GOVERNMENT-backed coins and private cryptocurrencies will coexist for a while, despite rising regulatory walls set by the government to counter virtual coins, experts at a global webinar session said Thursday.
Noting that cryptocurrencies and digital currencies by governments are “two different animals,” they will coexist for now partly because current cryptocurrencies are not actually solving payment problems.
“How many of them (cryptocurrencies) are solving actual payment problem? Most of them are speculative and used as a means of storage,” said Nelson Chow, chief fintech officer of the Fintech Facilitation Office at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Chow said that some central bank digital currency, or CBDC, projects such as Multiple CBDC Bridge have the potential to solve decades-old problems for cross-border transactions. Multiple CBDC Bridge is a wholesale CBDC co-creation project between the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, the People‘s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates.
Under the current regulatory environment, John Kiffmeiste, a former senior financial sector expert at the International Monetary Fund, said that it is unlikely that the emergence of CBDC projects, now numbering nearly 60 according to Kiffmeiste’s data, would make crypto assets obsolete.
“CBDC has to operate within confines of tax regulations, anti-money laundering, KYC (know-your-customer) and so many other regulations whereas cryptocurrencies don’t operate in that environment,” the economist added.
Speakers at the webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network.
But, Kiffmeiste pointed out that as the regulatory and legislative walls are closing in on crypto assets, they will come under the same rules that other types of conventional currencies operate under. “In that case, that levels the playing field. Perhaps in that new world, CBDCs and cryptocurrencies coexist, but crypto assets become redundant as at least payment medium.”
Andrew Sheng, one of Asia’s top economists, stressed that authorities should understand the complex contextual backgrounds that have brought about the rising interest in CBDCs and cryptocurrencies.
Noting that the value of the cryptocurrency market has reached US$1.2tril – half the value of the official gold reserves – Sheng said cryptocurrencies had grown outside of the purview of public control. “This was the big lesson of the Covid-19, private cyber currencies will be with us whether you like it or not,” Sheng said.
The tug-of-war between regulators and cryptocurrencies is most apparent in the US in the area of stablecoins like USD Coin, a digital equivalent of the US dollar.
The US-proposed Stable Act will bring USD stablecoin issuers into conventional regulatory perimeters.
Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said that the cryptocurrency industry does not have to be allergic to regulations.
“There is always a notion that we have to choose either innovation or regulation. And I think it’s a false dichotomy. For new technological markets to mature and develop, they need to be trusted. They need to get to the point where ordinary people around the world are willing to participate in these activities at scale, and regulations are an important part of that,” Werbach said.
As to the increasing public controls on crypto assets, speakers called for regulations compatible with the emerging cryptocurrency industry. They shared a similar view that cryptocurrency companies and regulators must work together on bringing the industry into the system.
“Since innovation is always ahead of regulation, it is inevitable for regulators to rely on us when drafting policies. It is crucial to reshape their ‘legacy mindset’ and make them understand the nature and dynamics of cryptocurrency,” said Marcus Lim, CEO and co-founder of Zipmex.
They were speaking at a webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network entitled “The rise of Govcoins & What’s next for crypto”. Speakers at the July 22 virtual seminar included a group of experts in the US, Europe and Asia who are navigating the current situation surrounding the development of central bank digital currencies and challenges posed by and to cryptocurrencies.
Experts said that central bank digital currencies have a huge potential to solve many issues, ranging from decades-old problems involving cross-border transactions to digital transformation.
Kiffmeiste noted that almost 60 jurisdictions are currently exploring retail CBDCs, with countries like the Bahamas and China at the forefront, but they are divided in their motivations for issuing the CBDCs. For instance, emerging economies consider CBDCs as a way to spur financial digitalisation, while advanced economics mull digital currency as part of financial stability and to improve monetary policies. — The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
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It’s
finally happened. A major worldwide government has just bestowed a huge vote of confidence and legitimacy onto the world of cryptocurrencies. China, in an unprecedented move, just announced that they are officially adopting a certain cryptocurrency as China's official coin!
The government of China just informed that they have chosen a
preferred firm for the purchase and marketing of their new coin - YuanPay Group. The sales of China's coin officially started Juny 12 of 2021 and currently these coins can be bought only from YuanPay Group.
In fact, China deputy minister of finances, Liu Kun, informed that their new official coin stating price is just CNY 0.12!
! 1 Chinese Yuan equals
0.13 EUR
That’s right, the coin is incredibly inexpensive in comparison to most other coins out there. Bitcoin, for example, trades at CNY 65,366.84 at the time of this writing and Ethereum trades at
around CNY 1,362.76.
We were able to get Sir Richards Bronson’s thoughts on China’s new coin and this is what he had to say:
Sir Richard Bronson stated (pic): "Everytime a major corporation
announces even a small partnership with an individual
cryptocurrency, that coin’s value skyrockets. I can't wait to see what
is going to happen when a government officially adopts a crypto. When
the name of China’s coin is released, many people will become
millionaires practically overnight."
A few of us at forbes were curious enough to buy a couple coins just to see how everything looks and what the reading fees are
like.
It was fairly easy to get the coins, but i will show you the whole process below for those that are interested.
First step was to fill out all the details. As you can see, nothing complicated so far.
Second step, I was taken to YuanPay Group's wallet, where they chose my country specific broker to buy China's
coins.
Third step, I was taken to purchase page and had to fill out
my details.
For CNY 1,921, I received 21,375 coins at CNY 0.12 cents each. You
can see current value of my coins on the same page.
PS: As an early investor they gave me 5,367 extra coins for
free!
The whole process was simple and I even received a phone call
from one of YuanPay Group's friendly agents, but
I didn't really need any help as the whole process was easy
enough.
After finishing this article, literally around 4 hours, I
checked my wallet again and to my surprise:
In only 4 hours, the price increased from CNY 0.12 to CNY 0.31. At
this point, I was positively surprised. I am not selling my
coins as of yet because all the experts predict that the
price will rise to at least CNY 9,192.63 per coin in matter of
months.
YuanPay Group was kind enough to give us
a 100% accurate coin movement price counter, so everyone can see
the increase directly on this page.
Official price currently
1 coin=CNY 0.33
(Note - price is being updated every 30 minutes)
With a story of this nature, news seems to be breaking every so often,
we’ll be sure to update the story as needed.
You can find their promo video as well as direct coin sales here:
Xinjiang PV enterprise refutes unfounded Bloomberg report on irresponsible accusation of ‘forced labor’, plots ‘industry stifling’ in Xinjiang, this time targets solar energy industry - Global Times
First it was cotton; now it's Xinjiang's solar panels that are being targeted. Both are pillar industries of Xinjiang in Northwest China, and they have become the target of what appears to be a malicious campaign launched by Western anti-China forces to destroy Xinjiang's rapidly ascending economy and ultimately obstruct the development of China.
These forces behind the campaign position themselves as saviors and claim to counter a "genocide" in Xinjiang, but what they are doing is essentially attempting to wipe out the industries and the bread and butter of over 25 million people in Xinjiang, locals, businesses and experts said.
Unlike the campaign against Xinjiang's cotton, which was led by political forces, the latest campaign against the photovoltaic (PV) industry appears to be pushed by forces within the PV industry that have been overwhelmed by Chinese firms, including those in Xinjiang, for years, in an apparent ill attempt to use politics to crack down on what they can't compete with in the market, analysts pointed out. Such a shift in trend poses a serious threat for other industries in Xinjiang and around the country and demands forceful countermeasures, they said.
As the debate on the so-called forced labor issue in the Chinese solar energy industry has been hyped up lately following the West's groundless smearing on Xinjiang cotton, Chinese experts and solar energy insiders warned that the US is setting a trap and a pattern, step by step, to destroy Xinjiang's competitive industries, even with an aim to bring about the collapse of Xinjiang's economy and local people's livelihood.
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Once finding the approach of giving a bad name to the Chinese industry useful by citing "human rights abuses" or "forced labor," capital and interest groups may copy the smearing and boycott approach to stifle Xinjiang's industries, experts warned.
The Global Times interviewed a local polysilicon giant and found that the so-called forced labor in the region's PV industry is simply another lie created by certain media outlets, US trade groups and politicians.
"The workers from ethnic minority groups are mainly hired online, from universities and colleges, talent markets and by employee referrals. They enjoy paid annual leave, home visits with subsidies, wedding cash gifts, year-end bonuses and holiday gifts," Zhang Longgen, deputy chairman of Xinjiang Daqo, one of the four major Chinese polysilicon manufacturers, told the Global Times, denying any employment from Xinjiang's vocational education and training centers as reported by Bloomberg, the New York Times, POLITICO and so on.
Xinjiang Daqo's production accounted for around 15 percent of the global market share in 2020. "Silicon wafer producers are the customers of polysilicon. Around 97 percent of the global silicon wafers are made in China. All our products are sold in China," Zhang said.
"The ridiculous thing is that the US forcibly distorts facts and smears all the good things we have done that benefited the ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang," Zhang said.
By doing so, the US would strike a blow to China's, even the world's, solar energy sector and hurt the interests of ethnic groups in Xinjiang, he said.
At Xinjiang Daqo, 18 out of 1,934 workers are from ethnic minority groups. The average monthly salary at Xinjiang Daqo is 7,300 yuan ($1,118), compared with the average monthly salary of 6,617 yuan in Xinjiang's non-private sector and 3,825 yuan in the private sector in 2019.
"The proportion of labor costs in our company is less than 7 percent, so polysilicon manufacturing is not a labor-intensive industry," Zhang pointed out.
Dismissing a Bloomberg report on Tuesday which said "there's no freedom to refuse to sign factory contracts" for workers in Xinjiang, Zhang said some Western media's reports on Xinjiang came out of the reporters' "fertile imagination."
"Forced labor is not only unethical but also illegal in China. We have examined our suppliers recently and found no behavior of 'forced labor,'" Zhang said, adding the company's employee turnover rate is less than 3 percent.
"Anyone who tries to put a label of 'forced labor' on the Chinese PV enterprise should show their evidence. For example, who is forced to work in which enterprise? Without giving any testimony, such a claim is very irresponsible," Zhang said.
In a Bloomberg report, it said "guards in brown camouflage ordered away would-be observers" at the Xinjiang Daqo facility. The company told the Global Times it has been always open for visitors, but the coronavirus reduced such activities in the past year. "Bloomberg contacted us before Spring Festival this year, but China's epidemic control and prevention was strict at that time. That's why we didn't host it.
Echoing Zhang, a 39-year-old ethnic Mongolian worker named Bajin, said the so-called forced labor has never existed in the factory since he came to work for the company in May 2011, and none of his friends have ever complained about being forced to work in Xinjiang.
"I work eight hours per day and get two days off per week. I feel workers from ethnic minority groups at our company can even get extra care from our supervisors. So the Western countries' smearing is intentional to disturb ethnic unity in Xinjiang as well as our country's fast development," Bajin told the Global Times.
"For people at my age in Xinjiang, we all long for a good life, by farming, working or running our own businesses to improve our life quality. 'Forced labor' doesn't exist," he said, adding he earns 9,000 yuan per month as a production safety management staff member.
Smearing campaign
Zhang said he had smelled the conspiracy in the air for months, as he noticed that the share price of the US-listed Daqo New Energy Corp, the parent company of Xinjiang Daqo, dive from $130 to the current $67, dropping by approximately 52 percent in just two months.
Another Chinese PV giant Jinko Solar also suffered from short selling at the US stock market.
"We expressed strong condemnation to the groundless and irresponsible media reports that turned things upside down," Zhang noted.
The pace interestingly is in line with a report released in a publication by consulting firm Horizon Advisory in January, which claimed that "forced labor" is being used in the Chinese PV supply chain.
On top of that, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the US national trade group, urged its members to move their supply chains out of Xinjiang. More than 170 companies have signed a nonbinding pledge to avoid the so-called forced labor.
Xinjiang produces around 45 percent of the world's polysilicon supply - a type of upstream raw material in the photovoltaic (PV) industry, according to Dai Yanling, a veteran PV practitioner in China. Requiring intensive energy, such material is largely churned out in places that have large amounts and cheap electricity, thermal power and PV energy. That made Xinjiang, Southwest China's Yunnan, as well as North China's Inner Mongolia appealing in polysilicon manufacturing. China accounts for more than 85 percent of the world's polysilicon supply.
"Polysilicon manufacturing is not a labor-intensive industry anymore. Labor costs are not a key factor," Dai said.
US Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and others introduced the so-called "Keep China Out of Solar Energy Act" at the end of March in quick succession, banning US federal funds from being used to buy solar panels from companies based in China.
It is clear that the US has a map to crack down on China's PV industry, as it first started from a trade group's instigation, then to a further upgrading by US politicians, and "the reason behind it is that China's rapid growth in the solar energy sector moved the cheese of US companies," Dai said.
Dai said that before 2010, the polysilicon used in global solar energy had been monopolized by US and German enterprises, which had profiteered Chinese PV firms by forcing the them to sign long-term contracts (some are 10 years) with them.
Over more than a decade after China ramped up efforts in developing the PV industry, the price of polysilicon has dropped from $400-500 per kilogram in foreign companies before 2010 to $20 per kilogram in Chinese companies now, the practitioner noted.
Even if the US is the place of origin of PV technologies, its current PV sector lags behind when compared with developed countries like Germany, Japan and developing countries like China. Such a situation worried the US PV practitioners, Dai added.
To beat down the Chinese PV industry, the US government has taken different actions, such as in 2012, the US Department of Commerce imposed levies of 31.14-249.96 percent anti-dumping duties on Chinese PV cells while China's growth in solar energy was forging ahead.
Global Times reporters also found out over the past two years that many US business and trade representatives have cited the PV industry as a "classic case" when talking about the China-US trade frictions.b
The duties and crackdown policies have not beaten down China's PV industry, which disappointed the US.
According to the SEIA, the US PV industry was at a standstill during the Trump administration, with its PV install capacity dropping in the first two years during his term of office. After the relevant taxation reducing policy, the PV industry recovered a little in the US.
The first thing pushed forward by the incumbent US President Joe Biden was to get back to the Paris Agreement and set strategic goals in the energy sector.
Analysts said that in addition to strengthening the efforts to combat climate change, his aim was also to catch up the pace in the PV sector with other countries and even regain an upper hand, as major countries around the world embrace a green future in front of the crisis of global warming and climate change.
What also concerned the US businessmen is the US' high dependency on China in the PV supply chain, as Chinese companies have both lower costs and technological superiority, particularly in large size silicon wafers and granular silicon.
According to a report by McKinsey & Co in 2018, China's PV industry competitiveness surpassed the US by a lot. Among the top 10 global PV modules enterprises in 2020, three came from China and only one came from the US.
Zhang also cited statistics from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association to prove the country's PV supply could make tremendous contributions to the world's renewable energy transformation: Chinese raw material of silicon accounts for 67 percent of global share, wafers 97 percent, solar cells 79 percent and PV modules 71 percent.
Workers
at a cotton textile factory in Aksu City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region, northwest China, March 29, 2021. (Photo/CGTN)
Destroying value chain
It looks like the tactics of the PV industry have some water splash.
In a list of questions regarding alleged "forced labor" in Xinjiang, several members of the Dutch parliament urged the Netherlands government to explain if it is aware that solar PV panels and other components imported from China may contain raw materials from Xinjiang, according to local media reports.
They also asked the government to explain the possible impact on Dutch and European renewable energy markets in such situation as imports of Xinjiang-produced solar modules would be suspended.
Regarding the previous action on Xinjiang cotton, and now the PV industry, which accounts for 80-90 percent of the world's PV modules supply, Chinese experts warned that other industries, such as mechanical and electrical products, electric power and petroleum, could also be the next targets, and the US government is trying to suffocate or even kill Xinjiang's outstanding industries, with the help of some other Western countries.
"It looks like the US wants Xinjiang's competitive industries to die out in the region, so far namely cotton and solar energy, but in fact, it is destroying China's participation in the global value chain," Wang Yao, a research fellow specializing in border areas at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
The exports of mechanical and electrical products in Xinjiang are also vibrant, and countries along the Belt and Road are the main buyers. In 2019, mechanical and electrical products championed the most popular exported goods in Xinjiang, with the export value hitting 33.79 billion yuan, accounting for 27 percent of the region's total exports.
Last but not least, they are copying the smearing approach on Xinjiang cotton onto the PV industry after the first trial was testified effective, Wang noted. "If so, China's PV sector may be kept out of the door by the US, even the world."
However, the tactics being used by US interest groups in slandering Xinjiang's PV sector is a little different from that for cotton. Unlike the crackdown on Xinjiang cotton which was initiated by politicians, the suppression of the PV sector began from companies and industry groups that initiated the accusation, then US politicians stepped in, showing the voluntary collusion between industrial capital and politicians in their mutual objective of cracking down on China's development, experts said.
Last year, amid the reports of alleged "forced labor," the US Fair Labor Association wrote a report on such a topic in January 2020. At that time, the Shanghai office of Switzerland-based Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) had examined cotton factories in Xinjiang and found no forced labor.
Clothing brands such as Adidas and H&M, which have cooperation with BCI, also conducted examinations in Xinjiang. H&M had stated that it found no clue of "forced labor" in factories in the Aksu Prefecture.
But on October 21, 2020, BCI announced on its website to cease all field-level activities in China's Xinjiang region.
Such a move was driven by pressure from outside, as well as other interests. Since member fees are the main financial source for BCI, brand members, including Nike, LEVIS, or GAP from the US, have a significant influence on BCI. The US Agency for International Development was once a council member.
After suffering pressure from multiple sources, including the US government, popular clothing brands declared they refused to source any cotton production from Xinjiang.
After seeing fruitful results of slandering Xinjiang cotton, the cards of Xinjiang human rights and "forced labor" might be a "master key" for the US to hit any industry of Xinjiang, Wang warned, saying electric power and petroleum are very likely to be the next targets.
"The choice of polysilicon is different from that of cotton, as the costs of cotton produced in China remain higher than that produced in the US, Brazil and Australia. That means, with the lower-cost advantage of PV products, this round of crackdown on Xinjiang polysilicon will not succeed," Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing who closely follows China-US bilateral trade, told the Global Times on Friday.
-When developing infrastructure, the internal driving force of society should be far greater than the resistance from interests. But this is not the case in today's US: Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin-
A woman walks at a platform of a subway station in Chicago, the United States, January 17, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
US President Joe Biden unveiled a roughly $2 trillion American Jobs Plan focused on infrastructure and the climate crisis in a speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. To win support, he said that the "once-in-a-generation" investment would "put [the US] in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years."
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Much of infrastructure in the US has been old. Both Democrats and Republicans are on the same page on this matter. US former president Barack Obama in September 2010 proposed his ambitious plan to renew the US' transportation infrastructure, but failed to achieve it in both of his terms. Neither did Donald Trump. Biden launched the third round of such attempt. His plan contains the greatest details and seems to be the most serious one.
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However, the Biden administration's infrastructure plan was met with opposition from Republicans when it was announced. Trump slammed the infrastructure plan as a "giveaway to China" in a statement on Wednesday, and said that the proposed tax increases designed to fund the $2 trillion proposal would end up backfiring by sending American jobs overseas. Biden may once again have mired himself down in a situation where everyone agrees that it was the right thing to do, but no one can agree on how to do it or where the money will come from.
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US society has been gravely divided. The more interests involved in carrying out a big plan, the more opportunities for political struggles to be created, which will hinder the goal to be achieved. This is the root of the US' problem. To engage in infrastructure construction, the internal driving force of society should have been far greater than the resistance from disputes by different interest groups, but this is not the case in the US. Exploiting "defeating China" as a thrust to push the plan sharply deviates from the appropriate track. This makes the plan hard to achieve.
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Has China ever thought of competing with the US as it builds high-speed trains, widen the highway network and build network base stations? They are entirely China's own national agenda. The incentive to invest is strong, and the general public is very supportive. We can say that China's infrastructure advances with ease. Our concern is often that we should not work lavishly on these projects in case they lead to interim waste or debt.
.
The US now has China everywhere in its mind with regard to its domestic policy, attaching labels of national security randomly, and blaming China for any industrial imbalance in the US. Apart from instigating nationalism, this would do little to solve the problem. Over time, the US will not only be down with an anti-China syndrome and strike at anything Chinese, but will also only be able to make its policy with anti-China elements. This will lead to the misdirection of its goal time and again and cause it lose its way in development.
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The US should force itself to forget about China more often. What the US needs to do is struggling with itself. It has been more than a decade since it has called for the construction of the high-speed railway. Why hasn't a single kilometer been built? What does this inefficiency have to do with China? Trump overturned many of Obama's policies and now Biden overturned Trump's policies. Is this what China seduced the US to do?
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It is quite impressive that Washington is beginning to value some important lessons from China. Conflict is also a way to learn from each other. China's key experience is to mind its own work well. Biden's determination to improve infrastructure and increase investment in technology seems to have taken something from China's direction. We hope that the US could adhere to this idea. It is the right way forward.
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If the US really initiated a new investment in infrastructure, it is believed that Chinese society in general will be optimistic about its success. More of this kind of engagement by the US will increase its market demand, which is a positive factor in the expansion of China's economic growth. After all, the contest between China and the US should have been focused on the competition of domestic development, rather than playing chess on the diplomatic front.
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If Washington had refocused its attention, it might not have exaggerated the "China threat" theory as much as it does now. They will find that the benefits of China-US cooperation may outweigh the zero-sum competition with China "from a position of strength." China could be a partner, not a rival, in Biden's plan to revitalize US infrastructure, if Washington so desires.
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Obsessive focus on making enemies or confrontation is narrow-minded and an exhausted strategy. It is an unwise one. This is true of a person, and it is also true of a country
. Source link.
China is the most populous developing country in the world. It is very difficult to realize collaborated progress among various sectors. With a limited budget, China has multiple tasks at the same time - it has to encourage developing high-tech abilities, expand room and provide driving forces for social advancement, at the same time strive to improve people's livelihood, and input social fairness into the top design of national strategies.
For a long time, some people believe China has not done enough to balance these developments. Voices have existed that China invested excessive resources to fields such as aerospace. Despite difficulties, compared to other countries, China has tried its best to reach a balance and has achieved positive results.
Since China implemented the reform and opening-up policy, the most prominent and well-known national goal has been achieving a moderately prosperous society. People's livelihood and fairness and justice have always been the focus of attention in Chinese society. A technology-centered national strategy and people-oriented economic development have highly integrated.
In the past few decades, the Chinese people have been developing the aerospace field, but their livelihood has also been improving. The lunar exploration project is not a political vanity project - it is well within the ability of Chinese society.
The progress in high-tech areas such as aerospace has pushed up China's strategic competitiveness overall. At the same time, people are living better lives. Without the advancement in high-tech areas, China's prosperity would lack the backbone and long-term guarantee.
As an emerging major power, China's per capita GDP is not the highest among developing countries. But China's major scientific progress in recent years is undoubtedly the most prominent among developing countries and general developed countries. China is a large country, and this has exerted its unique incubation advantages in promoting major technological progress. This is gratifying.
China has long implemented a market economy, but has maintained the guiding role of the government. This prevents our market economy from repeating and hovering at a low level, and also prevents us from being satisfied with the low-end prosperity of the global value chain. The Chinese nation's self-motivated spirit continues to release momentum, successfully supported by the country's system. Thus, we can move forward in a balanced manner and with a clear sense of direction.
China has not regarded technological development or achievements in aerospace as an overriding goal. Nor has China formed a circle of high-tech elites, separating from the general Chinese public or even leading to the division of the rich and poor. Compared with China, today's aerospace engineering in India is relatively difficult. But it is the Indian people's choice to explore the Moon and Mars no matter how difficult it is.
China's high-tech development still has a long and arduous way to go. We may need to devote more resources to cutting-edge technologies such as aerospace.
Frankly, the Chinese public has principled support for this, but such support has not been fully transformed into preferential treatment of high-tech industries and talent in these fields. There is still a lot of room for us to continue our efforts in this area.
As for China's modernization, it is an indispensable basic progress for our aerospace technology to reach world-class levels. There are unlimited possibilities in space, and most resources that support the human being's future development must be outside the Earth. We need to travel to space step by step, and our good, fair and just social governance will provide strength for this. Our ambitions and dreams will encourage perseverance. Chang'e-5 is just the beginning.
Closely following the complete success of Chang'e-5 lunar
sample return mission on Thursday, China's National Space
Administration (CNSA) disclosed plans for a slew of ambitious space
projects that include a new three-step plan for the country's future
moon and deeper space exploration missions, which Wu Yanhua, the CNSA
deputy head, referred to as "surveying, constructing, and exploiting,"
as opposed to the already conquered goals of "orbiting, landing and
returning" to the Earth's natural satellite.
With Chang'e-5 probe making a perfect conclusion to its
23-day journey to the moon, bringing back soil from Earth's celestial
neighbor, Central China's Hunan Province, the hometown of the late .
Helping hand: President Xi Jinping (second from left) has a complete portfolio of poverty relief plans, despite the sudden onslaught of
Covid-19. — Xinhua
BEIJING: China is making a final sprint to eliminate absolute poverty as it marches towards a moderately prosperous society.
Leading this anti-poverty effort is President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
The Chinese leadership has set 2020 as the deadline to eradicate poverty. Every CPC leader in the past had worked towards this target, but the work by Xi has impressed many people.
Last March, Xi convened a televised symposium on poverty alleviation. He reiterated the deadline and vowed to lift the remaining five million-plus people out of poverty by the end of the year, despite the sudden onslaught of Covid-19. In September, Xi said China has “every confidence” of achieving the goal.
The nation will meet the poverty eradication target (set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) 10 years ahead of schedule, Xi told the 75th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly then.
In his latest instruction made public in mid-october, Xi said there should be no letting up until a complete victory has been secured.
Millions climb out of poverty trap
Poverty has plagued China for thousands of years. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the anti-poverty war has lifted over 700 million rural people out of poverty.
Great strides had been made under the reform programmes and opening up of China in 1978, started by Deng Xiaping.
Xi assumed the historic responsibility of leading this anti-poverty fight, after he was elected general secretary of the CPC in November 2012. At that time, About 99 million Chinese lived under the poverty line, earning a per capita income of less than 2,300 yuan (about US$1 dollar) a day.
To meet the 2020 anti-poverty deadline, over 10 million people have to be lifted out of poverty every year. This equates to about one million people every month, or 20 people every minute.
President Xi goes to the ground
About one month after taking over the helm of the CPC, Xi braved winter cold to visit poor villagers in Hebei Province. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income, if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm.
In November 2013, Xi went to Shibadong, a Miao ethnic minority village nestled in the mountains of central China’s Hunan Province. There, he put forward the concept of targeted poverty alleviation.
Across the country, all impoverished people and the factors that have led to their poverty are identified. Each household or individual is given a customised poverty relief plan.
They might get help to start a small business, be relocated out of mountains or receive training to find jobs in cities.
Their children will be given education. And there is a system to keep track of progress to ensure the measures are having their desired effect.
Xi has put poverty relief work under the leadership of the CPC of 90 million members. Party chiefs at all levels are required to take up a role.
Over 2.9 million public sector officials are sent to villages to fight poverty “at the front line.”
The leader has convened a series of meetings on poverty alleviation. Before every meeting, he would visit impoverished regions to learn about local situations and listen to suggestions of grassroots officials and members of the public.
Xi has a complete portfolio of poverty relief plans. He sets basic targets at meetings: rural poor people must not worry about food and clothing, and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing.
A lot of emphasis is given to the role of education to stop repeat of poverty from one generation to the next.
He has advocated relocation as an effective anti-poverty solution, and repeatedly warned against needless formalities, red tape.
Yuri Tavrovsky, a sinologist and professor at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, noted China’s anti-poverty fight has obviously gathered pace under Xi’s leadership.
No single poor to be left behind
Xi is no stranger to poverty. As a teenager and young adult, he spent seven years with peasants on the Loess Plateau where he lived in cave-like adobe houses and slept on a flea-infested bed on clay stove.
He joined the CPC in the village of Liangjiahe, and had his first experience as a grassroots-level CPC secretary there.
Xi once said his biggest dream back then was to make it possible for the villagers to have meat on their plates, which was a luxury during those days before the rise of China.
In his 80 domestic inspection tours over the past eight years, he has seen some of the most remote and impoverished areas in the country.
Xi has stressed that “no one should be left behind”. In the first four years as CPC chief, he had visited China’s 14 “contiguous impoverished areas.” At times he had to travel by plane first, and transfer to train and car before reaching the remote villages.
“What impresses me most is that Xi always puts people’s well-being first,” said Zhao Ruqi, an official who worked with Xi in Fujian.
In 2016, when visiting a village in Ningxia, Xi was seen checking the shower facilities in a villager’s home, and was happy to learn that the family had a solar water heater.
Recalling his early trips to some poor areas, Xi once said his heart sank when he saw the bumpy and rugged roads, harsh living conditions of the locals and heard stories of children dropping out of school, and patients not getting timely medical treatment and attention.
“But when I went to poor villages in recent few years, I saw substantial changes,” Xi said at the March symposium. “Seeing the smiles of the people, I feel delighted.”
The number of Chinese living in poverty has dropped from 98.99 million to 5.51 million in the seven years since 2013.
UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres has remarked that China made the greatest contributions to world poverty alleviation in the past decade.
In China, the per capita net income of the poor has more than doubled – rising from 4,124 yuan in 2016 to 9,057 yuan in 2019, registering an average annual growth of 30%.
Rural people are seeing a significant improvement in their lives and standard of living. The development of rural industries has changed lives, as has relocation of villages. In the past five years, more than nine million rural poor in China have been moved out of inhospitable areas.
Yang Qingzhong recalled that his family of six had to cram themselves into a tiny mudbrick house in mountainous Guizhou Province.
In 2018, the family moved into a spacious modern apartment in town, allocated by the government. And he found a job in a workshop near his new home, making rattan chairs.
All over the country, rural infrastructure, education and health-care have improved. Some rural hospitals partner with their metropolitan counterparts to offer high-quality medical services to rural residents.
“Illness-induced poverty is one of the toughest problems in rural areas,” said Hu Yi, head of the public hospital in the county of Zhenxiong in Yunnan Province. “Now they don’t have to travel far to get treated, not even for serious illness.”
Benefiting from the poverty eradication programmes, some ethnic minorities – residing in the country’s remote areas in southwestern corners – have also experienced positive changes in their life.
But China under Xi’s leadership is not going to stop at poverty eradication. “Poverty eradication is only the first step; better days are still ahead,” Xi said in a letter to the Dulong ethnic minority group, congratulating the Dulong people for collectively shaking off poverty.
Xi has reminded his people that shaking off poverty is not the finishing line, but the starting line of a new life and new endeavour.
Revisiting Hunan in September, Xi said China must establish a long-term strategy to prevent any relapse into poverty. Among the plans being implemented in China are rural revitalisation programmes and economic development to build a moderately prosperous society. — Xinhua (Compiled by HO WAH FOON
It's not accidental that the current US administration
has played stupid tricks to deal with the CPC. See how it withdrew from
the Paris agreement and how it found fault with the WHO. When it
questioned those on board whether they are CPC members, its behavior is
too weird to be true.
China and 14 other economies signed the world's largest trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), on Sunday to form a free trade zone in the Asia-Pacific region that will encompass a third of the global economy, in what Chinese officials and experts call a historic win for multilateralism that would help the regional and global economies cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and rising protectionism.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that signing of the RCEP is not only an achievement of landmark significance in East Asian regional cooperation, but is also a victory of multilateralism and free trade.
"Signed after eight years of negotiation, the RCEP lets people see brightness and hope in shadows, proving that multilateralism and free trade remain the main and correct course as well as the right direction for the global economy and mankind," Li said.
Signed at a critical turning point in the global political climate – when the next US administration is set to come into office and the world is grasping for solutions to tackle challenges arising from the coronavirus pandemic, the new regional deal would also help the Asia Pacific region take the global lead in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce US hegemony in the region, experts said.
The deal, which encompasses Japan, China, South Korea, Australia and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nationals, will create what is believed to be the world's largest free trade zone, covering about one-third of the world's total population and GDP. It will be also Japan's first free trade framework with its vital trading partners China and South Korea.
Notably, two major economies – the US and India – were left out of the trade pact. The US, under President Donald Trump, has been pushing for bilateral deals rather than multilateral ones. India was part of the negotiations, but did not join the final agreement.
The RCEP, which contains 20 chapters covering a wide range of areas from merchandise trade to investment to e-commerce, is “modern, comprehensive and high-level win-win agreement,” China’s Finance Ministry said on Sunday, adding that under the deal, members will aim to reduce tariffs to zero in the coming decade.
Bao Jianyun, professor of the School of International Studies and director of the Center for International Political Economy Studies at Renmin University of China, said that signing of the RCEP showed China, which played a very active role in pushing for the deal, has led the way in liberalizing trade and promoting a global market order of free competition.
"At the same time, China provides the world with a Chinese model and a Chinese solution on the open platform, where it serves the world," Bao told the Global Times, explaining that China as an emerging power has been a major promoter of trade and investment integration of RCEP.
Chen Fengying, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, also stressed that the successful and long-awaited signing of the megapact has rekindled the world's 'hope and confidence" about a model of cooperation.
"Global cooperation has been defeated in recent years because of rising protectionism and China-US trade friction. But the RCEP's signing is a signal that cooperation does work today, which I think is even more important withthe lift it gives to specific countries' GDP growth," Chen told the Global Times.
Liu Kuikui, a Beijing-based consultant of international transport and trade, told the Global Times that the RCEP will establish a common framework of rules of origin for Asia-Pacific countries, reduce investment barriers, and expand trade and investment. The participation of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, allies of the US, demonstrates that the four countries are opposed to the trade protectionism and the economic bullying launched by the US.
Signing of RCEP a victory of multilateralism and free trade: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
RCEP will end US hegemony in West Pacific
Not joining RCEP a strategic blunder that will lead to India’s isolation in globalization
The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement (FTA), will
give strong momentum to the development of the world's
COVID-19-battered economy and cement regional cooperation within East
Asia, which has emerged strongest from the pandemic, observers
predicted, noting that China, with its economic and market size, will
play a driving role in this partnership, yet every member will benefit
equally under such framework.
A report celebrating the milestones and achievements of
the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) highlighted the growth of
bilateral trade and investment over the past decade, as well as joint
efforts to battle the coronavirus and the safeguarding of regional
industrial and supply chains
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday called for
solidarity, the focus on development and expanded cooperation to join
hands in countering the challenges amid the ravaging COVID-19.
HANOI,
Nov 15 (Reuters): Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s
largest free trade bloc on Sunday, a China-backed deal that excludes the
United States, which had left a rival Asia-Pacific grouping under
President Donald
Speakers at the webinar co-hosted by The Investor, a tech media outlet run by The Korea Herald, Malaysia’s The Star and the Asia News Network.
A worker installs a solar power unit at the construction site of a 300-MW photovoltaic electricity project of the China Datang Corporation Ltd. (Xinhua/Zhang Hongxiang) 
