Dialogue China BriefingTalking All About China NowIssue 127 – March 15, 2023Subscribe for Free? Click to Join!In This IssueThe articles shared here do not necessarily reflect views of Dialogue China.I. From Director1. The “Forced Lying” Mechanism of the Chinese Communist Party’s Rule  II. Policy (Inside The Great Firewall)2. Between Progress and Retreat: The Course of Rural Nationalization in China since the Reform and Opening Era Started3. A Major Change in China’s Administrative Zoning Could Reverse the Future of County Towns and Cities  III. Politics (Inside The Great Firewall)4. Why the United States-Japan-Holland Semiconductor Agreement Cannot Contain China5. The “Surveillance Balloon Incident” and the Future of United States-China Relations  IV. Finance and Business (Inside The Great Firewall)6. 31 Provinces’ Gross Domestic Product [GDP] Report Card: Central and Western Region Growth Rates Emphasize the Domination Model and These Related Industries  From Director1. The “Forced Lying” Mechanism of the Chinese Communist Party’s RuleWang Dan – UP Media – February 14, 2023One of the more recent social events in China that has drawn the close attention of social groups is the death of Hu Xinyu, a 15-year-old boy from Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, who was found to have hung himself to death a few dozen meters from his school on the 106th day after his disappearance. In response to the wave of skepticism and suspicion on the Internet, the Chinese Communist Party ostensibly seemed to adopt a very decisive approach. They held a press conference and announced the closure of the case five days after the body was found, stating that Hu Xinyu had killed himself because he was weary from studying too much. But this was clearly a lie. This is because of the inconsistency between where the police reported the body found and the account of the person who found it, the length of the shoelace used for hanging doesn’t match the height of the tree trunk as officially reported, the shoelace could not withstand the gravitational force of the deceased jumping from the tree, the body was dressed differently than when Hu Xinyu was last seen in surveillance video, and there are many illogical points in the autopsy report, all of which are very obvious flaws in logic. This is a lie, and a very clumsy one, so clumsy that it is unbelievable. Do the authorities have water on their brains? Do the authorities think that they can deceive public opinion by doing this? The answer to the question may be very simple: the authorities know that they are lying, and they know that no one will believe such lies, but they still have to lie because lying has become a kind of inertial institutional mechanism. The authorities can find no better way than to follow this mechanism. This kind of lie can be said to be a kind of “forced lie.” For this kind of “forced lie,” there is a sentence that can be said to be the most classic description. That was the Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province high-speed train collision that happened in 2011. Two trains collided on a bridge in the deep of night and the railways carriages fell to the ground. The authorities stopped the search and rescue work early the next morning and started burying the carriage cars. The Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping said that the rescue site was a quagmire, and in the rush to facilitate the rescue the carriages were pushed down under the mud. In response to questions from the public and the media, Wang Yongping threw out the old adage: “Whether you believe it or not, I believe it.” Anyone who wants to understand the problems with governance of the Communist Party today should ponder these words over and over, because these few simple words not only embody the arrogance and disdain of those in power, but also abundantly reveal the sense of helplessness in the hearts of the authorities. One explanation for this is that the Communist Party’s governance ability is so low that in many cases it is incapable of finding out the truth. Under such circumstances, lies become the lowest cost “truth.” For example, in the case of last year’s Xuzhou chained woman incident*, the Communist Party did not want to protect any specific official in Jiangsu Province. It is not that the government did not want to find out the name of the woman who was trafficked, it simply could not find out the truth. In the vast hinterland of the inland Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provinces – and even in the rural areas of the coastal provinces – girls are born without documentation, and many of them remain invisible and without official IDs for their entire lives. Of course, the Communist Party cannot admit that under its glorious leadership, it is impossible to find a girl’s household registration, because once it admits this weakness, more lies will disappear like dust in the wind – such as Xi Jinping’s comprehensive poverty eradication and “moderately prosperous society,” which will undoubtedly become a big joke around the world in the absence of reliable, plausible population statistics. Therefore, once the first lie is told, lies must continue to be fabricated one after another. In the end, when you cannot make a tenable defense of it, you can only adopt an arrogant and overbearing attitude and say: “I believe it anyway!” * The Xuzhou chained woman incident (徐州铁链女事件), also known as the Xuzhou eight-child mother incident (徐州八孩母亲事件), is a case of human trafficking, false imprisonment, sexual assault, severe mistreatment, and subsequent events that came to light in late January 2022 in Feng County, Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The video of a mentally disturbed and unlawfully imprisoned woman who was chained to a wall and who gave birth to eight children went viral on China’s internet and sparked a huge public outcry. From the poor management of the many socially disruptive incidents in 2022 to the dramatic about-face in pandemic prevention policies, it can be seen that the Communist Party at all levels of government has failed to establish a stable mechanism for crisis management that can be relied upon. This is not only because the original mechanism is facing unprecedented challenges as social conflicts intensify and the cost of maintaining stability rises, but also because the highly centralized political structure after the 20th Communist Party National Congress has further consolidated, leaving less and less room for governments at all levels to deal with social crises flexibly. Under such circumstances, “forcible lying” has become a necessary governance mechanism. However, we should also see that such a mechanism is almost a sign of the end of the road, which can only lead to greater crisis for Communist Party rule. Because a lie is a lie, forcing lies will only make more people wake up. The standing up and striding boldly forward of the post-2000 generation in the “White Paper Revolution” is the by-product of “forcible lying.”Policy (Inside The Great Firewall)2. Between Progress and Retreat: The Course of Rural Nationalization in China since the Reform and Opening Era StartedLang Youxing, Song Tianchu – Political Scientist – February 13, 2023Why Read This? Nationalization has been a major issue in Chinese rural society in recent times, but there are many differences in the understanding of nationalization and the lack of a specific framework for analyzing nationalization. There are three important variables in Chinese rural nationalization: 1. The political factor, in which revolutionaries have transformed and reshaped rural society in a modernizing way. 2. Developmentalism, which does not challenge but rather strengthens the authority of nationalization and provides strong support. 3. The repositioning of the role of the state, in which the role of the state occupies an increasingly important position in rural areas and increasingly undertakes a morality and justice role.（Read The Original Text）Policy (Inside The Great Firewall)3. A Major Change in China’s Administrative Zoning Could Reverse the Future of County Towns and CitiesWu Jiaji – Beijing Cultural Review – February 7, 2023Why Read This? This paper discusses the real effects of the “provincial control of counties” reform on the urbanization of counties and national governance from the perspective of China’s administrative zoning. The “direct provincial control of counties” is an important institutional design to promote urbanization through the flattening of administrative levels by changing the “province-city-county” model to a “province-county” management model. The purpose of the reform is to extend provincial power to the county level, and there are three types of applications: administrative county, financial county and full provincial county. The authors argue that, among the three types of reforms, the administrative county directly under the control of the province fully realizes the provincial-county interface, which is most consistent with the theoretical design of the “county directly under the control of the province.”（Read The Original Text）Politics (Inside The Great Firewall)4. Why the United States-Japan-Holland Semiconductor Agreement Cannot Contain ChinaTie Liu – Scientific and Industrial Strength – February 10, 2023Why Read This? Recently, the United States reached an agreement with Japan and the Netherlands to restrict the export of equipment needed to manufacture advanced semiconductor microchips to China. After the news broke, the share prices of global semiconductor-related companies fluctuated to different degrees. The agreement is tantamount to a “nuclear bomb level sanction” on the semiconductor microchip industry in China. The author believes that if the United States reaches an agreement with Japan and the Netherlands to jointly restrict exports of semiconductor microchip equipment to China, it will indeed have a very negative impact on the expansion of fabrication capacity in China. However, how such an agreement will be implemented is still unknown, and there are many loopholes that can be exploited. Overall, the agreement represents both a challenge and an opportunity for China’s semiconductor microchip industry.（Read The Original Text）Politics (Inside The Great Firewall)5. The “Surveillance Balloon Incident” and the Future of United States-China RelationsZheng Yongnian – Greater Bay Area Review – February 12, 2023Why Read This? In early February 2023, tensions between the United States and China that had been warming for the previous three months were reignited after the accidental entry of an unmanned Chinese surveillance balloon into United States territorial airspace. The United States not only postponed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China, but also scrambled an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down the balloon with a guided missile. The United States and China blame each other for the “balloon incident.” But the important question is what attitude both sides take going forward in dealing with the “balloon incident.” We should not let individual United States’ politicians define the critical relationship between China and the United States. We must also have the strength to redefine the relationship between China and the United States, and the key is to exercise the power of reason, not the power of emotion. Unfortunately, the “balloon incident” is being hyped up by the United States’ side. And even though it is only a “balloon” that caused the friction, it is profoundly affecting the United States – People’s Republic of China relationship.（Read The Original Text）Finance and Business (Inside The Great Firewall)6. 31 Provinces’ GDP Report Card: Central and Western Region Growth Rates Emphasize the Domination Model and These Related IndustriesZhou Xiaoling – Southern Weekend – February 14, 2023Why Read This? In 2022, the size of China’s economy will exceed US$18 trillion with a Gross Domestic Product [GDP] growth rate of 3 percent. Of 31 provinces, Guangdong tops the total GDP list. Among the six central provinces, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan have long been in the top 10 of GDP. Anhui narrowly overtook Shanghai to become the fourth central province in the top 10 GDP list in 2022. Due to the large economic volume and the impact of the pandemic, the eastern provinces generally show a slowdown trend in growth. Five western provinces enter the top 10 in terms of national GDP growth in 2022, namely Gansu, Yunnan, Sha’anxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. For the western provinces, the high growth rate is on the one hand due to their own small baseline. One or two big projects are able to increase the growth rate. On the other hand it is also thanks to the “Western Development” strategy guided by the transfer of industries.（Read The Original Text）

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