1 Talking Point 5 The Week in 60 Seconds 6 China Consumer Week in China 9 Auto Industry 10 Telecoms 11 Chinese Character 13 Energy and Resources 9 March 2012 14 Society and Culture Issue 141 17 And Finally www.weekinchina.com 18 The Back Page Farewell to 8% growth m o c . n i e t s p e a t i n e b . w w w y b g u in Premier Wen revises down growth target for year to 7.5% and promises ‘deep’ reforms o k y n o a t B s t l t h a e g b k u o r o l a r G M B C d B n S a H Week in China Talking Point 9 March 2012 After eight A new economic target stimulates debate at this year’s NPC No, not 10%: Wen Jiabao now targets 7.5% GDP growth hen Jilan hit the headlines again “nonsense” she claimed. Not sur- lysts this indicated a slowdown, Sat this year’s National People’s prisingly the idea didn’t find much with potentially recessionary im- Congress (NPC). As WiC pointed out favour with China’s 500 million in- plications for the world as a whole. in issue 98, she got a lot of media at- ternet users. “Her mind stays in Stock markets sold off thanks to tention at last year’s meeting Mao’s time, but she is a delegate for Wen setting the lowest growth tar- thanks to a revelation about her vot- today’s people,” complained weibo get since 2004. ing record. The 82 year-old has at- user Wang Gang. But the number was significant tended every meeting of China’s China’s annual legislative session for another reasons. As WiC pointed parliament since 1954. And as she began on Monday. Apart from Shen’s out in issue 8, there is a psychologi- proudly told the Beijing Youth Daily plan to straitjacket the web, what cal importance in China to 8% she has yet to vote against a single else came up at this year’s NPC? growth – it’s viewed as the level re- government proposal. quired to absorb school leavers and Many chief whips in the UK Premier Wen’s percentage game… graduates into the workforce. There would no doubt envy such loyalty. As usual Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is even a term ‘bao ba’ (protect 8) to But this year Shen caused contro- delivered his so-called work report – describe its strategic importance. versy with a proposal of her own. a speech that the Nikkei newspaper So departing from it – even by According to the Southern Metrop- calls China’s equivalent of the “state 0.5% – is a key signal. In fact, Wen olis Daily she wants to set up a new of the union”. used his speech to reiterate a need body to decide who should and On this occasion, Wen moved to change China’s economic model. Photo Source: Reuters Source: Photo shouldn’t be allowed to access the world financial markets. That’s be- “The key to solving the problem of internet. Why? Free access to the in- cause he forecast that China’s imbalanced, uncoordinated, unsus- ternet was misleading the masses economy would only grow by 7.5% tainable development [in China] is with bad information and foreign this year. For economists and ana- to accelerate the transformation of 1 Week in China Talking Point 9 March 2012 the pattern of economic develop- ment. This is both a long-term task and our most pressing task at pres- ent,” he said. Better quality growth must be sought, said Wen, through “policies that encourage consumption.” The end of 8% growth… The Wall Street Journal commented that Wen had “signalled that an era of supercharged expansion may be coming to an end, a shift with pro- found implications for countries like Australia and Brazil that have prospered from red-hot demand for commodities.” It added that the lower growth target suggested China’s leaders don’t “intend to stimulate the econ- omy through state-led investment, Best Debt House Best Loan House as they have in the past. Instead, they plan to let a long-touted shift away from export-led expansion to take its course.” But does Wen’s speech actually mean China will see 7.5% growth this year? HSBC doesn’t think so. “We reiterate that the lower GDP target should be seen more as the lower bound of Beijing’s range of Dim Sum Bond House Bond House of the Year of the Year acceptable growth forecasts, rather than as an actual growth forecast,” writes Sun Junwei, HSBC’s China economist. “Beijing has an impres- sive track record of overshooting its pre-announced growth targets; for example, we refer to the average of 11% actual growth versus 8% target growth for 2005-2011.” Significantly, the government’s Best Offshore RMB Best International increased focus on welfare pro- Bond House Bond House grammes means it will run a big- ger fiscal deficit this year – 1.5% of GDP versus 1.1% in 2011. That is stimulative. Sun reckons “a wider deficit, plus more monetary easing should help China achieve an around 8.6% GDP growth rate for this year.” HSBC operates in various jurisdictions through its affiliates, including, but not limited to, HSBC Bank plc, authorised and regulated by the Financial Wen’s speech had its critics? Services Authority, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., member of NYSE, FINRA and SIPC, and HSBC Bank USA, NA. 12-018 One of the key planks of the govern- 2 Week in China Talking Point 9 March 2012 ment’s welfare drive is an increase in affordable housing. Wen announced that spending on this would rise 23% Planet China this year to Rmb211.8 billion – with Strange but true stories from the new China five million public housing units fin- ished in 2012 and seven million DEAD WRONG. In the BBC documentary series Frozen Planet, viewers more under construction. watch as a woolly bear caterpillar reacts to a drop in the Arctic Hao Yuan, vice governor of temperature. It first freezes, then its heart stops and so too its breathing. Gansu province, was not convinced. Then as the Arctic begins to thaw, something amazing happens. “The He said local governments lacked caterpillar rises from the dead,” comments narrator David Attenborough; and we watch as it starts to move and eat its first meal in months. the funds to pay their share of af- Something akin to this just happened in China, although to a human. fordable housing costs, calling it a According to Modern Express, residents of Liulou Village in Guangxi were “major financial burden”. Speaking astounded last month by an incident involving 95 year-old Li Xiufen. After a at the Chinese People’s Political fall she’d been diagnosed with a concussion and told to rest. On the Consultative Conference (CPPCC) – morning of February 17 her neighbours found the old woman was no longer an event that accompanies the breathing, and, though still warm, assumed she’d died. Two days later she NPC – he said local governments was placed in a coffin in her home along with some burning incense and a don’t have enough capital or land, bowl of rice. The morning before her scheduled burial, neighbours again nor (interestingly) the incentive, to entered her home and were stunned to see Mrs Li sitting on the floor, very build affordable housing. much alive and making porridge. The elderly woman told them she’d That wasn’t the only note of dis- woken at dawn and felt hungry. sent. Also speaking at the CPPCC, Chen Feng objected to a passage in Wen’s speech that referred to idea of carbon trading, but apply it Guangdong, Chongqing and Shang- China’s “blind development” of instead to China’s one-child policy. hai. That’s because they represented wind and solar energy and calling Li suggested that poor rural resi- a constituency that historically has for its “suppression”. The chairman dents could sell their right to have a been ignored by China’s parliament: of HNA Group thought the prime second child to wealthier urban migrant workers. minister had sent out the wrong sig- families. “The state should establish The role of Hu Xiaoyan, Hong nal and said so on a panel. The gov- a trading platform for those with Houming and Zhu Xueqin is to act ernment, Chen believed, should demand to apply and those with a as a voice for the migrants and air actively support ‘new energy’ rather legitimate ‘quota of fertility’ to their concerns and grievances. But than talk of its suppression; an ac- transfer,” said Li. This would com- as the newspaper points out this is tion he deemed “inappropriate”. bine family planning with “enhanc- quite a challenge. After all, it’s tough Wen’s strong language could just ing national competitiveness”. for three delegates to fully repre- cause more problems for the nas- Li’s other suggestion: he wants sent 242 million people. cent industry, he added. anyone convicted of robbery to be Conspicuously not present this WiC isn’t suggesting a new era of sent to China’s northern deserts to year were any of the ‘independent parliamentary debate has begun. plant trees. “Let them atone for their candidates’ who made such a media But such public criticisms are an in- crime by greening the environment, splash last year (see WiC109). Cir- teresting development; and cer- which is beneficial to eliminating the cumventing the usual processes tainly less choreographed than in root causes of their lazy thinking,”he they’d tried to become delegates by bygone sessions.