At least four people were killed and 12 injured in an explosion at Pakistan’s top hotel on Wednesday, which nearly killed the Chinese Communist ambassador. The Communist Party’s Belt and Road program provoked local protests. The Australian government announced that Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with the Chinese Communist Party is null and void, and the local government in NSW bought back the mining rights of Chinese companies.
The Communist Party is celebrating its centennial in July, and now a newly rewritten history and a whistle-blower hotline have been released. The aftereffects of the Communist Party’s heavy punishment of Jack Ma have emerged, with Tencent’s Ma Huateng spending $50 billion to “create social value,” allegedly to buy a living.
TikTok has been charged with illegally obtaining children’s personal information and may be fined billions of dollars.
Chinese Communist ambassador almost killed by bombing! Pakistan’s top hotel explosion at least 4 dead and 12 injured!
A bomb attack on a top hotel in southwestern Pakistan killed at least four people and injured many others in the evening of the 21st. The bombing took place in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, in the parking lot of the Serena, the national luxury hotel chain where the Chinese ambassador was staying.
Photo: Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong
Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told AFP that at least four people were killed and 12 others were injured.” He also described the incident as an “act of terrorism. Ahmed said, “A Chinese delegation of about four people, led by the ambassador, was staying at the hotel.” He added: “The ambassador was out for a meeting at the time of the blast.”
Azhar Ikram, a senior police officer in Quetta, confirmed the death toll, but said the Chinese ambassador was inside the hotel but was not present at the time of the blast. Ikram said a preliminary investigation indicated that one of the vehicles was rigged with a homemade bomb. No group has yet admitted to committing the crime.
Balochistan is rich in natural resources but poor, leaving residents complaining that they are not benefiting fairly from local gas and mineral wealth. The involvement of multi-billion dollar Chinese investment in the region through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a major Belt and Road initiative, has increased local anger that most of the new jobs are being taken by outsiders and that they are barely benefiting. They are not benefiting from it.
Why Xi Jinping is falsifying the Party’s history as the Chinese Communist Party tells new lies for 100 years
In July, the Chinese Communist Party will celebrate its centennial. Its “birthday gift” to itself includes a newly rewritten party history and a hotline for people to inform on the new party history for those Chinese who dare to ask questions about it.
Helen Raleigh, a Chinese-American entrepreneur and veteran contributor, wrote an article in The Federalist on 21 May, analyzing why Xi Jinping is falsifying the party’s history. She said the CCP’s actions remind countries that it cannot be considered a trustworthy partner in addressing any international matter, such as the true source of the coronavirus.
The article writes that the CCP’s painful history with the Chinese is written in blood, and that it has been falsifying history to serve its political agenda in order to maintain its “legitimacy” after usurping power. For example, it has classified the man-made famine as a “three-year natural disaster,” rewritten the truth about the Tiananmen Square massacre, and even rewritten the history of World War II, claiming to have led the war against Japan and claiming the hard-earned victories of the Kuomintang government.
According to Radio Free Asia, the latest edition of “A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party” has deleted the chapter on famine, the Communist Party’s agricultural collectivization campaign in the 1950s (which contributed to the famine), and the brutal “anti-rightist” campaign against intellectuals. In sharp contrast, Xi Jinping’s reign accounts for a quarter of the book’s content.
The previous version of “Party History” held Mao “primarily responsible for launching the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976),” and that during the Mao era “personal arbitrariness and the cult of the individual grew in the Party “The Cultural Revolution was a “serious disaster” for the Chinese people.
But in the new edition, readers will not find any criticism of Mao. Instead, the pamphlet praises Mao for launching the Cultural Revolution to combat corruption and blames the decade of turmoil on the fact that many of Mao’s “correct ideas about socialist construction were not implemented and eventually led to civil unrest.
Raleigh analyzes the overwhelming evidence that Mao’s purpose in launching the Cultural Revolution was to take back power, remove de facto or imagined political enemies, and supposedly “purify” Chinese society through a bloody revolution. The campaign led to the massive destruction of Chinese culture, the Chinese economy, and the Chinese social fabric, resulting in the unnecessary and tragic deaths of over 20 million people.
Why, then, did the CCP cover up Mao’s sins and create blatant lies about the Cultural Revolution? According to Rowley, the answer lies with Xi Jinping, the current leader of the CCP.
According to Rowley, Xi Jinping wants to falsify the history of the Cultural Revolution and redefine Mao’s role in it in order to consolidate Xi’s legitimacy and authority. “Any criticism of Mao can be leveled at Xi Jinping. Therefore, to ensure that no one challenges him, Xi decided to portray Mao as a flawless saint.”
The article writes that for Xi Jinping, falsifying history does not seem to be enough. He wants the Chinese people to forget the past and be brainwashed by this new party history. The Communist government has set up a hotline for the Chinese people to report those who disagree with the revision of the party history.
But the fact is that history cannot be changed, and the CCP’s perverse actions will only cause anger and frustration among the Chinese people and further damage the CCP’s international reputation. After its 100th anniversary, the CCP is greeted with a very unstable road ahead.
Spending money to buy a living? Ma Huateng Spends $50 Billion to “Create Social Value”
Chinese Internet technology giant Tencent has announced that it will spend 50 billion yuan to promote “sustainable social value innovation”, and this is “just the beginning of the investment. According to public opinion, Tencent’s main founder Ma Huateng may want to spend money to buy peace as Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma is “getting into the mud step by step”.
Photo: Ma Huateng, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Tencent.
On Monday (19), Tencent Holdings announced that it would invest an initial 50 billion yuan in its “sustainable social value innovation” strategy and set up a business unit to “explore” areas such as basic science, education innovation, rural revitalization, carbon neutrality, FEW (food, energy and water), public emergency response, elderly technology and digitalization of public welfare. The company will “explore” in the areas of basic science, education innovation, rural revitalization, carbon neutrality, FEW (food, energy and water), public emergency response, elderly technology and digitalization of public welfare.
Ma Huateng, the current Chairman of the Board and CEO of Tencent, said, “The more a company grows, the deeper and more stable the foundation for creating social value. 50 billion yuan is just the beginning of the investment. Tencent will “continue to respond to the needs of the country and the times, and co-exist and co-prosper with the evolving society”.
In response to Tencent’s aforementioned move, a writer named “Zilong” published a commentary on an overseas Chinese website, saying that a week after the Chinese Communist Party issued a huge fine of 18.2 billion yuan to Alibaba, Ma Huateng, who is a businessman, “got the hang of it” and had to spend a huge amount of money to buy a living for his own safety. For his own security, he had to spend a huge amount of money to buy a living, contributing $50 billion to “set up a moral pagoda for Tencent”.
According to the article, Tencent’s core profit business is games, and the company is “trying to squeeze every penny out of its users” and even implanting gambling mechanisms such as “open boxes” into its games in order to make money, and such a company is now claiming that it wants to take social responsibility. “It is as ridiculous as bandits advocating humane robbery.
The article questioned whether Tencent’s $50 billion “social value innovation” would be a realistic performance of a fundraising scam. So much so that “in the end, Ma Huateng and the rich and powerful laughed and shared the people’s money, Ma Huateng did not have to really spend the money, even if the money was given to the rich and powerful, he could also earn a good reputation”.
The article concludes that Ma Huateng may want to spend money to buy peace, but as a top prolific person, he is afraid that “he can avoid the first day of the month but not the 15th”.
Australia announces that the Belt and Road agreement is null and void, and local governments buy back Chinese mining rights
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Wednesday 21 that her country has cancelled two Belt and Road cooperation agreements signed by Victoria and the Chinese Communist Party. In addition, the New South Wales (NSW) government will also spend hundreds of millions of Australian dollars to buy back the Chinese Communist Party’s mining licenses there.
Photo: Australian Foreign Minister Payne
On Wednesday, Australian Foreign Minister Payne said in a statement that she decided to cancel four agreements, including the two agreements Victoria reached with the CCP in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Payne said, “Under Australia’s Foreign Relations Bill 2020, I do not believe these four agreements are consistent with or conducive to our foreign policy.”
On the same day, the New South Wales government also said the state had suspended two related coal development projects.
The NSW government said in a statement that it would pay China Shenhua Energy 100 million Australian dollars ($77.17 million) to withdraw its mining permit for the Watermark Coal project in Sydney’s northern Hunter Valley.
Shenhua has been trying to develop the Watermark Coal’s power coal and semi-soft coking coal mines since 2008. On Wednesday, the company responded with an announcement that it had agreed to withdraw its development interest in the project.
In addition, the NSW government also rejected an application by coal explorer Australian Pacific Coal to convert an underground mine into an open-pit mine, after the move was opposed by the local community.
On December 8, 2020, the Australian Foreign Relations Act was passed by the Federal Parliament. Since then, the Australian federal government has been given new powers to repeal foreign agreements such as “One Belt, One Road”, which are signed by state governments and are against national interests.
Shenyang, Wuxi and Eight Other Cities Experience Negative Population Growth
The final results of China’s seventh national census were scheduled to be released in early April, but they have not been available for days, and many governments have recently stressed the need to strengthen public opinion response and data confidentiality.
According to the 21st Century Business Herald, at least 26 prefecture-level cities in China have disclosed their population data, with the natural population growth rate falling into negative territory in eight of them.
In addition to the northeastern cities of Shenyang and Fushun, five cities in Jiangsu, Taizhou, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changzhou and Wuxi, and Weihai in Shandong, move into the ranks of negative natural population growth in 2020.
Shenyang’s data show a natural population growth rate of -3.34‰ (household population) in 2020, 3.38 thousandths of a point lower than last year in 2019. Wuxi, which also has a household population of more than 5 million, has a birth rate of 7.75‰ and a death rate of 7.91‰ in 2020, with a natural population growth rate of -0.16‰.
Other cities are on the verge of negative growth, such as Wuhu, Jiaxing and Ningbo, with natural population growth rates of 0.12‰, 0.43‰ and 0.75‰ respectively, approaching the zero growth mark.
Yi Fuxian, a well-known demographer and researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “Wuxi’s population problem was already serious in 2010, with a fertility rate of roughly 0.58 and 0.75 in the northeast. the percentage of children under 14 in Wuxi was only 13 percent, 17 percent in Jiangsu province and 21 percent nationwide. Without family planning, Jiangsu’s economic prospects would have been very good, but now the economy is sluggish. The entire Yangtze River Delta has a serious population crisis, not as bad as the Pearl River Delta.”
Guangdong’s natural population growth rate in 2019 (8.08 ‰) was 4.74 percentage points higher than the total national natural population growth rate (3.34 ‰) and only 9 percent of the population over 65 years old.
According to the China Statistical Yearbook, Liaoning has become a deeply aging region in 2019 with 15.92% of its population over 65 years old, Jiangsu with 15.08% and Shandong with 15.84%.
Wang Xiaoli, a resident of Changzhou, Jiangsu, who works in the accounting industry, pointed out that the people cannot afford the high cost of childbirth and education, and the disproportion between wage income and housing prices and rising prices are important reasons why young people are reluctant to start a family.
“Changzhou wages are not high, (monthly income) generally five or six thousand, seven or eight thousand a lot. Housing prices are higher than income, should be to 18,000 per square meter. The year before last year, including this year, prices have risen a lot, at least 50%. Retirement wages rose 4.5%, which is not enough to cover the price increase. A child from kindergarten training to high school, public schools plus remedial courses, no 500,000 can not, private schools without 700,000 to 800,000 can not go to.”
Central bank experts warn China’s total population could see negative growth after 2025
In 2019, China’s birth rate will be 10.48 per 1,000, with 14.65 million births, only about 58 percent of the rate in 1987 (the peak birth year in the last 40 years).
Cai Fang, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of China, said bluntly at last week’s Financial Risk Prevention and Control Summit that the next demographic turning point is when China’s total population peaks in 2025, after which it shows negative growth, and that an aging population may bring a shock to the demand side.
TikTok accused of illegally obtaining children’s personal information in the UK or fined billions of dollars
Embroiled in a class action lawsuit in London, England, TikTok faces billions of dollars in damages after being accused of illegally accessing the personal data of millions of European children.
Reuters reports that Anne Longfield, the former British children’s commissioner, said on Wednesday (April 21) that each of the children affected could receive thousands of pounds if the case is won. Longfield appeared in court on behalf of a 12-year-old girl who filed the class action on condition of anonymity.
Longfield said that every child who has used TikTok since May 25, 2018, may have had their private information illegally collected by ByteTok through TikTok so that unknown third parties could benefit.
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