Live Press Conference Link "Strengthen countercyclical adjustment of fiscal policy and promote high-quality economic development"

Min. of Finance Minister Lan and 3 heads of departments （General, Budget, Treasury 綜合司，預算司，國庫司) will do Q/A
live.baidu.com/m/media/pclive… Ideally the press conference set expectation and deliver expectation, with slightly positive side.

The Minister of Finance worked from bottom to the top so professional ability is high.

(最好的結果是不要太超預期。

政策太好和太壞對中國這種散戶居多的市場都沒有好處。市場預期之内，稍稍好，讓大家忘記發改委的表現，就夠了。）baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%93%9D…

I got asked several similar questions all the time. Might just answer it here.

Q: Does the Party care about the economy?

A: The Party cares about stability and staying in power. If economy helps it stay in power, then it’s important. 1/7 For example, this case of a 37 year old migrant worker randomly attacked 18 people in Shanghai and killed three.

(From social media, unverified )He was owed money and tried to get his wages.

When he was at the ends of his means he had sold his cellphone and killed randomly.

🧵The Communique, the press conference, the Decision, "the Trinity" 😀 （決定裏有12個探索值得一看）

Overall just released "Decision" follows similar points, no big and bold initiatives, but 12 "explores" that's positive and explained below.
1/
politics.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0721/c…
First Explore: Explore setting up personal bankruptcy system. (探索建立个人破产制度)

Probably a surprise to outsiders that China actually didn't have an easy personal bankruptcy system. So if one has a mortgage underwater, no easy way out. 2/

Govt ignoring economic advice 🧵

China's domestic think tanks are mostly defining the current high unemployment of youth (~18%) as structural (结构性失业）, showing charts the new labor supply mostly come from those w. higher education /1 New labor supply coming from education, public management, manufacturing, health and social work. (图3 中国新增劳动力结构变化情况（单位：%）

Those who love Wuxia writer Jim Yong and live close to Hangzhou, the library he donated to Jiaxing (close to Hangzhou) faces demolition.

If you are interested, might worth a weekend visit before torn down.(位于嘉兴的金庸图书馆，即将面临被推平、拆除。)

mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_pZNmZGjD4MX… Friend 六神 wrote that article trying to convince authorities whether there’s any possibility to reverse the demolition orders.

Local govt Changshu will start paying digital Yuan for all civil servants, a few other city government paying partial wage in digital currency. Digital Yuan will become more widespread domestically and likely other close countries but it has little to do with separate efforts to allow more Yuan adoption in trade settlement.

I was told in many Thailand or Vietnam one can currently pay directly in Yuan for many services.

🧵I am increasingly skeptical of the young people more for TW independence story that media feeds us, now that I am looking at the data myself.

In the most recent opinion survey, the clearest age trend lines are: The younger, the more for 3rd party (Grey). Taiwan's current third party gets consistently 20%, and younger people are more fed up with both main two parties.

The other clear age-preference line is OLDER Taiwanese liked DPP (Pro. Independence Party) more, not the usual media story.

Sec. Yellen's speech on China. For important speeches, always best to go the source on top of narratives.
Narratives usually pick the one that attracts the most attention.

When one day 90% of the headlines, one can't tell whether it's a US headline or Chinese headline, that will be the end of current phase of "you started it first" competition.😀

wsj.com/articles/janet…

🧵Several local headlines all share the same root problem: local govt. are are short of money.

Elderly in Huhan protesting when govt. decided to take the employee contribution portion of health savings account from individuals. /1 Before, avg. one got Y3131/yr, now Y996/yr, no wonder the elderly in Wuhan are on the street.

Many are saying this is like the Covid protests, I have different take. I am pessimistic the elderly will get what they want by protesting. /2
baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=175726866…

Transportation dept. came out and said it is not beind the official ride sharing APP being sponsored by the Propaganda depart platform.

On this state competing with private business issue, I think using a line is appropriate: let the bullets fly a while first让子弹先飞一会儿 /1 First, if in most business areas, people believe private entrepreneurs should do better than a state company, which I personally believe as well, then the claim that govt. could take 90% market share is too much boasting at most.

Secondly,
/2

Pres. Xi gave New Year address, 13 minutes. His speeches use many classic Chinese references, hard for many whose education at most 20% classics.

Referenced Song Dynasty poet/politician Su Dongpo “犯其至难而图其至远”, difficult road for long goal.
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/19-xuHDP1WfD… The line came from Su Dongpo’s “Thinking of Governance 思治录”, an essay criticizing another politician Wang Anshi. Thanks Google/Baidu 😂

zh.m.wikisource.org/zh/思治論（嘉祐八年作）

Dec 17: 0 reported death.

Baidu used symptoms like fever and medicine searches to construct a real time Covid index(red) and health care index, both have peaked for Beijing.

Death lags by 1-2 wks so for this wave, it should peak in a week for Beijing. /1 Zhejiang's new Party Sec. visited Ali/BABA, essentially saying "Let's do it".

The new theme is improve entrepreneur confidence, particularly private non-state-owned sector. 😂 /2

baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=175255606…

Dec. 15th: 0 reported death.

Separately local Pengpai News reported death of reporter (周志春) and Caixin reported ex-People Daily reporter (杨良化) both as Covid deaths.

Pengpai and Caixin both a bit less state in state media and interesting both cases are old reporters /1 People will study why Beijing this time seemed having more severe Covid than other cities.

I think there are two main ones.

1. Beijing has low old age vac. rate. There's no public provincial data, but from public infor. it's not too hard to deduce.
m.gmw.cn/baijia/2022-12…

Dec 13: 0 reported death. Will be interesting whether it's continued 0 reported death bc. local press is reporting 37yr old soccer player Wang Ruoji died with Covid.

（据人民体育微博13日援引媒体报道,前沈阳金德队球员王若吉因感染新冠引发基础性疾病恶化不幸于昨日去世,年仅37岁。 ) /1 I am getting a bit annoyed people go from current cases number misleading to calling for stop releasing the data.

Most of my Covid situation assessments, both US/ China, all public and generally has been good w. some mistakes, came my meticulous reading and analyzing China' data

Dec 12: 0 reported death.

On whether China's ICU bed doubled to 10/10k, from ~4.5-5/10k in 2015 credible (10% a year)

both doctor friend and friend who has experience building Hospitals said that for China most critical ICU bottleneck is Doctors/Nurses, not equipment. From /1 Some existing medical school admissions and graduates statistics shows annual rate of increase ~7%, which would be possible to get to 8ICU/10k people.

Whether real functional ICU is closer to 8/10 or 10/10k I don't know. /2

Dec 11, 0 reported death, daily vaccine shots ~1mil.

Significant "fever⬆️" search in Beijing, increased "pharmacy⬆️" searches, but flat "hospital↔️ " searches:

Meaning many people infected but mostly relying on self-care or medicine, instead of hospital. /1 Interesting that same searches for Guangzhou showed the increase of fever (light blue) was significantly less than Beijing.

It's possible that assessment of medical/pharmacy needs were a bit too optimistic based on Guangzhou data. /2

Dec 10th: 0 reported death. First time daily vaccine does >1mil.

Actual deaths that's commensurate of other countries' definition, my rule of thumb = 200* Singapore* factor 1.5/2

Willing to bet that # won't be nearly as close to 1mil or 2mil as many model suggests next 6m /1 I grew up in a Chinese herb shop.

Many Chinese believe in herb, particularly the kind that's boiled from scratch, even it's just placebo effect.

People may joke about govt. handing out them, but don't under estimate how much support govt got for handing out /1

Dec 9th: 0 reported death, continued ramping up of vaccine shots.

On actual deaths, I am a bit skeptical of many model's 1mil potential deaths during this Winter wave projection.

Here's why. /1 Baoding, Hebei is first city that got hit. So far, signs are generally pointing to peak wave. Beijing, 1.5hr away from Baoding, likely getting through the peak in 2 weeks.

It's understandable people question reported deaths. But for large scale events like hospital over-run, /3

Dec. 8th: 0 reported death, message still low death rate, only 0.5% needs to go to hospital, or after 3days of high fever.

Seeing no turning back, people continue getting vaccines. On the ground, there's really no concerted govt. drive for vaccine, just people responding to risk Joke:

Three people in the prison. "How did you get in here?"😂

A: I protest against Covid PCR test
B: I protest for PCR test
C: My company provide PCR test

Dec 6: 0 reported death.

Daily vaccines administered first time >250k for a while. Rational people respond to risks.

So far from social media or anecdotal friend there no significant sign of hospital crowdedness in Baoding/Guangzhou, two main cities w. 1st wave /1 Anecdote of people in Hangzhou, very common among my own friends/family as well: Time to get boosted.

https://twitter.com/AshinChina/status/1600288474405699584

Dec 4th: 0 death reported.

Last night, cities across Zhejiang gave out coordinated notices of less PCR test requirements .

You know it's top down copy/paste/coordinated bc. the same template and Taizhou has no subway yet it says no PCR test required for subway hahaha😂 /1 Many rumors now saying Covid will be further downgraded officially. I am skeptical.

The two biggest changes already happened: less PRC test and more home quarantines now tacitly allowed in many areas.

The govt likely going to be on a wait and see mode for a few weeks.