China
China lets loose armies of catchers as dog killings spread
Local governments in China have stepped up dog-catching operations after a 2-year-old girl was mauled by a Rottweiler earlier this month in the southwestern city of Chengdu, sparking huge online reactions as some responded by beating animals to death or hauling away beloved pets.
Ranged on one side of the issue are people who have been bitten or frightened by one of China’s estimated 55 million stray dogs. They mostly blame irresponsible pet owners for abandoning animals they can no longer care for, according to social media comments seen by Radio Free Asia.
On the other is a rapidly growing community of pet lovers and animal rights activists who have spoken out publicly against animal cruelty, including the Yulin dog meat festival, and who blame the government for not regulating dogs and their owners properly in the first place.
Earlier this month, the Chongqing University of International Business and Economics suspended one of its security guards after he reportedly beat a dog to death, admitting that he had “engaged in improper behavior” while “dealing with a stray dog.”
Such killings, which were also reported during the Shanghai lockdown of 2022 — don’t enjoy widespread public support. A recent survey by journalist Wang Zhi’an showed that only around 10% of Chinese people support culls as a way of managing the problems caused by strays or undisciplined pets.
Vigilante-style reactions
Some incidents have prompted vigilante-style reactions from animal lovers, according to a police report from the southwestern city of Guiyang, who hauled in five people for questioning after they went round to harass a local man who beat a pet dog to death after it leapt up at his 6-year-old daughter.
“People should maintain a rational and peaceful attitude online, and consciously resist online violence,” the police said in a statement on the incident, adding that the man had beaten the unleashed Corgi to death with a shovel on Oct. 23 after the dog “jumped on” his daughter as he was taking her to school.
“If these dog lovers really love dogs, they should take better care of them,” read one comment under the story. “These people … dare to upload video of themselves telling a little girl what a bad person her father is,” said another.
The Guiyang dog-killing came just days after a Rottweiler attacked a 2-year-old girl, leaving her with a ruptured kidney, fractured ribs and multiple lacerations, sending shockwaves around the country.
While the owner has been arrested, governments in Anhui and Henan provinces immediately launched “civilized dog-ownership” campaigns, warning owners that any dogs found unleashed in public will be taken away by dog-catching teams.
The Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily called for similar campaigns to be implemented across the country, in a commentary that was reprinted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party newspaper The People’s Daily.
“Local authorities naturally need to take action to prevent similar incidents from happening locally and becoming the focus of public opinion,” the commentary said.
And officials aren’t the only ones responding to such calls.
The China Small Animal Protection Association reported on its WeChat account that private dog-catchers are now taking pets in the eastern city of Wuxi, while reports have also been circulating that a dog was killed in a dormitory at the Sichuan Vocational College of Science and Technology.
Anything but civilized
Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Society, said dogs and other animals often run afoul of China’s legal system, and also fall victim to social tensions.
“People’s behavior tends to go along with the law of the land,” Chen said of the private killings of animals. “The government clearly hasn’t addressed the widespread killing of dogs publicly.”
Animal rights activists have told Radio Free Asia repeatedly that local government campaigns for “civilized dog-ownership” are themselves anything but civilized, and often end up with beloved pets being cudgeled to death or whisked off to the pound unbeknown to their human families.
According to prominent Chinese-American writer Geling Yan, dogs in China are all too often the victims in mass “clean-up” campaigns that have their roots in collective trauma and political malaise.
“I couldn’t help but think of all the ‘strike hard’ campaigns against dogs that I have personally experienced,” Yan wrote in a commentary for RFA Mandarin, in response to the recent anti-dog campaigns.
“They all seemed to happen when the people of China were in a foul mood, with a dark fire raging in their hearts.”
Yan’s childhood pet dog Xiao Huang was beaten to death during the “Four Clean-ups” political movement under Mao Zedong that paved the way for the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
‘Extension of mutual backstabbing’
Yan was also soon to lose another pet dog “Little Fatty,” “Mahua,” an egg-laying hen and a Tibetan mastiff called Koler to a further wave politicized violence known as the “Cut off the Tail of Capitalism” movement during the years that followed, she wrote.
“Looking back, the persecution of dogs was an extension of the mutual backstabbing and harm caused by that movement,” Yan wrote.
“This kind of retaliatory harming gives rise to dark passions and lets loose the worst aspects of human nature,” she said. “So can I speculate that the dog eradication campaigns begun a week ago were caused by people’s sense of helplessness and powerlessness caused by the zero-COVID policy and its ending, by [being forced to] lie flat, and other collective behaviors?”
“That sense of uncertainty, of anxiety, a kind of nameless fire, a nameless hatred generated by all these negative feelings finally found a target, and now they are venting it, once again, against humanity’s most loyal and speechless companion, the dog,” she wrote.
She said persecuting a creature who is even unluckier than oneself can make people feel that…
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China
China’s November 2024 Economy: Navigating Mixed Signals and Ongoing Challenges
In November 2024, China’s economy exhibited mixed results: industrial production rose by 5.4%, while retail sales grew only 3%, below forecasts. Fixed asset investment also faltered. Policymakers are anticipated to introduce measures to stimulate domestic demand and combat deflation.
China’s economy showed mixed performance in November 2024, with industrial production and exports showing resilience, while retail sales and fixed asset investment underperformed, amid ongoing challenges in the property sector. Policymakers are expected to implement targeted fiscal and monetary measures to boost domestic demand and address deflationary pressures.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released China’s economy data for November 2024, revealing a mixed performance across key indicators. Retail sales grew by 3 percent year-on-year, a significant slowdown from October’s 4.8 percent growth and well below the 4.6 percent forecast. Industrial production, however, showed resilience, rising by 5.4 percent and exceeding expectations of 5.3 percent growth.
The property sector continued to drag on the broader economy, with real estate investment contracting by 10.4 percent for the January-to-November period, further highlighting the challenges in stabilizing the sector. Fixed asset investment also fell short of expectations, growing by 3.3 percent year-to-date, down from 3.4 percent in October.
In November, China’s industrial value added (IVA) grew by 5.4 percent year-on-year (YoY), slightly accelerating from the 5.3 percent recorded in October. This modest improvement reflects continued recovery in key industries, supported by recent stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing the economy.
The manufacturing sector led the growth, expanding by 6.0 percent YoY, while the power, heat, gas, and water production and supply sector grew by 1.6 percent. The mining industry posted a 4.2 percent YoY increase. Notably, advanced industries outpaced overall growth, with equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing rising by 7.6 percent and 7.8 percent YoY, respectively, underscoring the resilience of China’s innovation-driven sectors.
Key product categories showed robust output gains in November:
From January to November, IVA increased by 5.8 percent YoY, maintaining steady growth over the year despite headwinds from a slowing property market and external uncertainties.
| This article was first published by China Briefing , which is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world, including in in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, and India . Readers may write to info@dezshira.com for more support. |
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China
Ukraine war: 10% of Chinese people are willing to boycott Russian goods over invasion – new study
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, some Chinese citizens express dissent through potential boycotts of Russian goods, reflecting a complex relationship despite government support for Russia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Chinese government has been criticised for its refusal to condemn the war. In 2024, the economic and diplomatic relationship between the two nations appears stronger than ever.
Because of strict censorship and repression imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is difficult to know the extent to which the general public shares their government’s support of Putin’s regime. But a newly published study I carried out with colleagues found that more than 10% of Chinese people surveyed were willing to boycott Russian goods over the war in Ukraine.
This is a surprisingly large figure, especially since existing surveys indicate that Chinese people hold a broadly positive view of their neighbour. We used a representative sample of 3,029 Chinese citizens for this research, to dig into public attitudes to Russia. The survey was done in 2022 after the Ukraine invasion.
We were aware that due to widespread censorship, our participants might not be willing to give honest answers to questions about Russia’s actions in Ukraine. They might also not feel safe to do that in a regime where disagreement with the CCP’s position is often met with harsh punishment. This is why we asked them to tell us if they would be willing to boycott Russian products currently sold in China.
We felt this question was a good indicator of how much the participants disapproved of Russian foreign policy in Ukraine. More importantly, we were also curious to find out whether Chinese citizens would be willing to take direct political action to punish Russia economically for its aggressive behaviour.
In our study, we split respondents into the three different ideological groups in China: “liberals”, who support the free market and oppose authoritarianism; “the new left”, who sympathise with the policies pursued in China under Mao Zedong; and “neo-authoritarians”, who believe the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is an extension of the rivalry between authoritarian China and the liberal United States. These groups were based on the main political beliefs in China.
We found that liberals were most likely to say they were willing to boycott Russian products. Liberals believe that China should work with, rather than against, western democracies. They also place a high value on human rights and democratic freedoms. Because of their beliefs, they are likely to think that Russia’s actions against Ukraine were unprovoked, aggressive and disproportional.
Chinese and Russian economic and diplomatic relations seem closer than ever in 2024.
American Photo Archive/Alamy
The new left and neo-authoritarians we surveyed were more supportive of Russian products. The new left see Russia as a close ally and believe that Nato’s expansion in eastern Europe was a form of aggression. Neo-authoritarians, on the other hand, believe that supporting Russia, an allied autocracy, is in China’s best interest.
Boycotting Russian goods
Asking Chinese participants if they are willing to boycott Russian products might seem like a simple matter of consumer preferences. However, our study reveals a great deal about the way in which regular citizens can express controversial political beliefs in a repressive authoritarian regime.
Boycotting products of certain companies has long been studied in the west as a form of unconventional political action that helps people express their beliefs. However, in the west, boycotting certain products is simply one of many ways people are able to take political action. In a country such as China, boycotting a Russian product might often be the only safe way to express disagreement with the country’s actions.
This is because citizens do not have to tell others they chose not to buy a product, and their actions are unlikely to attract the attention of the authorities.
Since Russian goods are readily available to Chinese consumers and China is encouraging more Russian exports to reach its market, the Russian economy could be significantly affected by an organised boycott campaign in China. The considerable level of support for a boycott expressed by some of our participants, as well as previous acts of solidarity with Ukraine in China, suggest that such a campaign could already be taking place in the country.
This could harm Russia because it regularly exports a number of different products such as meat, chocolate, tea and wine to China. These goods made up 5.1% of China’s total imports in 2023 – and this figure is likely to increase if Russia becomes more isolated from the west, and therefore more dependent on China for its trade.
While 5.1% of the Chinese market might seem like a low figure, China is home to over 1.4 billion people. In this context, even a small boycott could result in a serious loss to Russian companies.
Our research shows that Chinese citizens don’t always support the official position of the communist party. It also shows that many people there will express even the most unpopular political opinions – if they can find a safe way to do it.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
China
Australia Can Enhance China’s Credibility in the CPTPP
In early 2024, China sought to join the CPTPP, potentially offering modest economic benefits to Australia. Key reforms include limiting state-owned enterprise subsidies, enhancing data flows, and banning forced labor.
China’s Interest in the CPTPP
In early 2024, China expressed a keen interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a trade agreement involving eleven Pacific Rim economies and the United Kingdom. This move is anticipated to yield modest economic benefits for Australia. However, it also opens the door for vital reforms in areas such as the control of subsidies for state-owned enterprises, allowing free cross-border data flows, and prohibiting forced labor practices.
Economic Implications for Australia
A May 2024 report from the Australian Productivity Commission indicated that China’s accession to the CPTPP might raise Australia’s GDP by only 0.01%. This modest gain isn’t surprising, given Australia’s existing preferential trade arrangement with China through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Nonetheless, the CPTPP encompasses more than just tariff reductions, focusing on broader trade principles and standards.
Reform Commitments Required from China
For China to become a CPTPP member, it must demonstrate adherence to high-standard rules initially developed with the country in mind. This commitment will help alleviate concerns among member nations like Japan and Canada, particularly regarding China’s economic practices and geopolitical tensions, such as those with Taiwan. Membership would necessitate reforms, including limiting SOE subsidies, enabling freer data flows, and banning forced labor, with significant penalties for non-compliance.
Source : Australia can encourage China’s credibility in the CPTPP
- China’s November 2024 Economy: Navigating Mixed Signals and Ongoing Challenges
- Ukraine war: 10% of Chinese people are willing to boycott Russian goods over invasion – new study
- Australia Can Enhance China’s Credibility in the CPTPP
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- China Dismantles Prominent Uyghur Business Landmark in Xinjiang – Shia Waves
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