Media Report
- Los Angeles Times reports: "The loudspeakers crackle on soon after sunrise, bathing the village of Nanmiao in Communist Party dictates. As China's leaders hold a twice-a-decade party congress in Beijing, hamlets have turned on rusty speakers, or installed new ones, to spread the word directly to the people. But this town, a 2 1/2-hour drive south of the capital, stands out in its party euphoria... A television screen as wide as a garage door occupies the basketball court, where villagers gathered last week to hear President Xi Jinping open the conclave with a 3 1/2-hour speech. Local officials want this village to serve as a model, the actualization of Xi's aim to embed the party more deeply into society. It's also the latest example of an ideological campaign reminiscent of Mao's days. 'Remain true to our original aspiration,' a red slogan near the entrance reads, echoing the theme of the congress. All 5,700 villages in this section of Hebei, an industrial province surrounding Beijing, heard the new party policies on loudspeakers, according to the state-run New China News Agency."
- The New York Times comments: "Toward the end of his life, dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, Mao Zedong claimed two achievements: leading the Communist revolution to victory and starting the Cultural Revolution. By pinpointing these episodes, he had underlined the lifelong contradiction in his attitudes toward revolution and state power. Mao molded Communism to fit his two personas. To use Chinese parlance, he was both a tiger and a monkey king. For the Chinese, the tiger is the king of the jungle. Translated into human terms, a tiger is a high official. The agency running President Xi Jinping's anticorruption campaign today likes to boast when it has brought down another 'tiger.' By leading the Chinese Communist Party to victory in 1949, Mao became the top tiger. The monkey king is an imaginary being with the strength of a superman, an ability to fly and a predilection for using his immense cudgel for destructive purposes... For Mao, the Cultural Revolution ended in 1969 with the appointment of a new, and hopefully more revolutionary, leadership. But though he had dealt the age-old bureaucratic system of China a terrible blow, he knew that it could rise again from the ashes. He always emphasized that China would have to experience regular Cultural Revolutions... Deng Xiaoping and his fellow survivors did not want any more monkey kings plunging the party and the country into chaos again... The 19th Communist Party Congress currently underway will confirm that Mr. Xi is top tiger, the most powerful ruler since Mao. But Mr. Xi will have to ensure that his alternate persona as monkey king does not loom too large. As the revolutionary founder, Mao could never have been toppled. But as a revolutionary successor, Mr. Xi could be."
CNBC reports that China's escalating property prices have long been a concern for Beijing as it balances growth targets with social stability. Now, economic signals are giving the go-ahead to authorities for sustained efforts to cool off the real estate market. On Monday, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported average new home prices in the country's 70 major cities rose 0.2 percent in September, Reuters calculations show. That comes after the last two years saw substantial increases. Compared with the year-ago period, new home prices rose 6.3 percent in September, cooling from an 8.3 percent increase in August, Reuters calculations show. This tapering off in price increases came after a series of government measures in the last year to cool the red-hot property market amid fears of an asset bubble. Last Wednesday, President Xi Jinping signaled that the state is likely to continue managing the property market. At the opening of a once-every-five-years leadership confab , Xi said "housing is for living in, not for speculation."
Calendar
- 2017-10-22 China Says Jobless Rate Lowest in Years, but Challenges Persist
- 2017-10-20 What We Learned on Day Three of China’s Party Congress
- 2017-10-19 What We Learned on Day Two of China's Communist Party Congress
- 2017-10-18 China Is Quietly Reshaping the World
- 2017-10-17 China's Communist Party is holding its most important meeting in years: Here's what you need to know
- 2017-10-16 China stands at 'a new historic starting point,' Communist Party says
- 2017-10-15 China's Pollution Crackdown Is Gaining Momentum
- 2017-10-13 China’s trade with North Korea slumps as nuclear sanctions finally start to bite
- 2017-10-12 Big twice-in-a-decade meeting in China may have a curious market impact
- 2017-10-11 China treats its foreign aid like a state secret. New research aims to reveal it.
News
- The Wall Street Journal China's Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller
- The Wall Street Journal China's Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller
- LA Times 'Good morning, it's the Communist Party': Loudspeakers in China take Xi's ideological campaign to new levels
- The New York Times China's New Antipollution Push Could Cool Its Growth Engine
- Financial Times Chinese issuers prepare 'supercycle' of technology IPOs
- CNBC Here's why China is buying up assets in Australia
- Financial Times Chinese train maker falls after profit slashed 20%
- Fortune Tesla Reaches Deal to Build Factory in China
- Financial Times China bank governor talks bluntly as retirement looms
- CNBC China's exports to North Korea jumped 20.9% in first three quarters of 2017
- Voice Of America Taiwan Steps up Asia Business to Reduce Dependence on China
- TIME Ports, Pipelines, and Geopolitics: China's New Silk Road Is a Challenge for Washington
- Financial Times An assertive China challenges the west
Commentary
- The New York Times How Mao Molded Communism to Create a New China
- Lawfare President Trump, Guo Wengui and an Odd Series of Events
- ChinaFile Why Do We Keep Writing About Chinese Politics As if We Know More Than We Do?
- China Law Blog China Scams Rising
- The New York Times Will the Next Steve Jobs Be From China?
- NPR China Shuts Down Tens Of Thousands Of Factories In Unprecedented Pollution Crackdown
- Bloomberg What We Learned on Day Six of China's 19th Party Congress