Beijing
For a decade, it seemed Chairman Xi Jinping could do no wrong. Media controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) praised this demigod whose face and sage wisdom graced front pages nationwide.
However, as economic and strategic realities resulting from Xi’s policies begin to bite, the people of China are now paying the price.
Authoritarian regimes must carefully control information, and China is extremely good at this. Yet, to ward off criticisms at home and abroad, Beijing has taken more severe steps to reduce the flow of data harmful to the CCP. Thus, in August the National Bureau of Statistics of China stopped releasing data on youth unemployment.
June’s data was alarming, with unemployment amongst 16-24-year-olds reaching 21.3 per cent, double what it was four years ago. However, the situation is far worse than these figures denote, for in China a person is considered gainfully employed even if they work only one hour per week! Nor does this figure include young people in rural areas.
Some believe China’s actual youth unemployment rate could be as high as 50 per cent. The National Bureau of Statistics is a magical government department – for it can produce all manner of manipulated data – but there is a limit to the deception even it can release. Simply by stopping the publication of embarrassing information, the CCP hopes the problem might disappear. In fact, this government department has been steadily publishing fewer economic indicators in recent years as the data becomes more damning. Truth and transparency have never been central tenets of any communism regime, in China particularly so.
