After the sudden change of the epidemic policies, there were all kinds of sarcasms on the internet. Then the rumors spread when two ministers went \u2018missing\u2019 and the former Premier Li Keqiang passed away.<\/p>\n
But these incidents could not shake the CCP regime at all. The activities of the Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau were reported by the state-owned media regularly, which indicated the core of the political system ran more smoothly.<\/p>\n
Some high-level corrupted military officers were arrested. The personal changes seldom hindered the preparation of the possible unification operations in the future. It reflected the Party\u2019s absolute leadership over the military.<\/p>\n
Just several days ago, Dong Jun was named as the new Defence Minister. Case closed.<\/p>\n
Economic Rebound<\/strong><\/p>\n The crisis of Evergrande actually loomed years ago. CCP had already regulated it and other property groups to a soft landing. Unfortunately, the pandemic just came in as the last straw.<\/p>\n As a long-term ruling party, CCP is somewhat like an unlimited company. It will take the responsibility to restart and supervise the construction, and try its best to make sure that the buyers get their apartments after the property groups failed to do so. The buyers are still facing difficulties, but many of them have faith in the Party and the government. After all, this is the only hope.<\/p>\n Similarly, the Party won\u2019t let the local governments just go bankrupted as what happened in some western countries. It is true that the central government announced that it would not provide \u2018bottom-line guarantee\u2019 for the local debts. However, the whole political logic in China is different from the western system. CCP will prevent any dramatic impact and eliminate or relieve the debt through a sophisticated state-owned financial system. The possible solution is that the local governments will pay the debt literally \u2018on their own\u2019 but actually with the help of the system. And the officials who still expand the debt recklessly will pay the political price.<\/p>\n On the other hand, the urban renewal was encouraged in the areas where the debts were moderate. I visited several construction sites in Shanghai in 2023. Many almost-hundred-year-old houses were torn down in the downtown to build new officer buildings or commercial complex. In the suburb areas of relatively poor connectivity, some old office areas were replaced with the new affordable housing. The construction can boost the GDP higher but the renewal itself was truly needed.<\/p>\n The infrastructure projects such as charging stations, solar power stations and 5G base stations were also pushed forward across the country. Just on Dec. 26 and 27, five new high-speed railway lines went into service.<\/p>\n Frankly, China\u2019s economic performance was much better than most of the other major economies and it had more policy tools in hand so that I won\u2019t worry about it at all.<\/p>\n \u2018Wolf Warrior\u2019 Retreating? <\/strong><\/p>\n In 2023, the diplomat Zhao Lijian was moved to a new position and faded out of the public view. The ambassador Lu Shaye kept in a low profile after a diplomatic incident. It seemed that China had changed its diplomatic course back from the so called \u2018Wolf Warrior Diplomacy\u2019.<\/p>\n However, according to the Department of the Foreign Affairs, the name was just a \u2018narrative trap\u2019. \u201cIn Chinese diplomacy, there is no shortage of kindness and goodwill. But if faced with wolves, Chinese diplomats have no choice but to confront them head on and protect our motherland,\u201d Qin Gang said when he was the Foreign Minister.<\/p>\n \u2018Wolf Warrior Diplomacy\u2019 could be viewed as a defensive gesture when the Sino-US relations deteriorated and when China was accused of causing the Covid pandemic. Now the pandemic is gone and the Sino-US relations is relatively \u2018stabilized\u2019 after the leaders met, there were fewer occasions that the plain languages were needed than before. But it is still \u2018allowed\u2019. The diplomat Hua Chunying is always criticizing the US with a sarcastic tone on X.<\/p>\n Just put the \u2018language phenomenon\u2019 aside, China did protect its interests firmly facing the US and Philippines in 2023. There were not any solid evidences that China was behind the civil conflict of Myanmar to crackdown the cross-border telecom and online fraud, but many Chinese believed so and regarded it as a \u2018diplomatic victory\u2019.<\/p>\n Ironically, another \u2018diplomatic victory\u2019 was a gift from the US. China kept an impartial position of promoting peace which is similar to those of the Middle East countries while the pro-Israel policy of the US aroused widespread criticism and even anger in the non-Western countries.<\/p>\n Technological Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n It was clear now that the US could not completely curb the develop of the Chinese chip industry. The US firms could not quit the market of China, either. China\u2019s technological dominance in the rare earth chemistry and the batteries served as a leverage to balance off the pressure.<\/p>\n AI tools such as ChatGPT could boost efficiency and productivity in many industries. China\u2019s big tech firms were steps behind. However, the large numbers of the users in China can support the development and finally generate a capable Large Language Model in Chinese. It might be never as good as ChatGPT for English users, but it would be good enough to boost the domestic productivity.<\/p>\n When the future historians wrote about the year 2023, they would elaborate the ChatGPT, the Gaza War and the second year of the Ukraine War. But nothing specific about China seemed worth being written down. In the long history of China, a new government generated through a normal procedure, a crisis put out before causing a large-scale social turmoil or an earthquake in the remote area would be represented as several sentences at most or even not mentioned at all. That might be a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the end of the year 2022, China\u2019s government dropped the \u2018zero-Covid\u2019 policy. Inevitably, someone lost their lives while most of the others felt relieved that they would hopefully get back to the normal life in 2023. However, the expected strong economic rebound turned out to be much milder.\u00a0 And the huge public expenses during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1663,529,768,1664,1666,1667,1424,1325,781,1665,786],"class_list":["post-3306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-1663","tag-china","tag-chinese-diplomacy","tag-chinese-economy","tag-communist-party-of-china","tag-dong-jun","tag-qin-gang","tag-us-china-competition","tag-us-china-relations","tag-wolf-warrior-diplomacy","tag-xi-jinping","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/harici.com.tr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Gorsel1.png\")
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