Are the remnants of the Tuan Faction rebelling in front of the Central Economic Conference in Beijing? – The Epoch Times

[The Epoch Times, December 09, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Ning Haizhong) The Communist Party of China held a Politburo meeting on December 8 to set the tone for next year’s economic work. The outside world expects the Central Economic Work Conference to be held later. Recently, the Chinese Communist Party’s official media have been publishing articles to whitewash the economic situation, and a think tank headed by Lu Hao, a member of the Communist Youth League, has published an article that has been accused of pouring cold water on the situation. Analysts believe that as the CCP crisis deepens, it is expected that such rebellious articles or behaviors within the CCP will become more common in the future.

A report on the 8th by Xinhua News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, showed that the Politburo meeting of the Communist Party of China continued to boast that China’s economy was “recovering and improving”, and compared with last year, “improving social expectations” was a new term.

In fact, since the beginning of this year, China’s various economic data have been worse than expected, and there are even signs of deflation.

China’s economic difficulties have attracted international attention. In early December, the international credit rating agency Moody’s lowered the credit rating outlook of China, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as a number of Chinese banks, from “stable” to “negative”.

Although the Economic Work Conference of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (referred to as the Economic Work Conference for short) will be held in December as usual, it has not been announced when it will be held. However, some analysts predict that this meeting may be held after Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping returns from his visit to Vietnam from December 12 to 13.

Recently, major official media outlets of the Chinese Communist Party have begun to prepare public opinion for the China Economic and Social Council.

Among them, the “People’s Daily” published a series of articles on “A Rational View of the Economic Situation” on December 8, which proposed “six continuous improvements” and emphasized that China’s economy is “strongly resilient and has many bright spots.” The author of this article is Huang Hanquan, president of the China Academy of Macroeconomics, a think tank under the National Development and Reform Commission of the Communist Party of China.

On December 4, Beijing’s “Economic Daily” also published an article, whitewashing China’s economy as “increasingly resilient” from four aspects, including understanding the “strength and vitality potential” of the Chinese economy, “domestic demand continues to recover and expand steadily”, etc.

However, the “China Economic Times” published an article on the 7th in the newspaper’s key column “Times Commentary” with the title “A rational view of the increase in economic growth expectations.” The article said that towards the end of the year, a wave of international organizations had raised their economic growth expectations for China, arguing that this was the time to “look at it calmly, analyze rationally, and develop pragmatically.”

In addition to mentioning some of the so-called “advantages” of China’s economy, the article said that if opening up to the outside world stops moving forward, it will retreat if it does not advance. The article also said that from an internal perspective, China’s economy has shortcomings. For example, many industrial manufacturing is not sophisticated, infrastructure construction is unbalanced, the domestic demand market has not been fully developed and mobilized, and the construction of a unified national market is still far from the goal. There are also difficulties in increasing residents’ income. The article also emphasizes that if the external development environment is not good, China’s economic growth will also be adversely affected.

“China Economic Times” is an organization under the Development Research Center of the State Council of the Communist Party of China. It is a rare “think tank newspaper” in China. The author of this article, Tang Fuyong, was formerly the director of the financial department of the newspaper and is now responsible for the newspaper’s current commentary.

In response to the above-mentioned commentary by the China Economic Times, Hong Kong’s Economic Daily published a commentary in its finance column on December 9, arguing that this commentary seemed to be intended to pour cold water on the authorities.

The competent authority of China Economic Times is the Development Research Center of the State Council, whose director is Lu Hao.

Current affairs commentator Li Linyi told The Epoch Times on December 9 that Lu Hao is considered a remnant of the Tuan Faction. Before the China Economic Conference, the Development Research Center of the State Council, headed by Lu Hao, poured cold water on China’s economy. Although China’s economic situation is worse than what the article said, this behavior is soft resistance to Xi Jinping’s economic policies at best. It is “rebellion”.

He said that especially in the current environment, officials have set the rule that the economy can only be said to be good and not bad. A considerable number of scholars who pointed out China’s economic problems have been banned. Lu Hao may not be unaware of this, but the think tank he controls still published the article before the China Economic Conference, which obviously has an agenda. The CCP regime is currently in crisis, and it is expected that such articles or actions against Xi Jinping’s authority will become more common within the CCP in the future.

At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao, the former leader of the Youth League faction, was rarely removed from the closing ceremony. Former members of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Li Keqiang and Wang Yang withdrew from the Politburo. Hu Chunhua, who was expected to become a permanent member, was also kicked out of the Politburo and later joined the CPPCC as a casualty. . The “Tuanpai”, once a major force within the Chinese Communist Party, is considered to have been “annihilated” by Xi Jinping. Lu Hao, who once served as first secretary of the Communist Youth League Central Committee, was demoted from the minister of natural resources to the sinecure position of director of the Development Research Center of the State Council in the middle of last year.

Editor in charge: Hu Yulong#