SinoInsight 1
Recently, a Hong Kong news outlet reported that major Chinese telecommunications companies saw a drastic drop in the number of cellphone users in the past two months. According to China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom data, those companies lost a combined total of 14.472 million cellphone users in January and February 2020. (The figure does not include China Unicom’s unreleased February data.)
Some observers have questioned if a large number of “CCP virus” (Wuhan coronavirus) deaths is a contributing factor for the sharp drop in the number of cellphone users in China.
OUR TAKE
1. The theory that the steep drop in cellphone users in China is due to coronavirus deaths is worth exploring.
Cellphones are an essential item in China today for most working-age Chinese. According to a 2019 China Internet Network Information Center report, as many as 847 million Chinese use their cellphones to access the internet. Social media apps like WeChat are a must-have for people who want to stay connected, and many Chinese set up their cellphones to make electronic payments. According to a 2018 People’s Bank of China report on general financial indicators, 82.39 percent of Chinese adults use electronic payment services, and as many as 72.15 percent of adults make payments electronically in less developed rural areas. Thus, it is tantamount to “death” for the average working-age Chinese to cancel his or her cellphone plan; cellphones would only be non-essential for young children, the elderly, and those living in poverty in poor rural areas.
If we make a conservative estimate and presume that just 10 percent of the 14.472 million cellphone account cancellations in the first two months of the year (not including China Unicom’s February data) were due to deaths, then that’s 1.447 million deaths. To put the estimate in perspective, there were 9.98 million deaths in China for the whole of 2019, or an average of 831,700 deaths per month (including young children and the elderly).
The idea of over a million deaths in China over the span of two months when there is an ongoing epidemic is not entirely implausible if we account for the CCP regime’s habit of covering up and fabricating information. In the Feb. 24 edition of this newsletter, we noted that it was excessive for 40 mobile incinerators to be sent to Wuhan when the coronavirus epidemic was “dying down,” and estimated that the city would have the capacity to burn 1,250 corpses a day, or nearly double the 700 corpses a day that was reported in overseas Chinese language press in January.
2. There are other plausible theories for the deep plunge in cellphone users in China in the first two months of the year, including:
- People with two or more cellphone accounts could have canceled their “surplus” accounts to save money during the epidemic.
- Some people stuck at home during the epidemic could have canceled their cellphone account to save money. This, however, is extremely unlikely because many phones are set up to make electronic payments and phone bills are not very expensive in China.
- Some accounts could have automatically canceled when the cellphone user lapsed in making a monthly bill payment during the epidemic. However, this scenario is also unlikely as automatic cancellations only kick in after a user has failed to make a payment for three consecutive months.
- Emigration could account for some of the phone cancellations.
- The epidemic could have forced some phone farms to shut down, resulting in mass account cancellations.
SinoInsight 2
Official PRC coronavirus data indicated no new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the epicenter of Wuhan City and Hubei Province from March 18 to March 21. On March 20, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the media that the lack of new cases in Wuhan “provides hope for the rest of the world” and shows that “even the most severe situation can be turned around.”
On March 20, PRC foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press conference that the PRC government has announced assistance to 82 countries, the WHO, and the African Union, including sending them “testing reagents, masks and protective gowns.” Geng added that “many batches of these supplies have been delivered to the recipients.”
OUR TAKE
1. Deception is second-nature for the CCP, and official PRC data must always be viewed with skepticism. In previous editions of this newsletter, we looked at overseas Chinese language news reports, social media posts, and other non-PRC sources of information to debunk official PRC data or claims about the coronavirus situation in China. The aforementioned information channels indicate that there are at least 20, and not zero, new cases of the coronavirus in Wuhan alone from March 18 to March 21:
- On March 18, the neighborhood committee of Wangdian Community in Wuhan’s Jiufeng Street District stated in a notice on the local epidemic condition that 10 people had been admitted to the hospital that day, of whom five were confirmed COVID-19 cases while the other five were suspected cases.
- On March 20, Hanjiadun Residential District Community in Wuhan stated in a notice that five people who were confirmed to have come down with COVID-19 (including one relapsed case) were admitted to the hospital on March 19. Also, three people who were suspected cases had been sent to a quarantine site on March 19.
- On March 20, the Rose Xiyuan Community in Wuhan stated in a notice that two people in the area had been infected with the coronavirus.
2. In a video recording of voice messages posted to an online group chat by doctors stationed at a temporary hospital (方艙醫院) in Wuhan, which started making the rounds on social media on March 14 hints at one plausible reason for the absence of recent COVID-19 cases.
One of the doctors in the video recording noted that the Wuhan Asia Heart Hospital and the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University had ceased doing serological testing for COVID-19, and speculated that the Wuhan government had likely ordered a complete halt on such testing throughout the city. “You can just imagine why this has happened,” the doctor said, adding that the Wuhan government’s action had nothing to do with medicine but was “political diagnosis, political treatment.” The doctor also noted that the large scale scrubbing of temporary hospitals and discharging of patients is a “very scary thing.” Further, he said that serological testing is not only cheaper than the previously used nucleic acid test, but is also faster and more accurate in testing a patient for COVID-19.
3. The CCP regime urgently needs to flip the narrative on the coronavirus to rescue the worsening Chinese economy, restore social order, and seize the opportunity to advance its global domination agenda. Hence, it is unsurprising that the regime would report zero cases of COVID-19 at the epicenter of the epidemic for four consecutive days just when other countries, including those that have done very well to curb the spread of the coronavirus, are seeing a second wave of infections.
SinoInsight 3
During a coronavirus task force meeting on March 20, U.S. President Donald Trump again referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.” While the “Chinese virus” label has drawn strong criticism from the CCP and the left-leaning intelligentsia, Trump has explained on a number of occasions that he was specifically responding to CCP disinformation about the origins of the coronavirus with his word choice.
Trump also had good words for PRC leader Xi Jinping: “I have a very good relationship with China and with President Xi. I have great respect for President Xi. I consider him to be a friend of mine … I know President Xi. He loves China. He respects the United States. And I have to say, I respect China greatly and I respect President Xi.”
Trump’s continued praise for Xi seems contradictory given his own combative rhetoric of late and his administration’s annoyance with the PRC’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic, as well as his administration’s hardening stance on Xi and the Chinese Communist Party. Since late 2019, some members of Trump’s Cabinet have begun denouncing the CCP’s pernicious behavior and exposing its Marxist-Leninist ideological roots in public speeches. Some senior administration officials have also started referring to Xi by his Party title (“General-Secretary”) instead of the more positive-sounding “President.” And while Trump has largely stayed above the fray by leaving the work of censuring the CCP to his senior officials, he recently got personally involved in pushing back against the PRC by insisting on referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.”
OUR TAKE
1. In December 2017, we explained that President Trump treats Xi Jinping and the CCP differently because Trump likely believes that Xi can resolve very complicated internal problems in the CCP and bring about reform-minded change in the PRC that would benefit America and the world. We believe that our analysis has been affirmed by Trump’s consistency in praising Xi and affirming their friendship even after circumstances have changed greatly since late 2017 (the coronavirus epidemic, escalating Sino-U.S. tensions, Xi scrapping presidential term limits, etc.).
If Trump is antagonistic towards Xi or shows ambivalence about their relationship, he risks:
- Undermining Xi’s political position and ability to push through reform-minded change in the CCP regime.
- Pushing Xi towards the “hardliners” as the former struggles for personal survival.
- Creating conditions that would tilt the balance of the CCP factional struggle, in favor of Xi’s political opponents and other “hardliners.”
All three points above would lead to detrimental outcomes for America and the world.
2. The coronavirus outbreak and the Xi leadership’s handling of the epidemic has given Xi’s rivals and those who are growing more disillusioned with his rule a strong reason to speak out and challenge him.
We previously identified recent signs that indicate a sharp intensification in the CCP factional struggle, particularly between the Jiang Zemin faction and the Xi Jinping camp (see here, here, and here). We believe that the coronavirus epidemic has served as a catalyst to speed up the shift in the nature of the vicious factional struggle in the CCP from “you die, I live” (你死我活) to “perish together” (同歸於盡).
Even those who once supported Xi during his first term in office, such as the bulk of the Party princelings (“Second Generation Red,” or 紅二代) and officials in the reform-minded camp, have strongly signaled that
Xi may no longer have their approval. On March 21, Chen Ping, the chairman of Sun TV in Hong Kong, shared on his WeChat a “proposal” which essentially denounced Xi and called for an enlarged meeting of the Politburo to be held to “discuss the problem of Xi Jinping.” The “proposal” also stressed that such a meeting of the Politburo is “no less important” to those that were convened to oust the “Gang of Four” and “much more important” than the plenary session where Deng Xiaoping rolled out his “reform and opening up” policy and so-called “brought order out of chaos” (撥亂反正). For Chen Ping to share such a damning “proposal” is significant because he is believed to be a Party princeling and is reportedly a long-time acquaintance of Xi Jinping (their fathers knew each other while serving in the People’s Liberation Army). Chen is also known for holding reform-minded views; his Sun Current Affairs Weekly magazine (founded in August 2011) covers “sensitive” topics like the Tiananmen Square Massacre and dissident artist Ai Wei Wei, while Chen himself was physically assaulted in the streets by two men wielding bats after his media outlet ran an exposé of former Hong Kong chief executive and Jiang faction member Leung Chun-ying in 2013.
3. Contrary to outward appearances, Xi’s political position has grown more, and not less, unstable due to the coronavirus epidemic. Given the epidemic situation in China and the pandemic, the U.S. would probably evaluate that it is the better option for now to refrain from criticizing Xi (but not the CCP) and risk upheaval in China.
It is very possible that President Trump is aware of the complex political situation in China and has thus continued to show goodwill towards Xi Jinping to “stabilize” his position.
