1 Making sense of the new CPPCC National Committee
The Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference announced the participating sectors, membership quota, and candidates for membership in the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC on Jan. 18.
Noteworthy points about the new CPPCC National Committee include:
- The number of sectors in the 14th National Committee remained unchanged from the previous one at 34. However, the Communist Youth League and All-China Youth Federation joined the 14th National Committee as one sector and a new “environment and resources” sector was added.
- The 14th National Committee has 2,172 members, down 14 from the 13th National Committee. Of the 2,172 members, 780 members, including seven of the 24 vice chairmen (Bater, Shao Hong, Su Hui, Gao Yunlong, Pagbalha Geleg Namgyai, Leung Chun-ying, and Edmund Ho Hau-wah), previously served in the 13th National Committee.
- The number of members from the CCP, democratic parties, “people’s organizations” (united front groups), as well as “specially invited” representatives from Hong Kong and Macau was mostly unchanged (one fewer member from the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese) from the previous National Committee. There were fluctuations in the number of members from other sectors, with the biggest changes in the “special invited” and “economic” sectors (53 and 22 fewer members respectively). The new “environment and resources” sector has 85 members.
Ten of the 99 CCP members in the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC are in the 20th Central Committee. They are:
- Wang Huning (age 68), Politburo Standing Committee member.
- Wang Yong (68), State Councilor.
- Bater (68), vice chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC.
- Shi Taifeng (67), Politburo member and United Front Work Department head.
- Zou Jiayi (60), executive deputy secretary-general of the National Committee of the CPPCC.
- Shen Yueyue (68), vice chairman of the National People’s Congress.
- Chen Xu (60), director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.
- Chen Xiaojiang (59), executive vice head of the United Front Work Department.
- Nurlan Abilmazhinuly (59), chairman of the Xinjiang Regional Committee of the CPPCC.
- Hu Chunhua (60), vice premier.
Why it matters
The National Committee of the CPPCC, like the National People’s Congress, is where senior officials “withdraw to the second line” after retiring from important “frontline” posts and enjoy important titles and privileges.
The CCP also uses the CPPCC for united front work, including roping in elites from all levels and sectors of Chinese society (plus Hong Kong and Macau) into the regime’s governing process and giving businessmen an opportunity to build “guanxi” with CCP officials for mutual benefit.
Our take
1. Wang Huning will almost certainly be formally appointed chairman of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC at the Two Sessions in March. The other nine CPPCC members who are also in the 20th Central Committee will be appointed vice chairpersons.
2. Vice premier Hu Chunhua and Supreme People’s Court president Zhou Qiang’s membership in the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC indicate that our personnel reshuffle prediction from October 2022 is on track for verification. We wrote at the time that Hu could serve as a vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee and Zhou could become a deputy director of a special committee in the National Committee of the CPPCC. Their appointments will be confirmed at the upcoming Two Sessions.
3. Xi Jinping’s appointment of his ally Shi Taifeng to the National Committee of the CPPCC in what is likely to be a vice chairman position, like his placing Song Tao in charge of Taiwan affairs, is likely meant to “restrain” former Jiang faction member Wang Huning. With Xi cronies directly overseeing united front work and Taiwan matters, Wang will find it difficult to plan and pull off mischief that could undermine
the Xi leadership’s agenda in his capacity as CPPCC chairman.
Xi’s political risk management through personnel appointments is designed to keep the united front and Taiwan affairs apparatuses in lockstep with Beijing. This would help the Xi leadership achieve its ideal objectives, that is, prevent unwanted confrontation with the international community, rebuild diplomatic friendships, and attract much-needed foreign investment. Whether Xi’s personnel arrangements will have the intended effect remains to be seen.
4. The exclusion of former Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam from the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC suggests that she does not have Xi Jinping’s favor. The Xi leadership is likely displeased with how the Lam administration pushed an extradition bill, as well as how it inflamed the anti-extradition bill protests and bungled “stability maintenance” operations in Hong Kong. The “anti-Xi” CCP elites with lingering influence may also not be too pleased with Lam for failing to create the level of chaos in Hong Kong needed to sufficiently undermine the Xi leadership at home and abroad. Thus, Lam was not “rewarded” with a spot in the National Committee of the CPPCC unlike her predecessor Leung Chun-ying, another Hong Kong leader who appears to have been groomed by the CCP.
2 US pressures China as stage is set for Russia-Ukraine conflict to intensify
On Jan. 25, senior Biden administration officials confirmed that the U.S. will be sending 31 M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, or what amounts to one Ukrainian armored battalion. Earlier, Germany announced that it would be supplying Ukraine with 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks and work with other European nations to create two battalions of Leopard 2s. The United Kingdom also announced that it would be sending 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, likely by the end of March.
The Biden administration has been steadily increasing its military aid to Ukraine, including sending weaponry such as the HIMARS rocket artillery system, Stryker and M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles, and Patriot missiles. In January 2023, France and Germany also agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles (AMX-10 and Marders respectively) to Ukraine.
Experts and Western officials expect both Ukraine and Russia to launch offensives in the spring.
As Western countries step up military support for Ukraine, the United States was concurrently putting pressure on China. Examples from the past week include:
Jan. 23 – Jan. 24
Various news outlets reported that the Pentagon is preparing for House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit Taiwan later in 2023. The reports add that the Biden administration expects McCarthy to make his trip sometime in the spring.
Jan. 24
Bloomberg News reported that the Biden administration has confronted the PRC government for assisting Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, citing people familiar with the matter. The people say that PRC state-owned enterprises knowingly provided “non-lethal military and economic assistance that stops short of wholesale evasion of the sanctions regime the U.S. and its allies imposed after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.”
When asked about the news, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that he was “not in a position to confirm some of the accounts you’ve read, but we would be concerned if we were to see not only the PRC itself engaging in this, but Chinese companies, PRC companies doing this.” Price added that Secretary of State Antony Blinken could discuss the issue with the PRC authorities when he visits China; Blinken is expected to travel to Beijing in early February.
Jan. 25
The Epoch Times reported that Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and 18 other members of Congress introduced a resolution on Jan. 15 calling on the Biden administration to end the U.S. “one China” policy and formally recognize Taiwan independence. The resolution further urged the Biden administration to back Taiwan’s membership in international organizations and negotiate a free trade agreement with Taiwan.
The resolution also directs the Biden administration to support Taiwan’s membership in international organizations and to negotiate a bilateral U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement.
“It’s time to change the status quo and recognize the reality denied by the United States government for decades: Taiwan is an independent Nation. As our long-standing and valued partner, correctly acknowledging their independence from Communist China is long overdue,” Tiffany said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times.
Jan. 26
1. Politico’s “China Watcher” newsletter featured short comments from 12 Republican members of the new House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party about their priorities in the committee. The GOP members spoke about “countering” and “confronting” the CCP over a range of issues, including supply chains, food security, national security, military matters, intellectual property, technology, human rights, and Taiwan.
2. Nikkei Asia reported that Philip Davidson, the retired four-star admiral and former commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command who testified in Congress that the PRC could invade Taiwan in 2027, will visit the ROC in the week of Jan. 30. Davidson is expected to meet with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen and other officials.
In an interview with Nikkei, Davidson said his view on the 2027 timeline had not changed, pointing to Xi Jinping’s 20th Party Congress speech as a reason. “Xi Jinping’s restatement and refusal to renounce force undermines the security in the Western Pacific and affects not only Taiwan security, but I would say the security of all of Taiwan’s neighbors as well as the security of the United States,” he said.
3. Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) and Rep. Al Green (D-TX) introduced the Taiwan Non-Discrimination Act, which calls on Washington to back Taiwan’s participation in the International Monetary Fund as a member.
Jan. 27
Mike Minihan, a four-star U.S. Air Force general who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote in a memo to air wing commanders in Air Mobility Command and other Air Force operational commanders that his “gut” tells him that the U.S. will fight China in 2025, NBC reported.
Minihan reasoned that Xi Jinping will have a chance to take Taiwan because both Taiwan and the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, and the U.S. will be “distracted.” He also ordered those addressed in the memo to report all major efforts to prepare for the China fight to him by Feb. 28.
Pentagon officials said that Minihan’s views “are not representative of the department’s view on China.”
Our take
1. The U.S. and its allies appear to be pressuring the PRC to distance itself from Russia ahead of an expected escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war. Having Communist China cut off or even reduce its support of the Russian war effort at this crucial stage could be the difference maker in the coming clash.
Concurrently, Washington could be looking to pile pressure on Beijing after sensing that Xi Jinping is currently in a vulnerable state following the fiasco (health crisis and high death count) that followed the abrupt de facto lifting of “zero-COVID” in early December 2022, rising social tensions (“blank paper revolution,” labor unrest, etc.), the continued deterioration of the Chinese economy, and other negative factors impacting the CCP regime.
2. The Xi leadership will likely step up diplomatic efforts to “win friends” and avoid confrontation with the U.S. where possible as it looks to “delay and wait for change” and survive the various existential crises facing the regime. However, the Xi leadership cannot be seen as giving up too much ground to Washington lest Xi Jinping’s “quan wei” (authority and prestige) be further eroded at this crucial juncture.
Beijing will likely look to thread the needle in handling its relationships with the U.S. and Russia. But the Xi leadership will increasingly struggle to balance its relations as the international community becomes incentivized to compel the PRC to state clearly, in both words and actions, whether it stands with the rules-based international order or is a “revisionist” power in league with Moscow as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies.
If Xi cannot manage the geopolitical situation, he is likely to face elevated political risks at home as the CCP elite grow more dissatisfied with his rule. Depending on how things develop, Xi could face pushback and challenges not just from factional foes like the remnant Jiang Zemin faction, but potentially even from “trusted” allies and cronies who believe that their interests are better served if they lend a hand in Xi’s ouster.
3 Updates on China’s COVID death toll situation
On Jan. 19, the CCP authorities claimed that the number of COVID-19 patients needing critical care in China’s hospitals had peaked. Six days later, the PRC Center for Disease Control and Prevention claimed that COVID cases were down 72 percent from the peak, while daily deaths of COVID-19 patients had fallen 79 percent.
However, since our last newsletter entry, more information has emerged corroborating our analysis that the CCP’s official figure for COVID-related deaths since the post-“zero-COVID” outbreak is much less than the actual count, and that the CCP authorities are publishing misleading data about China’s pandemic situation in general. The recent information also lends more weight to observations that China saw a staggering number of COVID-related deaths over the past three years.
News information
Jan. 15
The Qiyang City Center of Disease Control and Prevention in Hunan Province recently conducted investigations to find out the rate of local COVID-19 infections, according to mainland media.
The Qiyang CDC surveyed 300 households (10 households each from 30 villages) in the city’s 560 incorporated villages (建制村), with a total population of over 1.05 million people, and reported the following findings:
- There were 58,276 outpatient visits in the whole of Qiyang City from Dec. 10, 2022 to Jan. 5, 2023, including 29,889 patients with fever and cough (51.28 percent). Of the 300 households surveyed (1,198 people), 939 were infected with COVID-19 for an infection rate of 78.38 percent.
- A total of 79 people died in Qiyang City from Dec. 5, 2022 to Jan. 5, 2023, an increase of 172.41 percent from a year ago. Of the 79 people, 42 died from fever and cough (i.e. likely COVID-19; see next news item).
Jan. 17
Reuters reported that doctors in China are being discouraged from listing COVID-19 as the cause of death on death certificates, and should instead name an underlying disease that the deceased was suffering from.
Doctors at a private hospital were instructed to report to their superiors if they believe that COVID-19 is the sole cause of death. Their superiors will in turn arrange for two levels of “expert consultations” before confirming the COVID death. Six doctors at public hospitals told Reuters that they had received similar instructions or that their hospital had such a policy.
Reuters also reported that the relatives of some people who died of COVID-19 said that the disease was not listed on their death certificates, while some people said that they were not tested for COVID despite arriving at hospitals with respiratory symptoms.
Jan. 20
Reuters reported that spending by funeral homes had increased in recent weeks as compared to previous years, citing various documents.
Some examples for the report include:
- A funeral service center in Zigong City, Sichuan Province noted that its supply of diesel had been “almost exhausted” when it explained the purchase of 196,230 liters of diesel, up 40 percent from its annual average.
- A funeral parlor in Anqing City, Anhui Province, spent about 1.6 million yuan between Dec. 19, 2022 and Jan. 4, 2023 on two large cars to transport coffins, freezers to store bodies, and an expansion of its power supply. The funeral parlor’s tender on Dec. 19 read: “My organization’s original freezer cannot meet existing business needs, urgently need to purchase 30 single-drawer freezers now.”
- Funeral homes in Guangdong Province spent more than 130 million yuan between Dec. 7 and Jan. 6 on various items, compared with 90 million yuan over the same period a year ago, according to a provincial government database.
Jan. 25
1. Dajiyuan (the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times) reported that Nanjing City saw 8,233 deaths from Dec. 18, 2022 to Jan. 2, 2023, citing internal Party documents that it had obtained.
The internal Party documents further noted that 761 corpses were cremated a day during peak periods in the aforementioned 16-day period, or six to seven times the average daily cremation rate. Dajiyuan believes that the cremation data only counted the deceased who held a Nanjing hukou (household registration), which meant that the actual daily cremation numbers during the 16-day period could be higher.
The internal Party documents also recorded that the Nanjing municipal government had established a leading group to expand the funeral sector’s capacity. The information was marked as strictly confidential so as to obscure the real toll of COVID-related deaths.
2. The BBC reported that coffin makers in Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province “haven’t had time to stop” work in recent months. A villager said that those in the funeral industry have been “earning a small fortune” with their orders. Those making funeral decorations report that demand has been two to three times what was normal.
The BBC noted that China’s official COVID deaths count only those in hospitals while deaths in rural areas with “only sparse medical facilities” and those who die at home are “mostly not being counted.” The BBC believes that the booming funeral business in Xinzhou is evidence of a “considerable number of COVID-related deaths in China’s rural regions,” and that “the death toll is mounting.”
Reports and analysis
Jan. 16
UK-based health data firm Airfinity estimated that COVID-19 cases could peak in China at 4.8 million a day with 62 million infections between Jan. 13 to Jan. 27 before beginning to fall. Airfinity further predicted that COVID-related deaths could peak at 36,000 a day on Jan. 26 during the Lunar New Year period.
On Jan. 27, Airfinity updated its estimates, placing daily infections at 4.42 million, daily deaths at 35,613, cumulative cases since Dec. 1, 2022 at 143 million, and cumulative deaths since Dec. 1, 2022 at 955,000.
Jan. 17
Kanzhongguo (the Chinese language edition of Vision Times) published a technical analysis noting that the 23 gigabytes of data stored on the Shanghai Public Security Bureau database that was backed up on Alibaba Cloud and leaked by hackers in July 2022 was the entirety of the database, and not a partial leak. According to news reports at the time, the database contained biometric and identification data on nearly 970 million Chinese citizens.
Kanzhongguo believes that if the entire database was leaked, then this meant that China’s population was already several hundred million less than the official 1.4 billion people in July 2022. This is because the database contains information on virtually everyone in China who applied for official identification documents. Chinese citizens can apply for official identification before they turn 16, and children living in urban areas tend to do so for convenience’s sake (i.e. traveling, applying for various certifications, etc.)
Social media
Jan. 18
Bao Jian, the daughter of Zhao Ziyang’s former secretary Bao Tong, tweeted about her colleague’s experience with cremating their father’s remains on Jan. 18.
Bao Jian revealed the following details:
- Her colleague’s father’s cause of death was listed as “pneumonia,” and “COVID-19” could not be named.
- The PRC civil affairs ministry dispatched a vehicle to ferry the body to the crematorium. The vehicle could not be identified as a hearse; the driver explained that this was to avoid causing panic in the streets.
- Her colleague’s father’s family was not allowed to hold a farewell ceremony.
- Her colleague’s father’s family were told that they had to wait between three days to three months to receive his cremated remains.
- The waiting time for recently deceased old cadres to have their names engraved on the walls of Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery where their remains are laid to rest is between one to two years.
***
Notable information pertaining to COVID-related deaths collated from social media and overseas Chinese language media since Jan. 18 include:
- Jiangsu medical community insiders who consulted CCP medical system and civil affairs system data disclosed that the number of people who canceled their household registrations from December 2022 to Jan. 15 was three to five times that over the same period from a year ago, with some areas seeing even more cancellations.
- Residents from Changzhou City in Jiangsu Province said that the Changzhou Funeral Home had cremated 1,000 corpses a day in December 2022. The funeral parlor operated its eight furnaces for 24 hours a day, and shortened cremation time to just 15 minutes per corpse (the typical average cremation time in China is one hour).
- Shanghai residents reported that two local crematoriums had been burning 10 corpses per furnace at a time. Other Shanghai residents also reported that a funeral parlor in Pudong district only spent 15 minutes cremating each corpse.
- Officials from the Exit and Entry Administration of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau leaked that there are at least 200,000 corpses in the city waiting to be cremated.
- Cadres from the Beijing municipal health commission leaked information saying that 10 percent of all CCP members had died recently. The CCP claimed to have more than 96 million members in 2022.
- A Beijing family saw the deaths of five elderly persons recently, one of whom was a deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. Even though the family could pull strings through a relative who works in a funeral parlor, the shortest wait time they could secure was three months, including for the cremation of the late public security deputy chief.
Our take
The information above suggests that China’s COVID-related deaths in recent weeks were very significant and certainly far higher than what the CCP authorities have been reporting.
Here are some further points to consider:
1. The PRC Center for Disease Control and Prevention claimed that there were 12,658 COVID deaths from Jan. 13 to Jan. 19, or an average daily death toll of 1,808 people. This average daily death figure is 8.6 percent higher than for the peak period from Dec. 8, 2022 to Jan. 12, 2023 (59,938 total deaths and 1,665 average daily deaths).
2. From various information circulating in the populace, there is a possibility that the rural death toll from COVID-19 in the recent six weeks could be as high as 1 percent of China’s rural population. If so, that is more than 11 times the national mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand in 2021.
China’s resident rural population is 491.04 million, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. A 1 percent death rate means that at least 4.91 million people in rural areas died from COVID over the past six weeks.
3. Crematorium information reported by Chinese residents indicates that funeral parlors and crematoriums have been trying to increase their capacity by cutting corners. For instance, taking 15 minutes to cremate a corpse instead of one hour appears to “boost” a crematorium’s capacity by roughly four times.
Meanwhile, it is unclear how crematoriums and funeral parlors in some areas are burning 10 corpses per furnace at a time to increase their “capacity.” It is not likely that cremation furnaces are designed to allow for burning multiple corpses at a time. However, it cannot be ruled out that the crematoriums and funeral parlors resorted to unconventional means to overcome the normal limitations of their equipment. Thus, it is difficult to assess how much additional capacity those facilities were able to squeeze out, or how widespread such practices are.
Regardless of how funeral parlors and crematoriums are attempting to improve their capacity, the fact that they are doing so and are still having an immense backlog of corpses to handle points to a substantial COVID-related death toll. Another indicator of a massive death count is the fact that even deceased Party elites, their relatives, and their friends have to wait many weeks just to be cremated. For instance, the family of Bao Jian’s colleague had to wait between three days to three months to receive the remains of their father, and the relative of a deceased Beijing municipal public security deputy director supposedly faced a three-month wait for cremation. If the death toll was not very high, the family of Party elites would hardly have to wait their turn to cremate their recently deceased.
We earlier estimated that the daily average death toll during the peak of the latest pandemic wave in China could be in excess of 3.06 million people. In considering the latest information, it cannot be ruled out that China’s daily average COVID-related death count at the peak in the past six weeks could be as high as over 10 million people, or the equivalent of the average annual death toll.
4. Another vital statistic that will not be reflected in the CCP authorities’ official COVID death toll is the number of COVID-related deaths among military personnel. At the time of publishing this newsletter, Xi Jinping has yet to issue his first order of the year to the People’s Liberation Army to kick off this year’s training. This contrasts with the first two years of the pandemic when Xi gave his first order in the first week of January. One possibility is that the PLA and the CCP authorities are still taking stock of the epidemic situation in the military, and have temporarily suspended training as a result.
How the PLA proceeds with training and various military maneuvers this year will offer a clue as to how badly the military was affected by the pandemic. Fewer skirmishes along the China-India border and scaled-down harassing/intimidation stunts in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait (including when foreign dignitaries visit Taipei) could be a sign that COVID-19 has impacted the PLA’s operational capacities. The PLA’s reduced capacity will in turn impact the CCP’s ability to deal with geopolitical pressures and worsen the regime’s external crises.
Get smart
Businesses, investors, and governments should remain highly skeptical of the CCP’s figures concerning pandemic deaths and economic “rebound.” A steep decline in China’s population will massively impact China’s political, economic, and social stability. Xi Jinping could face political Black Swans and charging Gray Rhinos when the issue of sizable COVID-related deaths becomes too obvious to hide.
