SinoInsight 1
Lou Jiwei, the ex-financial minister and chairman of the National Social Security Fund Council, said on the sidelines of the Two Sessions on March 4 that Chinese citizens should strengthen their awareness of financial risk. He added that financial products that guarantee returns of over 6 percent are fraudulent.
On March 5, Lou told reporters that the National Social Security Fund had returns of over 9 percent last year. In 2017, the Fund officially embarked on investing operations for the first time, and many provinces and cities entrusted the Fund with their pension insurance funds for investment.
OUR TAKE
Lou’s remarks may seem self-contradictory and risible, but they reveal many problems in the Chinese markets.
First, China’s economy is worsening and the central bank is printing excess money, so funds need to find different channels to preserve their value. Second, China’s markets face regulatory chaos, and financial fraud is widespread.
SinoInsight 2
On March 7, the website of Hong Kong-based media outlet Phoenix Television ran an editorial titled, “History watches all voting,” which essentially hinted to delegates at the Two Sessions that they should cast “nay” votes for the election of key government officials and a list of new constitutional amendments.
“This is indeed a serious matter,” read the editorial, which was subsequently taken down. Delegates have to be “responsible to history, to the people, and to the nation.”
OUR TAKE
Phoenix Television is regarded as an overseas mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. In the 1990s, Jiang Mianheng, the elder son of Jiang Zemin, was a strategic shareholder of the media outlet. During Xi’s first term, Phoenix Television frequently carried the Jiang faction’s anti-Xi messaging.
The March 7 editorial corroborates our analysis that factional struggle in the CCP is the chief reason why Xi is dropping the presidential term limits.
SinoInsight 3
Speaking to the Sichuan delegate during a Two Sessions meeting on March 10 to deliberate the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate work reports, Procurator General Cao Jianming said that courage is required to correct miscarriages of justice. He added that the courts, the procuratorates, and even the public security bureaus have to correct past legal injustices, and that the various law and security organs must dare to publicly acknowledge that mistakes were made.
OUR TAKE
The judicial apparatus work reports reviewed on March 10 noted that 39 cases of miscarriages of justice were overturned in the past five years. Many of these cases originated in the 1990s when Jiang Zemin was Party leader, no coincidence given that Jiang’s policies and lack of regulation led to a rise in corruption, kleptocracy, and human rights abuses. And Jiang’s most notable miscarriage of justice was his persecution campaign against Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline with about 100 million adherents in 1999. The “610 Office,” a special Party group that oversees the persecution, often forced local courts and procuratorates to charge Falun Gong adherents in kangaroo trials.
Since its establishment, the CCP has never admitted that it is mistaken in persecuting people, even if those wrongly targeted are members of the elite ruling class (Xi Jinping’s father being purged during the Cultural Revolution is an example). So Cao Jianming’s emphasis on correcting legal injustices is unusual and significant. Whether or not the Xi administration is sincere requires more observation. Also, should Xi decide to tackle Jiang’s anti-Falun Gong campaign as part of his drive to “right historical wrongs” (not inconceivable if the Jiang faction continues to be a serious threat to the Xi administration), expect drastic social change in China.
