The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) deployment of warplanes and ships on frequent military exercises near Taiwan as well as spy balloons is aimed at intimidating Taiwan and restricting its defense space, a report by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on China in the fourth quarter of last year said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had denied that Beijing plans to invade Taiwan by 2027 or 2035 at a meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in San Francisco in November last year, the report said.
Since that meeting, the US and China have pursued a series of initiatives on diplomacy, strategy, the economy, climate change and combating illegal drugs, showing that both sides are mending fences and keeping channels of dialogue open, it said.
China last year faced a series of natural disasters, including earthquakes, heavy snowfall and mining accidents, which severely tested its emergency response capabilities and social stability, it said.
The country met its projected 5.2 percent economic growth for last year, but exports and foreign investments lagged, while local debt rose 25.6 percent, indicating growing financial risks, it said.
For this year, most analysts forecast that Chinese GDP would grow between 4 and 5 percent, it said.
The CCP’s Central Financial Work Commission said that strengthening party leadership, instituting financial oversight, and focusing on resolving the nation’s real-estate and local government debt issues would help negate risk, the report said.
On the social front, the report said that the number of workers demanding payment of overdue salaries from companies and governments was more than the sum of individuals demanding the same thing over the past three years.
Rising unemployment among young Chinese has given rise to terms such as “full-time children” or “delayed employment” in a silent rebuke of society’s failure, the report said.
The CCP’s pilot free-trade zones in Xinjiang and its most recent white paper on Tibet, issued on Nov. 10 last year are Beijing’s attempts to counter international criticism about its policies in the two regions, it said.
Separately, the report said that 47 high-ranking CCP members were investigated by the party last year, exceeding the number in 2022.
Last year also saw many generals and other figures in the defense industry stripped of their positions as National People’s Congress deputies or eligibility to attend the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, it said.
To boost the nation’s diplomatic profile, Xi in December issued “six musts,” which include increasing Chinese influence by meeting with other heads of state or top government figures and setting a target of receiving more than 100 foreign guests from 70 countries this year, the report said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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