Friday, March 29

China pursues economic and social stability in the face of a volatile world


before a volatile world There is no priority other than stability. Stability, always present in the official discourse in Beijing, becomes an obsession when the war between two trading allies and the national economy faces major challenges. In this line, the two figures that each year monopolize the attention of the opening of the National People’s Assembly, the Chinese Parliament. The economy will expand “around” 5.5%, a goal as humble as it is sensible, and the military budget will grow 7.1%, three tenths above the previous one.

The first Minister, Li Keqiang, alluded to the uncertainty in his speech in front of the 2,800 representatives who had come from all over the country to attend a decaffeinated edition. The global focus is anchored in Ukraine and internal politics has its summit this year in the Congress of the Communist Party of China of October from which it will come out Xi Jinping with an unprecedented third term. Nor was there on the table of the Assembly, which is limited to putting the legal seal on the Executive’s policies, important initiatives such as the Hong Kong National Security Law from years ago. This edition has an accentuated aroma of paperwork what the population despises as the “Great Tea Room”.

Li aired with oblique allusions the war that capitalizes the covers. “China will continue to pursue an independent foreign policy of peace, continue on the path of peaceful development, and work for a new type of international relations,” he said.

Risks and challenges

The 5.5% target, if met, will be the second lowest in the last three decades, after the 2.2% caused by the coronavirus. He stresses that China is less concerned with the figure than with the health of its economy. The markets reacted with exaggerated pessimism to the recent slowdown, just as they welcomed those double figures from past decades with excessive euphoria. But China has long ago sacrificed tenths in exchange for a more mature and rational economic pattern, which pivots from the cheap manufactures to technology and self-consumption and it is less cruel to the environment. It is customary for him to set an assumable forecast that will be widely overwhelmed.

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Its GDP expanded last over 8% when he had anticipated 6%. The current picture advises against optimism. After the rebound effect, the Chinese economy was punished in recent months by lukewarm self-consumption or problems in the real estate sector, with a sharp drop in sales and giants such as Evergrande in galloping crises. None of those issues have been resolved, and weaker trade with Russia and Ukraine and rising commodity prices will add to it.

“Our country will face more risks and challenges this year and we must strive to overcome them. We have to set economic stability as the top priority and pursue progress without neglecting it,” Li said.

Promote self-consumption

China chases the internal stability with an urban unemployment rate of 5.5%, thanks to 11 million new jobs, and inflation not exceeding 3%. Other measures, along the lines of past years, include the aid to stimulate the birth rate and infrastructure spending. Beijing will increase by 18% its transfers to the provinces and local entities, indebted to the eyeballs. have also been announced tax cuts to enhance the self-consumption.

The 7.1% increase in the military budget allows for opposing interpretations. They are three tenths additional than last year, which had been the second lowest in three decades. Beijing collects territorial disputes in the South Sea of Chinasuffers harassment in the Pacific of United States and from Japan voices arrive asking for the retirement from his anti-nuclear policy.

That delicate context subtracts drama from the three tenths. The world’s second largest economy has the second defense budget but an ocean away from the first because The United States spends three times. China has stressed that the bulk of the budget is allocated to the welfare of the troops, a hard-working union that enjoys the economic boom of recent decades to a lesser extent than the rest of society. Many analysts, however, believe that Beijing downplays the development of new weaponry with it, it reduces the technological gap with that of the United States.

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China has made efforts to renew and clean up the sclerotized military establishment. He cut it down 300,000 troops and underlined the urgency of modernizing it. He has also brought his campaign against corruption to a traditionally unpunished sector, with positions bought en masse and justified doubts about the competence of its commanders in a warlike scenario.

The speech at the Great Hall of the People, on the west bank of Tiananmen Square, has also served to underline the success of his zero tolerance policy against coronavirus and discard any shift towards the opening of borders that is imposed on the rest of the world. There will be no changes at least until after the October congress to prevent uncontrolled infections from ruining Xi’s umpteenth rise.


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