’s struggling economy from Chinese state media’s coverage of the event, while some China observers believe that Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to limit Li Qiang’s authority and cut off his influence.
According to reports, Li Quiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee and the premier of the State Council, is the second most powerful figure in the CCP.
In the post-pandemic era, the industrial growth rate of China has slowed, and that investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, and real estate fell across the board from January to May 2024, according to newly released official data from the Chinese communist regime’s National Bureau of Statistics for the month of May.
While the Chinese authorities have tried to portray positive prospects for the nation’s economy with the new numbers and attributed it to the success of its central planning, economists have pointed out the data show that China’s economy, with heavy state intervention, is exhibiting the traits of a “zombie economy.”
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The Epoch Times reported, quoting Wang Guo-chen, an assistant researcher at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research in Taiwan, that China’s economy, currently, is a “zombie economy” that only moves when it’s pushed by the state power.
“When the government’s power presses down, then the zombie economy jumps a bit. But when government intervention is gone, it stops moving,” Wang told the publication.
As defined by Quora, a zombie economy refers to an economic condition where businesses or entire economic sectors are able to continue operating while being unprofitable or near bankruptcy, often as a result of government support, low-interest rates, or continuous loans.
In the zombie economy, these struggling entities are referred to as “zombie companies.”
However, after releasing the report, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics said on June 17 that as a whole, the Chinese economy has “continued to recover and improve” because of the CCP’s supportive policies, the allocation of investment from the central government’s budget, and the accelerated issuance of special bonds.
According to a report by British bimonthly journal New Left Review, even before the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, the Chinese economy had slowed down and entered a domestic debt crisis, visible in the collapse of major real estate developers.
After the country lifted all pandemic restrictions in late 2022, a widely anticipated economic rebound failed to materialize, while youth unemployment spiked at above 20 percent, surpassing that of every other G-7 nation, and data on trade, price, manufacturing and GDP growth all point to deteriorating conditions – a trend that fiscal and monetary stimulus has failed to reverse, as reported by New Left Review.
The Economist, which had once projected that China would become the world’s biggest economy by 2018, surpassing the United States, now claims that the Asian nation might never catch up with the US.
As per a report by the New Left Review, it is universally acknowledged that Chinese President Xi Jinping is no liberal, having redoubled state intervention in the private sector and foreign enterprises while silencing dissenting voices.
According to the latest data, the growth in three major areas of the Asian major’s economy has slowed as national real estate development investment fell by 10.1 percent year-on-year in May and dropped 0.3 percentage points from the previous four months, while infrastructure investment had a fall of 0.3 percentage points from the previous four months but increased by 5.7 percent year-on-year, and manufacturing investment saw a decline of 0.1 percentage points from the previous four months but increased by 9.6 percent year-on-year.
However, the numbers and statistics provided by the Communist regime have always been questioned by the outside world for portraying an overly positive picture.
Furthermore, many of the CCP’s state-owned enterprises have recently been exposed while manipulating their financial data.
According to Chinese media reports, the six major state-owned enterprises in China that were exposed for financial fraud in the past two months are listed companies, and their inflated revenues totalled more than 16 billion yuan ($2.2 billion), while about 40 state-owned enterprises have been fined or warned this year for reporting inflated revenue.
