Even China’s seasoned censors are having a hard time fighting the current outrage sparked by the introduction of the three-child policy, as Johnny Erling tells in his column. In countless comments, Internet users recalled decades of a cruel population policy – the one-child policy. Pregnant women expecting their second child were persecuted and illegally born babies branded as “black children.” But instead of critical reflection on the consequences of its policy, the CCP is now trying to encourage its population to have more children with pro-birth slogans.
Climate change is also a threat to vital farmlands through heat, droughts and torrential rain. Are genetically modified foods a way to maintain yields in the future? So far, Chinese authorities have been just as skeptical about the commercial application of genetic engineering in agriculture as their German counterparts. But skepticism could diminish as domestic companies gain more know-how, says Frank Sieren. A team of Chinese and American scientists has now managed to massively increase crop yields. The trick: the insertion of a human gene known to cause obesity. Bon appétit.
Have a pleasant weekend!
The event series on economic relations with China at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) kicked off with a highly topical issue: the shift towards increased protectionism between major economic fields. The reasons for this are numerous. Prevention of supply bottlenecks, such as recently with protective masks or microchips, is currently at the top of the list and also gets a lot of public support. Other politicians are hoping for positive effects for the labor market in traditional sectors as more goods and parts are produced on the domestic market. Meanwhile, the CAI investment agreement with China has been caught up in political hostility between China and the EU. It was supposed to improve market access for both sides.
Jörg Wuttke, the long-time president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, provided a practical perspective on these issues. Economist and IfW head Gabriel Felbermayr contributed with his expert assessment based on scientific calculations.
Felbermayr has already presented the results of his calculations in China.Table: By producing in the Far East and procuring parts from the People’s Republic, the German economy gains much more than it could stand to gain through greater independence. The advantages of isolation would first have to outweigh the gains for trade barriers to be sensible. However, spreading the economy across several parts of the world saves costs and creates efficiencies. In the end, all parties involved own more than before, according to Felbermayr.
The question of isolation or free trade is not even close to a tie, but very clear. According to simulations by the IfW, the disadvantages of economic isolation distinctly outweigh the advantages. Free trade is several times more beneficial than insisting on independence. Protectionism would reduce German economic output by up to 1.4 percent. Admittedly, a retreat to production within the EU creates somewhat more security in times of crisis. But overall, it will “cost an arm and a leg” in comparison, as Felbermayr puts it. Consumers will also end up with much less in their pocket, and their way of life will be damaged.
Wuttke changes his perspective once more and looks at the problem from China’s position. He refers to a joint study by the EU Chamber and Chinese Research Institute Merics, which examined the impacts of decoupling. Researchers conclude that China, for its part, has never fully opened up, to begin with. According to the study, China has only ever engaged in “selective coupling” where it suited economic planners. This applies to the early phase of economic relations up to the present day. Trouble was inevitable. Sooner or later, the West was bound to decline an economic relationship that mainly sees only one beneficiary.
China has thus systematically proceeded to protect its own industries and companies from foreign competition since the beginning of its supposed policy of opening-up. The opening of its market primarily affected sectors in which China wanted to gain know-how. Opening up only took place once its own economy was sufficiently developed. The EU and the US, on the other hand, opened their gates wide to Chinese imports right from the get-go, even though domestic companies suffered as a result.
This causes China’s isolation to be more painful for local companies than the incipient protectionism of the West. “We keep knocking on the Great Wall, but no one lets us in,” says Wuttke. China’s response to the crisis of interdependence is also now a focus on greater autarky. Greater independence from the outside is currently one of the planners’ declared goals. This is especially true in the tech sector.
However, this policy could also do more harm than good to China itself, Wuttke warned. “China is much more dependent on Europe than Europe is on China,” observes the president of the EU Chamber of Commerce. Most tech transfers to China stem from the EU, and European countries are huge buyers of Chinese goods.
According to Wuttke’s observation, political priorities and the drive for independence are already hampering China’s potential. Since the opening at the end of the 1970s, China has made a transformation very similar to Japan and South Korea in their respective boom phases. But their common economic curves are already coming to an end, and China’s wealth progression is already dropping below that of its neighbors at the time.
Thus, according to the two experts, there is no need for the EU to raise tariffs or otherwise close the gates to goods from the Far East. Felbermayr also points out that the EU’s supposed dependence on China has not increased. The supply relationships of European companies are very evenly distributed. The USA remains an important partner.
The European Supply Chain Act appears to both Felbermayr and Wuttke as a possible obstacle to economic development in both regions. According to Felbermayr, it is an expression of a new form of protectionism. Wuttke, as a practitioner from the business world, sees enormous problems for the industry on the horizon.
Moreover, delivery stops not only occur in Asia, but in Europe as well. This is evident by the Covid crisis, which is seen as evidence for the need for decoupling. While it is true that in the first phase, production halts affected Chinese regions such as Wuhan. But in the end, China recovered much quicker than the EU and now is virtually free of Covid. This makes them all the more valuable as a sales market for ailing Western economies.
The next event in the series will take place on 30 September: Fair Competition and Subsidies – Europe’s Companies and China’s Competitive Pressure. Dietmar Baetge from the Technical University of Wildau and Jürgen Matthes from the Institute of the German Economy (IW) Cologne will discuss this topic.
China adopted a new ideal as a “birth-friendly nation.” To this end, Beijing has been searching online for propaganda rhetoric to make China’s households more palatable to the newly permitted child policy. The Internet community reacted differently than hoped – with an angry and derisive “shit storm”.
Once again, the Communist Party is asking China’s families to reinvent themselves. Everything that once applied and from which they suffered is to be forgotten practically overnight: 35 years of one-child policy with enforced birth control, surveillance, abortion, sterilization and harassment without end by a state even interfering in their bedrooms are to simply pass. Bearing children is once again the first civic duty, the Politburo decided on May 31. The party elite coined a new slogan: “Let’s be eager to create a birth-friendly society.” (努力构建 生育友好型社会).
The National People’s Congress (China’s socialist parliament) needed less than eight weeks to make 21 amendments to the People’s Republic’s Population and Family Planning Law, which has been in force since 2002. It was only in 2015 that the law was expanded to allow for the population to have two children. On Tuesday of last week, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress discussed the comprehensively revised new version. On Friday, after its first reading, it was already waved through and immediately put into effect.
The law allows for having three children, eliminates all penalties and fines for undeclared births, and promises families future government support. The adjustment extends from paid parental leave and more daycare facilities to birth-friendly adjustments to the financial, tax, insurance and educational systems, as well as to housing and employment. In the current five-year plan to 2025, the NDRC, the lead planning authority, plans to knock down the first pegs for China as a welcoming society; the age for marriage and for the birth of one’s first child is also to be lowered again. In 1990, Chinese married at an average age of 21.4. In 2017, they were 25.7 years old.
To drum up support, China’s Family Planning Association has launched a competition for new pro-birth slogans, with a deadline of September 15. After that, a jury will select 35 slogans and award prizes. Authors of the five best slogans will each receive 1,000 yuan (the equivalent of 130 euros).
For many Chinese citizens, Beijing’s changes have come too fast. The internet is filled with rage. Users recall cruel and incidents with impunity where all-powerful state controllers hunted down unscheduled heavily pregnant women in the countryside. They forced women to have abortions and had their homes demolished to intimidate neighbors. Babies born illegally were branded as “black children” or given extreme fines to their fathers.
Microblogs show photo montages of world-famous director Zhang Yimou, who was fined 7.48 million yuan (nearly a million euros) on January 9, 2014, as a “social tax” for violating the one-child policy for his three children. They depict Zhang exclaiming theatrically, “Give me back my millions.” As do many tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese who were forced to pay fines.
Party media news websites that praised the new birth policy and immediately took a virtual beating closed their comment functions because of too many “junk mails” (垃圾评论). Beijing censored calls ordering it to claim responsibility and come to critical terms with its one-child policy. Bloggers wrote slogans like, “If our leaders asked for our forgiveness, it would do more good than a 100 slogans.” (领导出来道个歉比想一百条标语管用.)
Mockery of the three-child family hides behind allusions. My favorite is a pun on the character “Jiu,” spelled differently but pronounced the same, which means either the number nine (九), or Chinese chives (韭菜). The saying “三三得韭” could be interpreted as “3 times 3 is 9”, or as “3 times 3 makes (you) chives.” The leek plant is considered synonymous with the people. It grows back even if it is cut off again and again.
One blogger suggested that in response to Beijing’s propaganda, a double slogan (duilian) traditionally be hung lengthwise on the front door: One side reads: Parents give birth to three children in one household and have four grandparents to care for. On the other side, it says: At eight o’clock to work, at nine o’clock home. This is extremely exhausting, and the million-dollar home loan has not yet been paid off. And above it: “This is the life of the chives” (一个家庭，两个夫妻，生三个孩子，养四个老人。八点上班，晚九点下班，费十分力气，还百万房贷。韭菜的一生).
Beijing has been on edge since the latest census, published in May. With a birth rate of 1.3, China has the world’s lowest birth rate. With 12 million new births in 2020, demographers fear that the current population of 1.41 billion will start shrinking for the first time in 2022. The army of 16 to 59-year-old workers is also shrinking. The third red flag is that the population pyramid is starting to tip over. According to the 2020 China Development Report, China is getting older faster than rich. 181.6 million Chinese are already over 65 years old.
Alarming reports about negative economic and demographic consequences of state interfered birth planning have made Beijing change its policy. In contrast, there is a lack of critical socio- and self-reflection. Only the Nobel Prize winner for literature Mo Yan addressed the problem in his novel “The Frog” ( 莫言:蛙), when he recounted the fate of a female abortion doctor in the countryside.
China’s forced birth control has been tragically successful. It is estimated that 180 million only children live in the People’s Republic today. Beijing’s social engineers have done a great job. What they have done to the nation’s soul is hard to imagine.
“A new school year, a new beginning,” this elementary school teacher in Beijing’s Haidian district writes beautifully on the blackboard in two colors. The floral pattern is meant to make the start seem all the more friendly. Elsewhere in the building, people are scrubbing and disinfecting to keep classrooms hygienic during the ongoing pandemic. Some first-graders in the German capital Berlin would envy the young Beijing kids for their clean and well-equipped schools.
Even China’s seasoned censors are having a hard time fighting the current outrage sparked by the introduction of the three-child policy, as Johnny Erling tells in his column. In countless comments, Internet users recalled decades of a cruel population policy – the one-child policy. Pregnant women expecting their second child were persecuted and illegally born babies branded as “black children.” But instead of critical reflection on the consequences of its policy, the CCP is now trying to encourage its population to have more children with pro-birth slogans.
Climate change is also a threat to vital farmlands through heat, droughts and torrential rain. Are genetically modified foods a way to maintain yields in the future? So far, Chinese authorities have been just as skeptical about the commercial application of genetic engineering in agriculture as their German counterparts. But skepticism could diminish as domestic companies gain more know-how, says Frank Sieren. A team of Chinese and American scientists has now managed to massively increase crop yields. The trick: the insertion of a human gene known to cause obesity. Bon appétit.
Have a pleasant weekend!
The event series on economic relations with China at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) kicked off with a highly topical issue: the shift towards increased protectionism between major economic fields. The reasons for this are numerous. Prevention of supply bottlenecks, such as recently with protective masks or microchips, is currently at the top of the list and also gets a lot of public support. Other politicians are hoping for positive effects for the labor market in traditional sectors as more goods and parts are produced on the domestic market. Meanwhile, the CAI investment agreement with China has been caught up in political hostility between China and the EU. It was supposed to improve market access for both sides.
Jörg Wuttke, the long-time president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, provided a practical perspective on these issues. Economist and IfW head Gabriel Felbermayr contributed with his expert assessment based on scientific calculations.
Felbermayr has already presented the results of his calculations in China.Table: By producing in the Far East and procuring parts from the People’s Republic, the German economy gains much more than it could stand to gain through greater independence. The advantages of isolation would first have to outweigh the gains for trade barriers to be sensible. However, spreading the economy across several parts of the world saves costs and creates efficiencies. In the end, all parties involved own more than before, according to Felbermayr.
The question of isolation or free trade is not even close to a tie, but very clear. According to simulations by the IfW, the disadvantages of economic isolation distinctly outweigh the advantages. Free trade is several times more beneficial than insisting on independence. Protectionism would reduce German economic output by up to 1.4 percent. Admittedly, a retreat to production within the EU creates somewhat more security in times of crisis. But overall, it will “cost an arm and a leg” in comparison, as Felbermayr puts it. Consumers will also end up with much less in their pocket, and their way of life will be damaged.
Wuttke changes his perspective once more and looks at the problem from China’s position. He refers to a joint study by the EU Chamber and Chinese Research Institute Merics, which examined the impacts of decoupling. Researchers conclude that China, for its part, has never fully opened up, to begin with. According to the study, China has only ever engaged in “selective coupling” where it suited economic planners. This applies to the early phase of economic relations up to the present day. Trouble was inevitable. Sooner or later, the West was bound to decline an economic relationship that mainly sees only one beneficiary.
China has thus systematically proceeded to protect its own industries and companies from foreign competition since the beginning of its supposed policy of opening-up. The opening of its market primarily affected sectors in which China wanted to gain know-how. Opening up only took place once its own economy was sufficiently developed. The EU and the US, on the other hand, opened their gates wide to Chinese imports right from the get-go, even though domestic companies suffered as a result.
This causes China’s isolation to be more painful for local companies than the incipient protectionism of the West. “We keep knocking on the Great Wall, but no one lets us in,” says Wuttke. China’s response to the crisis of interdependence is also now a focus on greater autarky. Greater independence from the outside is currently one of the planners’ declared goals. This is especially true in the tech sector.
However, this policy could also do more harm than good to China itself, Wuttke warned. “China is much more dependent on Europe than Europe is on China,” observes the president of the EU Chamber of Commerce. Most tech transfers to China stem from the EU, and European countries are huge buyers of Chinese goods.
According to Wuttke’s observation, political priorities and the drive for independence are already hampering China’s potential. Since the opening at the end of the 1970s, China has made a transformation very similar to Japan and South Korea in their respective boom phases. But their common economic curves are already coming to an end, and China’s wealth progression is already dropping below that of its neighbors at the time.
Thus, according to the two experts, there is no need for the EU to raise tariffs or otherwise close the gates to goods from the Far East. Felbermayr also points out that the EU’s supposed dependence on China has not increased. The supply relationships of European companies are very evenly distributed. The USA remains an important partner.
The European Supply Chain Act appears to both Felbermayr and Wuttke as a possible obstacle to economic development in both regions. According to Felbermayr, it is an expression of a new form of protectionism. Wuttke, as a practitioner from the business world, sees enormous problems for the industry on the horizon.
Moreover, delivery stops not only occur in Asia, but in Europe as well. This is evident by the Covid crisis, which is seen as evidence for the need for decoupling. While it is true that in the first phase, production halts affected Chinese regions such as Wuhan. But in the end, China recovered much quicker than the EU and now is virtually free of Covid. This makes them all the more valuable as a sales market for ailing Western economies.
The next event in the series will take place on 30 September: Fair Competition and Subsidies – Europe’s Companies and China’s Competitive Pressure. Dietmar Baetge from the Technical University of Wildau and Jürgen Matthes from the Institute of the German Economy (IW) Cologne will discuss this topic.
China adopted a new ideal as a “birth-friendly nation.” To this end, Beijing has been searching online for propaganda rhetoric to make China’s households more palatable to the newly permitted child policy. The Internet community reacted differently than hoped – with an angry and derisive “shit storm”.
Once again, the Communist Party is asking China’s families to reinvent themselves. Everything that once applied and from which they suffered is to be forgotten practically overnight: 35 years of one-child policy with enforced birth control, surveillance, abortion, sterilization and harassment without end by a state even interfering in their bedrooms are to simply pass. Bearing children is once again the first civic duty, the Politburo decided on May 31. The party elite coined a new slogan: “Let’s be eager to create a birth-friendly society.” (努力构建 生育友好型社会).
The National People’s Congress (China’s socialist parliament) needed less than eight weeks to make 21 amendments to the People’s Republic’s Population and Family Planning Law, which has been in force since 2002. It was only in 2015 that the law was expanded to allow for the population to have two children. On Tuesday of last week, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress discussed the comprehensively revised new version. On Friday, after its first reading, it was already waved through and immediately put into effect.
The law allows for having three children, eliminates all penalties and fines for undeclared births, and promises families future government support. The adjustment extends from paid parental leave and more daycare facilities to birth-friendly adjustments to the financial, tax, insurance and educational systems, as well as to housing and employment. In the current five-year plan to 2025, the NDRC, the lead planning authority, plans to knock down the first pegs for China as a welcoming society; the age for marriage and for the birth of one’s first child is also to be lowered again. In 1990, Chinese married at an average age of 21.4. In 2017, they were 25.7 years old.
To drum up support, China’s Family Planning Association has launched a competition for new pro-birth slogans, with a deadline of September 15. After that, a jury will select 35 slogans and award prizes. Authors of the five best slogans will each receive 1,000 yuan (the equivalent of 130 euros).
For many Chinese citizens, Beijing’s changes have come too fast. The internet is filled with rage. Users recall cruel and incidents with impunity where all-powerful state controllers hunted down unscheduled heavily pregnant women in the countryside. They forced women to have abortions and had their homes demolished to intimidate neighbors. Babies born illegally were branded as “black children” or given extreme fines to their fathers.
Microblogs show photo montages of world-famous director Zhang Yimou, who was fined 7.48 million yuan (nearly a million euros) on January 9, 2014, as a “social tax” for violating the one-child policy for his three children. They depict Zhang exclaiming theatrically, “Give me back my millions.” As do many tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese who were forced to pay fines.
Party media news websites that praised the new birth policy and immediately took a virtual beating closed their comment functions because of too many “junk mails” (垃圾评论). Beijing censored calls ordering it to claim responsibility and come to critical terms with its one-child policy. Bloggers wrote slogans like, “If our leaders asked for our forgiveness, it would do more good than a 100 slogans.” (领导出来道个歉比想一百条标语管用.)
Mockery of the three-child family hides behind allusions. My favorite is a pun on the character “Jiu,” spelled differently but pronounced the same, which means either the number nine (九), or Chinese chives (韭菜). The saying “三三得韭” could be interpreted as “3 times 3 is 9”, or as “3 times 3 makes (you) chives.” The leek plant is considered synonymous with the people. It grows back even if it is cut off again and again.
One blogger suggested that in response to Beijing’s propaganda, a double slogan (duilian) traditionally be hung lengthwise on the front door: One side reads: Parents give birth to three children in one household and have four grandparents to care for. On the other side, it says: At eight o’clock to work, at nine o’clock home. This is extremely exhausting, and the million-dollar home loan has not yet been paid off. And above it: “This is the life of the chives” (一个家庭，两个夫妻，生三个孩子，养四个老人。八点上班，晚九点下班，费十分力气，还百万房贷。韭菜的一生).
Beijing has been on edge since the latest census, published in May. With a birth rate of 1.3, China has the world’s lowest birth rate. With 12 million new births in 2020, demographers fear that the current population of 1.41 billion will start shrinking for the first time in 2022. The army of 16 to 59-year-old workers is also shrinking. The third red flag is that the population pyramid is starting to tip over. According to the 2020 China Development Report, China is getting older faster than rich. 181.6 million Chinese are already over 65 years old.
Alarming reports about negative economic and demographic consequences of state interfered birth planning have made Beijing change its policy. In contrast, there is a lack of critical socio- and self-reflection. Only the Nobel Prize winner for literature Mo Yan addressed the problem in his novel “The Frog” ( 莫言:蛙), when he recounted the fate of a female abortion doctor in the countryside.
China’s forced birth control has been tragically successful. It is estimated that 180 million only children live in the People’s Republic today. Beijing’s social engineers have done a great job. What they have done to the nation’s soul is hard to imagine.
“A new school year, a new beginning,” this elementary school teacher in Beijing’s Haidian district writes beautifully on the blackboard in two colors. The floral pattern is meant to make the start seem all the more friendly. Elsewhere in the building, people are scrubbing and disinfecting to keep classrooms hygienic during the ongoing pandemic. Some first-graders in the German capital Berlin would envy the young Beijing kids for their clean and well-equipped schools.
