cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/58460268
We meet China’s busiest fictional economist and examine the very real slowdown behind his return.
Who is Zhong Caiwen?
Since Saturday [22 August], People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, has published four articles under the name in a rare campaign to reassure citizens that China’s economy remains resilient and its slowdown manageable despite a spell of poor performance.
Zhong is not a real person but a collective pen name associated with the Communist Party’s Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, the powerful economic policy body headed by Xi Jinping. According to the China Media Project, a leading independent Beijing-focused media research group, the articles are jointly produced by writing teams at the commission and the party’s propaganda department.
The byline was wheeled out last October across eight articles as Beijing sought to shore up confidence in its lacklustre economy. “A bad feeling does not mean a bad situation,” Zhong advised at the time. “Feelings are subjective, while the situation is objective.”
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The name is a clue. “Zhong Caiwen” sounds like a shortened form of “Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission commentary,” following a party tradition of disguising institutional messaging as the work of industrious columnists.
And Zhong has been busy. Across the latest four articles, Zhong praised China’s “resilience and vitality,” defended its 4.7% first-half growth rate and cast the country as a “powerful anchor” for the world economy.
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The property slump [in China] continues to depress household confidence, while second-quarter growth slowed to 4.3%, its weakest in three and a half years. Zhong encouraged readers to look past the discouraging data, arguing that technological innovation and industrial upgrading were replacing older sources of growth.
Europe is experiencing the other side of the slowdown. Chinese exports to the EU rose 14% year on year in July, while imports fell 2%, according to the South China Morning Post. China’s surplus widened in 24 of the bloc’s 27 countries, with Germany’s bilateral deficit surging 86.5% to about €8.3 billion.
Brussels has given Beijing until October to show progress on rebalancing trade. But while EU officials describe subsidised production and mounting exports as dangerous overcapacity, Zhong celebrates them as proof that China’s strategy is succeeding.
Zhong even had a message for Europeans sweltering through this summer’s heatwave, deploying the continent’s much-loved language of puns. Chinese air conditioners had brought them relief, Zhong declared, demonstrating China’s “cool power” – a play on soft and hard power.
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