SinoInsight 1
On March 27, the Communist Youth League Central Committee issued an opinion on starting a youth movement to “deepen the revitalization” of rural areas.
The opinion listed six main points:
- The movement will guide 100,000 youths to return to the rural areas to embark on entrepreneurship;
- The movement will groom 20,000 youths to become “创业致富带头人,” or successful entrepreneurs who will later serve as role models to uplift the rural regions;
- The movement will run a rural e-commerce training project to help 10,000 youths use e-commerce to gain employment;
- The movement will organize over 10 million students from high school and college-level vocational schools to carry out volunteer work in rural areas;
- The movement will mobilize 100,000 youths to go to the countryside and “transform the rural ‘ren wen’ (人文) environment” (the part in quotes likely refers to a plan in the State Council’s
- No. 1 document of 2019 to reform rural “customs and practices, environmental management, rural planning, and other works”);
- The movement will mobilize 10,000 students who are Party and Youth League members to serve as part-time grassroots cadres.
The CYL’s March 27 opinion sparked intense debate on Chinese social media. Many criticized the plan opinion for being a new “Down to the Countryside Movement.”
Mao Zedong launched the “Down to the Countryside Movement” near the end of 1968, or when the young Red Guards were causing peak chaos during the Cultural Revolution. The Movement was Mao’s attempt to rein in the Red Guards and resolve a youth unemployment problem. At the time, there were over 4 million unemployed and radicalized high school graduates (who left school between the years 1966 to 1968) concentrated in the cities, a ticking time bomb that threatened the regime. Under the guise of sending youths to the villages to learn from the rural population, Mao effectively exiled over 16 million “sent-down youths,” or about a tenth of the urban population. Countless Chinese families were forcefully separated by Mao’s Movement. Several cadres in the present top CCP leadership, including Xi Jinping, Wang Qishan and Liu He, were “sent-down youths.”
OUR TAKE
1. We believe that the new “Down to the Countryside Movement” reveals that the unemployment situation in China has become very severe and is endangering the CCP regime.
2. The CYL’s March 27 opinion is only one of several proposals to have been introduced recently to resolve the youth unemployment problem. Other ministries and even Xi Jinping himself have raised the youth issue in various meetings:
- On Jan. 1, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the CYL, and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce issued a notice on implementing a three-year apprenticeship program for millions of Chinese youths. The program targets graduates who have yet to find employment after leaving school for two years, as well as unemployed college graduates and other youths between the ages of 16 to 24.
- On Jan. 21, Xi said at the opening ceremony of a key study session for senior provincial and ministerial-level officials that priority should be given to “strengthening the ideological and political education among the young.”
- On April 2, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the CYL jointly issued a notice on implementing a youth employment plan to give vocational training to those between the ages of 16 and 35 who are unemployed for over a year but have the ability to work.
3. Last November, we wrote about China’s rising business failures and unemployment. The situation appears to have worsened further this year:
- On March 22, delivery company Guotong Express placed 50,000 workers on work suspension after reporting serious losses;
- In April, Bloomberg and The Information reported that Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc was carrying out massive layoffs. The Information reported that JD.com could cut over 12,000 jobs, or 8 percent of its 150,000 workforce. On May 16, 2018, JD.com boss Liu Qiangdong said at the second World Intelligence Conference that he would “never fire any brother for all eternity.” Liu frequently refers to JD.com employees as “brothers.”
SinoInsight 2
On April 8, Weibo administrators issued a notice on “handling harmful information in the current political situation” which listed 50 personal accounts that were closed for “banned speech.” Among the blocked accounts include a mainland liberal scholar “Yu Jian Rong” (7.2 million followers); the current affairs commentator “Tong Da Huan” (653,000 followers), who runs a very active Weibo account; and the former Xinhua journalist and Tencent columnist “Liu Shen Lei Lei” (475,000 followers). (All names in quotations are Weibo handles.)
The Weibo notice lists 10 guidelines that will be used for considering what is “harmful information in the current political situation.” Weibo users are not allowed to issue posts that:
- Go against the basic principles established by the state constitution;
- Endanger national unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity;
- Leak state secrets, endanger national security, or jeopardize national honor and interests;
- Incite national hatred, national discrimination, undermine national unity, or encroach on national customs and practices;
- Destroy the country’s religious policy, or promote cults and superstitions.
OUR TAKE
1. Weibo’s April 8 notice and bans indicate two things. First, the CCP is fearful of political instability and needs to tightly control public discourse. Second, Party Central’s repeated reminders to “guard against major risks” have led officials to act in a manner which “favors the left over the right” for the sake of being “politically correct.” Ironically, “favoring left over right” increases social tensions and heightens the CCP’s political risks.
2. We noted in our China 2019 outlook that “the CCP will clamp down harder on society, including implementing stricter controls over speech, further human rights abuses, and increased persecution of dissidents and religious groups.” The tightening of societal controls is partly due to the Xi leadership’s insecurities.
We previously traced the escalation of the CCP factional struggle over several articles. The escalating factional struggle would likely enhance Xi Jinping’s sense of insecurity and lead to given stricter controls being placed on Chinese society.
3. We wrote our China 2019 outlook that the regime could see “political Black Swans and charging Gray Rhinos in the economic and social arena,” as well as “immense challenges from inside China and abroad.” When the CCP summoned senior provincial and ministerial-level officials to Beijing for a study session on “guarding against major risks,” we noted that the Chinese regime faces “unprecedented crisis.”
Current developments in China are moving in the direction of our predictions and analysis.
4. Party characteristics and dictatorial tendencies consign the CCP to respond to crises in a heavy-handed manner, which begets bigger crises. Party leaderships in modern times were able to weather many crises because China experienced phenomenal economic growth. China’s economy, however, has been steadily worsening in recent years. Without good economic growth, the Party is at risk of losing its political legitimacy and currently faces unprecedentedly high levels of political risk.
