Tracking People’s Daily — June 22, 2020

Page 1: The most anodyne first page that I’ve seen for some time. There are a couple of pieces on the poverty alleviation campaign. The key political story is about the June 28–30 session of the NPCSC. I covered this in my weekly newsletter published yesterday. But the one story that stands out is this one about the successful test run of a high-speed maglev vehicle with speed of 600km/hour. Here’s an English version and promo video of the train.

Page 2: Two stories on the Covid-19 outbreak in Beijing. The first one talks about the city having sufficient supplies of fruits and vegetables. The second, talks about the epidemic prevention steps in Beijing, from testing to mobilising cadres and adjusting school operations, etc. Another story on the page is from Wuhan, where young graduates are struggling for jobs. The spin is positive, but then this gives it away: “According to reports, the employment rate of college graduates in Wuhan is climbing, currently at 40%-50%.” Finally, a piece on credit data, which is noteworthy.

• statistics from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission show that in the first five months, manufacturing loans increased by 1.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year, the fastest growth rate since 2014 .
• New manufacturing loans accounted for 11.3% of new domestic loans, an increase of 6.7 percentage points from the beginning of the year.
• At the end of the first quarter, the balance of high-tech manufacturing loans was 2.97 trillion yuan, an increase of 275.3 billion yuan from the beginning of the year, accounting for 25% of the new manufacturing loans.
• Bloomberg’s report explains some of this: “Lenders have postponed taking principal repayments on 1.44 trillion yuan in loans to almost 800,000 small businesses and pushed back 65.4 billion yuan in interest payments as of May 31. Banks also rolled over 2.4 trillion yuan in financing to small businesses.

Page 3: A piece on a bilingual Covid-19 treatment manual and how that helped doctors in Spain. Another one out outreach efforts by the Chinese embassy in Brazil to share experiences in combating Covid-19. And two pieces that follow-up on the China-Africa summit. This informs of what Beijing expects from its partnership with Africa:

“Unswervingly advancing China-Africa friendship will bring more stability and certainty to the world. At present, injustice and inequality in international relations are still prominent, and protectionism, unilateralism and bullying are counter-current. The inheritance and promotion of traditional friendship between China and Africa, and turning this advantage into a driving force for unity, cooperation, and development are conducive to promoting a more balanced, fair, and inclusive development of the world, and are conducive to establishing mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation. New international relations. China and Africa call for firm support for multilateralism, opposition to unilateralism and racism, joint support for the United Nations and the World Health Organization to play a leading role in international anti-epidemic cooperation, and joint opposition to politicizing the epidemic and labeling the virus. These important consensuses conform to the trend of the times, are conducive to advancing international anti-epidemic cooperation, are conducive to safeguarding the common interests of developing countries such as China and Africa, and are conducive to safeguarding multilateralism and international fairness and justice.”

Page 4: An interesting report on new regulations on the economic responsibility audit of senior military officials. My sense is that this ties into the report of the CMC session on “strategic management training of the whole army,” which I covered last week. So what’s this regulation about? Here’s what we know from Xinhua’s English report:

• The regulations “lay out an overall plan on the work on economic responsibility audit, and will restructure the current system of economic responsibility audit.”
• They highlight “the audit in senior military officials’ implementation of decisions, major decision-making, task-performing and problem-solving in military economic activities”
• audit results should be important criteria in officials’ performance evaluation, appointments and dismissals, as well as rewards and punishment.

It sounds like this is about tackling waste and spending more effectively. Should create friction, right? You’re hitting at the purse strings of senior military figures.

Two other pieces on the page to note are about the propaganda around the national security legislation in Hong Kong. You can check out the latest developments regarding that in my weekly newsletter.

Page 16: The international page’s cover story is based on the reopening efforts underway in Europe. It says: “the recent situation of European epidemic prevention and control continues to improve, and the pace of resuming normal social life is accelerating. While many countries are gradually loosening the border control measures…new measures are also being adopted to support the economy.” Another story is about United Nations Human Rights Council’s resolution strongly condemning the continuing racially discrimination and violent practices perpetrated by law enforcement agencies against Africans and people of African descent. And also note this report about China’s pandemic diplomacy in the Arab world.

“According to statistics, so far, China has provided about 8.4 million masks of various types, more than 1.1 million test kits and nearly 300,000 pieces of protective clothing to Arab countries, serving 17 countries and the Arab League and GCC Held a video conference of health experts, dispatched medical expert groups to eight Arab countries with urgent needs, and shared mature diagnosis and treatment experience and prevention and control programs without reservation.” Another bit says: “China also provided an annual donation of US$1 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, provided anti-epidemic material assistance to the medical institutions under the Agency, and through the Agency to Palestine and Palestine in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Refugees provide help. The above actions reflect the profound friendship between the Chinese people, the Palestinian people and the Arab people.”