Many Chinese men in their twenties and early thirties seem to have simply given up on life….reports Asian Lite News
The falling birth rates in China due to the one-child policy are giving nightmares for the Communist regime as it is finding itself helpless in tackling this.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that only 10.62 million babies were born last year, down from 12.02 million in 2020, and the lowest number in recorded history, as reported by New York Post.
Further, many Chinese men in their twenties and early thirties seem to have simply given up on life.
On the other hand, unlike their fathers and grandfathers, who worked long hours at their jobs so they could buy an apartment, attract a wife, and raise a family, these coddled only sons have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. It’s not just indolence; it’s an entire way of life.
Millennials are the problem and they are tangping’ers — the Chinese expression means to “lay flat” — dedicated to doing just enough to get by in life. Their plans do not include marriage, much less children. It’s just too much work for the flat-layers, according to New York Post.
Further, to make matters worse, many young women in China’s cities have taken themselves out of the marriage market altogether. They are focused on building careers, not marriages.
Meanwhile, Communist officials continue to insist that China’s population will stabilise at its present 1.4 billion, but they are whistling past the graveyard. With Chinese women averaging only 1.3 children, below even Japan’s anemic 1.34 children, China is surely already in absolute population decline, filling more coffins than cradles each year, as reported by New York Post.
On the other hand, during the one-child policy, ethnic minorities including Xinjiang’s Uyghur population, were allowed to have to three children, which authorities said was in deference of the group’s cultural traditions of large families. (ANI)
Xi Jinping was elected President of the People’s Republic of China on March 14th, 2013….reports Asian Lite News
Xi Jinping since his ascendency as President of the People’s Republic of China has resolved to strengthen the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but critics say he made himself its biggest threat.
Xi Jinping was elected President of the People’s Republic of China on March 14th, 2013.
As General Secretary, Xi has returned the CCP to the centre of Chinese life. Citizens celebrate the party’s much-edited history en masse at packed Red tourism sites, its founder Mao Zedong enjoys a new reverence, and once-dormant grassroots party cells have been revitalised, reported CNN.
Now experts in elite Chinese politics are warning that in trying to revitalise the CCP, Xi conflated himself with the party so totally he created another threat to its existence: himself.
He has axed the two-term limit on the Chinese presidency, introduced in 1982 to prevent the rise of a dictatorship, accumulated more titles than any CCP leader in recent decades, and created his own eponymous ideology, instilled in the party constitution.
Xi while moving to consolidate the party’s power, took great lengths to guarantee his own, reported CNN.
Soon after he came into office, Xi unleashed a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which not only targeted corrupt officials, but also his political enemies.
He oversaw the spectacular downfall of powerful figures such as Zhou Yongkang, a former Politburo Standing Committee member and security czar who was jailed for life, and Xu Caihou, a top army general who died of cancer after being expelled from the party.
In less than nine years, 392 senior officials and millions of party cadres have been investigated. Those lefts knew total loyalty was required for survival.
To further concentrate power into his own hands, Xi set up more than a dozen “central leading groups” to oversee important policy areas, including military reform, cybersecurity, finance and foreign policy.
In 2015, he silenced internal dissent. A revised version of the party’s disciplinary regulations banned “groundless criticism of the party centre’s decisions and policies.” A year later, Xi was anointed with the title of “core” leader, putting him on par with past strongmen like Mao and Deng.
LEAD — Chinese President Xi Jinping (Source twitter@ChinaAmbUN) (3)
“The party’s collective leadership has become a concept in name only, and Xi has become the personification of the party centre,” Cai said.
Concentrating so much power around Xi comes with another problem — it leaves little space in which to groom a successor, reported CNN.
Xi hasn’t just failed to appoint a successor. Experts said he has almost completely dismantled the system of succession put in place after Mao’s death to ensure the party’s longevity.
In 2018, the CCP removed all term limits on the country’s presidency, allowing Xi to rule for life if he wanted to. The CCP said the move was necessary to bring the three most powerful positions in China into alignment — CCP general secretary and the chair of the Central Military Commission, also titles held by Xi, are not subject to term limits.
In a report for the Lowy Institute in April, China politics experts Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette said Xi had built his own power “at the expense of the most important political reform of the last four decades: the regular and peaceful transfer of power,” reported CNN.
Xi’s bullish policies aren’t just weakening the party internally — they are compromising its standing internationally. Recent surveys from around the world have shown China’s reputation is at its lowest point in decades, reported CNN.
A Pew survey published in October 2020 found negative attitudes towards China have soared over the past few years in multiple European, Asian and North American countries, partly due to its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A new generation of diplomats, nicknamed “wolf warriors” after a patriotic Chinese film series of the same name, are driving this foreign policy, fiercely responding to any perceived slight against the party and its leadership, CNN reported.
China blames US for Afghan crisis
Xi himself has embraced that style. In his speech marking the 100th anniversary of the CCP this month, he warned any foreign countries who tried to bully China “will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel.”
At the G7 meeting in June, the world’s largest advanced economies issued their strongest denunciation of China in decades. A major investment deal between the European Union and China is at risk after sanctions imposed by Beijing on EU officials.
Australia is calling for investigations into Beijing’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and India is banning Chinese apps over security concerns and sending troops to its shared border with China.
The longer Xi stays in power, the harder it will be for him to stand down, says CNN.
For now, the CCP might not be at immediate risk of collapsing or losing its grip on power, in the same way, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union came crashing down in 1990.
As per CNN, but experts said Xi’s policies threatened to leave future leaders less prepared to tackle the rising problems facing China, such as slowing economic growth, a falling birth rate and strategic competition with the US. (ANI)
At the same time, China is trying to flex its muscles all across its sea and land, such as intrusions in the Taiwan air defence zone and Japanese waters….reports Asian Lite News
In a scare-mongering exercise, the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece is raising the spectre of a looming financial crisis for India.
Global Times warned regional governments to be wary. “The 1997 Asian financial crisis started in Thailand. If a similar crisis happens to India, it would likely send the regional financial markets into an even more severe mess. Governments in the region need act quickly to avert a deepening health and economic crisis,” it said.
The Chinese mouthpiece, in an attempt to cloud India’s prospects, said: “There are also growing concerns that once the Fed shifts monetary policy, India’s economy may be trapped into a debt distress and facing shortage of the dollar.”
The mouthpiece is known to have a pessimistic view of India and recently faulted India’s manufacturing sector.
“While the Indian government has laid bare its ambition to be a manufacturing power, the progress seems limited so far. Nevertheless, during the process of promoting manufacturing, the Indian economy has become gradually dependent on the consistent inflows of Western capital. As a result, the financial risks are piling up,” it said.
It added that other ominous signs about its economic difficulties may also include findings that as many as 97 per cent of Indian households suffered a fall in income and the bearish performance of the Indian rupee this year.
The World Bank last month warned that South Asia risks suffering a financial crisis due to their vulnerability to growing levels of unsustainable debt. “As the region’s biggest economy, India is particularly exposed to sovereign debt and funding risks, especially after the pandemic drove businesses to go bankrupt and left millions unemployed,” it said.
China is trying to project a grim outlook as Global Times said “If the second wave of the virus has devastated India more deeply than anticipated, the long-term economic impact may be even more devastating”.
At the same time, China is trying to flex its muscles all across its sea and land, such as intrusions in the Taiwan air defence zone and Japanese waters.
A Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air identification zone (ADIZ) on Sunday afternoon, marking the 12th intrusion by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force this month.
A People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane was tracked in the southwestern corner of the ADIZ on Sunday, Taiwan Defence Ministry announced.
In response, Taiwan sent aircraft, broadcast radio warnings, and deployed air defence missile systems to track the plane, Taiwan News reported.
All the planes so far this month have been slower-flying turboprops and included anti-submarine warfare, electronic warfare, and reconnaissance variants.
Since mid-September of last year, Beijing has stepped up its grey-zone tactics by regularly sending planes into Taiwan’s ADIZ, with most instances occurring in the southwest corner of the zone and usually consisting of one to three slow-flying turboprop planes.
Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, despite the fact that the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.
Taipei, on the other hand, has countered the Chinese aggression by increasing strategic ties with democracies including the US, which has been repeatedly opposed by Beijing. China has threatened that “Taiwan’s independence” means war.
On June 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to complete reunification with self-ruled Taiwan and vowed to smash any attempts at formal independence for the island.
Reacting to Xi’s remarks, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) accused the CCP of tightening its dictatorship in the name of national rejuvenation internally and attempting to alter the international order with its hegemonic ambitions externally, Focus Taiwan reported.
“We urge the other side of the strait to learn from history and push for democratic reforms,” the MAC said, calling on the CCP to stop expansionist behaviour and to act as a responsible party in promoting regional peace. (ANI)
The CFU sees CCP as “a brutal regime that is nothing more than a colonising force driven by imperial and genocidal aims.”…reports Asian Lite News
Campaign for Uyghurs, a Washington-based advocacy group working for democratic rights and freedom of Uyghur community in China and around the world, has condemned the centenary celebration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an offensive show of force.
The CFU sees CCP as “a brutal regime that is nothing more than a colonising force driven by imperial and genocidal aims.”
It said, 1949, when the CCP seized power, marked the “beginning of a dark era in history, defined largely by bloodshed, mismanagement, brutal repression, and slavery.” “Today, that has morphed into active genocide in East Turkistan,” it added.
“As the Chinese regime looks to celebrate a milestone of achievement, millions of Uyghurs are being held in concentration camps where their very culture is made criminal, where they are subjected to sexual abuse, and tortured. Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) condemns this celebration as an offensive show of force. 100 years of CCP control is nothing to celebrate,” the CFU said in a press release.
The CFU also called on world leaders to hold China accountable for the human rights abuses and genocides in Xinjiang.
“President Xi Jinping will call for 100 more years of Chinese Communist rule, but that is a decision that can be up to the international community. We must hold the CCP accountable, for Uyghurs all over the world, and for every person who has seen their life destroyed in the Chinese regime’s relentless pursuit of power,” it said.
Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs remarked “The Chinese Communist Party has been an oppressive force of destruction globally. Under the guise of economic improvement, they have seized the basic rights of everyone living under their iron thumb.”
“Now, they have instigated this horrific genocide of the Uyghur people, a crime that invalidates the right of any perpetrator to rule. This is a deeply sad day for the world, since we have yet to stop the CCP’s reign of terror. The genocide of the Uyghurs is ongoing still, and each day the Party is becoming bolder. This is our final wake-up-call that the CCP must be stopped if we are to preserve a global system of dignity and order that is respected by all,” he added.
The CFU said, Uyghurs are kept in the dark about their families, with millions missing, loved ones unable to contact them or know anything regarding their condition. They also said that the world will only grow darker so long as the international community remains willfully blind to the truth of what is happening in China.
The CCP’s aims are becoming more broad, and they seek international influence through their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They desire more control and more power, and have demonstrated clearly what they are willing to do to get it, they said.
As Chinese Communist Party celebrates the centenary, the Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) has asked the world to hold China accountable for the human rights abuses and genocides in Xinjiang. 100 years of CCP control is nothing to celebrate, it said, reports Asian Lite News
Campaign for Uyghurs, a Washington-based advocacy group working for democratic rights and freedom of Uyghur community in China and around the world, has condemned the centenary celebration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an offensive show of force.
The CFU sees CCP as “a brutal regime that is nothing more than a colonising force driven by imperial and genocidal aims.”
It said, 1949, when the CCP seized power, marked the “beginning of a dark era in history, defined largely by bloodshed, mismanagement, brutal repression, and slavery.” “Today, that has morphed into active genocide in East Turkistan,” it added.
“As the Chinese regime looks to celebrate a milestone of achievement, millions of Uyghurs are being held in concentration camps where their very culture is made criminal, where they are subjected to sexual abuse, and tortured. Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) condemns this celebration as an offensive show of force. 100 years of CCP control is nothing to celebrate,” the CFU said in a press release.
Gulshan Abbas is a victim of the CCP's genocide against Uyghurs, falsely imprisoned in retaliation for her sister's advocacy. #FreeGulshanAbbashttps://t.co/iBMXsdT7Bl
The CFU also called on world leaders to hold China accountable for the human rights abuses and genocides in Xinjiang.
“President Xi Jinping will call for 100 more years of Chinese Communist rule, but that is a decision that can be up to the international community. We must hold the CCP accountable, for Uyghurs all over the world, and for every person who has seen their life destroyed in the Chinese regime’s relentless pursuit of power,” it said.
Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs remarked “The Chinese Communist Party has been an oppressive force of destruction globally. Under the guise of economic improvement, they have seized the basic rights of everyone living under their iron thumb.”
“Now, they have instigated this horrific genocide of the Uyghur people, a crime that invalidates the right of any perpetrator to rule. This is a deeply sad day for the world, since we have yet to stop the CCP’s reign of terror. The genocide of the Uyghurs is ongoing still, and each day the Party is becoming bolder. This is our final wake-up-call that the CCP must be stopped if we are to preserve a global system of dignity and order that is respected by all,” he added.
The CFU said, Uyghurs are kept in the dark about their families, with millions missing, loved ones unable to contact them or know anything regarding their condition. They also said that the world will only grow darker so long as the international community remains willfully blind to the truth of what is happening in China.
The CCP’s aims are becoming more broad, and they seek international influence through their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They desire more control and more power, and have demonstrated clearly what they are willing to do to get it, they said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (Source twitter@ChinaAmbUN) (3)
President Xi Jinping said that China will elevate its armed forces to world-class standards with the aim to equip itself with “greater capacity” to safeguard its “national sovereignty, security, and development interests”, a report by Asian Lite
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) marked 100 years on Thursday, President Xi Jinping hailed China’s “irreversible” course from colonial humiliation to great-power status at the centenary celebrations.
The CCP was founded in July 1921, in a small room in Shanghai’s then French-controlled district, with a mere 13 people in attendance. Today, it has more than 95 million members, almost 7 per cent of the country’s population, reported CNN.
Xi, who is chairman of the Central Military Commission and general secretary of the CPC’s Central Committee, said the “era of China being bullied is gone forever” praising the party for raising incomes and restoring national pride.
Xi, wearing a Mao-style jacket, was speaking above the giant portrait of Mao Zedong which dominates Tiananmen Square, said the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical course” and vowed to continue to build a “world-class” military to defend national interests.
The podium from where Xi was speaking was the same place where Mao proclaimed the foundation of the People’s Republic of China on the October 1, 1949.
In the meeting where the CCP was born, only two men were present at the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – former Presidents Mao Zedong and Dong Biwu. The PRC came into existence on October 1, 1949, after a bloody civil war with nationalist party Kuomintang’s (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek. Since its formation, it has been redefining its boundaries, culminating in tensions with its neighbours.
The Chinese government occupied Tibet in 1950, destroying 98 per cent of the monasteries and nunneries, and has ever since tried to control the region. More than 1 million people have been killed in Tibet by Chinese forces. During a meeting, Mao had told the 14th Dalai Lama, that “religion is poison.”
Under Mao’s regime, farmers were made to leave to their fields to make steel for build the machinery required for industrialisation. Despite his promises of a “Great Leap Forward”, a massive famine swept China, devastating the country and killing as many as 30 million people.
Mao also claimed that the groups opposed to communist ideology needed to be cleansed. As a result, mobs of students known as Red Guards attacked people whom they believed to be harbouring imperialist habits. People were tortured, abused, forced to confess and locked in makeshift camps. This ended with Mao’s death in 1976, CNN highlighted.
Under Deng Xiaoping’s regime, China witnessed the worst episode of stifling free speech, when the death of a popular Chinese politician sparked nationwide pro-democracy protests, including the largest one in Tiananmen Square.
On June 4, the Chinese military opened fire on the protesting citizens, killing at least 241 people, although human rights groups have estimated that thousands could have been killed in Beijing alone, according to CNN. The incident led to sanctions and international condemnation.
Since the massacre, the CCP has silenced calls for democracy and civil liberties.
In 2012, Xi took power as the Chinese President and became one of the most powerful leaders of the country. Under his regime, almost two million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.
After years of denying the existence of the internment camps in Beijing, China in 2019 described the facilities as residential training centres that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalisation and help protect the country from terrorism.
However, several media reports and former detainees have said that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities. Former detainees have also described being subjected to torture, rape, sterilization, and other abuses while in custody.
China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, with a handful of countries, the latest being Lithuania, terming the human rights abuses on the ethnic minorities as ‘genocide’.
The communist nation is also under fire after the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected and killed millions of people around the world. Many countries have called for a greater investigation in China’s Wuhan to uncover the origins of the deadly virus.
It has also been locked in tensions with its neighbours, such as Japan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan regarding the South China Sea, over which it claims full sovereignty and has passed a controversial law allowing it to fire upon any vessel it sees entering illegally into its waters.
Elevating Chinese military
President Xi said that China will elevate its armed forces to world-class standards with the aim to equip itself with “greater capacity” to safeguard its “national sovereignty, security, and development interests.”
Addressing the marking the centenary of CCP, Xi said that “We must accelerate the modernization of national defense and the armed forces.”
Xi said the “people’s military is a strong pillar for safeguarding the socialist country and preserving national dignity.”
On a bellicose note, the Chinese president added that any attempt to divide the Party from the Chinese people or to set the people against the Party is bound to fail.
“The more than 95 million Party members and the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people will never allow such a scenario to come to pass,” Xi said.
He further said that resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an “unshakable commitment” of the CPC.
“We must take resolute action to utterly defeat any attempt toward ‘Taiwan independence,’ and work together to create a bright future for national rejuvenation,” the Chinese President said.
China has also recently sent dozens of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, even though the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.
Strengthening jurisdiction on HK, Macao
President Xi also stressed on ensuring that the central government exercises overall jurisdiction over Hong Kong and Macao.
Xi, also the chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, said: “We will stay true to the letter and spirit of the principle of One Country, Two Systems, under which the people of Hong Kong administer Hong Kong, and the people of Macao administer Macao, both with a high degree of autonomy,” he said.
He also highlighted implementing the legal systems and enforcement mechanisms for the two special administrative regions to safeguard national security.
“While protecting China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests, we will ensure social stability in Hong Kong and Macao, and maintain lasting prosperity and stability in the two special administrative regions,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. (ANI/other agency inputs)
