The Sound of Hope Radio Network recently interviewed Cheng Xiaonong, an expert on the Chinese economy and chief editor of Modern China Studies. Cheng discussed the attempts of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials to boost international confidence in the Chinese economy while at the same time actually being on guard against possible large-scale protests being triggered by the economic crisis inside China. Cheng indicated that the Chinese economy is already on the verge of collapse, but that the CCP’s deception combined with economists’ lack of courage to speak up has led the outside world to be deceived about the true economic situation in China.
A recent report showed that the Chinese economy’s capacity to bounce back is not as high as expected. In the fourth quarter of last year, the quarterly growth of China’s economy was close to zero. This February, China’s exports dropped 26 percent. This has led some experts to begin to suspect that the real victims of the global financial crisis are not the over-consuming countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., but rather over-producing countries such as China. Cheng points out that the “statistics” used to assess China’s economy are released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, and due to the CCP’s authoritarian system, the Statistics Bureau can do nothing but cooperate with the CCP’s deceptive propaganda to create the illusion of prosperity.
Cheng Xiaonong told the Sound of Hope Radio that: “The National Bureau of Statistics is an economic mouthpiece of the government. Any data that the Bureau releases is only for the purpose of propaganda. Any data they think would be harmful to the government would be suppressed from disclosure, or manipulated and released as false data instead. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult for Chinese people to know what problems really exist in the Chinese economy. This is also why the majority of foreign observers to date have formed good impressions about the Chinese economy. In fact, in many cases, such impressions have been fueled by the CCP [planting false data to hide the true statistics].”
Cheng believes that one cannot really learn the truth about the Chinese economy from the official data released by the CCP. The reason why Chinese authorities still speak so highly about confidence in the country’s economy is precisely because the CCP regime controls the media, regularly manipulates public opinion and repeatedly spreads false information with its Propaganda Department to deceive the entire world.
Cheng explained in the interview: “The CCP considers all this data to be 'state secrets' and not to be disclosed. Only on rare occasions, for example, in a media report or an official speech, one or two points have leaked out. The CCP has never systematically released such data. It is known that the unemployment rate exceeded 30 percent five years ago. The fundamental reason why the CCP uses the Propaganda Department to regularly control the media and worldwide public opinion is to simply make it appear to the world that the economy of a country with an unemployment rate of 30 percent is somehow better than the economy of a country with an unemployment rate of 5 or 6 percent, and the CCP would like to fool the whole world into believing that.”
Sun Chunlan, the Vice Chairman of the National Federation of Trade Unions, in February declared openly that trade unions must tightly guard against “hostile forces” infiltrating the migrant workers’ organizations and causing damage. Cheng believes that in reality, the CCP officials knew very well, by February, that the migrant workers already had no way to support themselves, and thus the CCP has become very worried about the situation. With the large number of unemployed migrant workers, a new series of incidents born of discontent may arise.
Cheng said that if “ordinary workers, including migrant workers and university graduates, say that their standard of living is good, then we can say the Chinese economy is doing well. If they say that their living standard is poor, it proves that China’s economy is indeed in poor shape! The current situation for migrant workers or university graduates could not be worse! For example, look at the employment rate for this year’s university graduates in Guangdong Province, the province with the best economic condition. The employment rate for students who graduated this year has not exceeded 8 percent to date. That means that 92 percent could not find a job. Similarly, the number of unemployed migrant workers has reached 30 million.”
Cheng also mentioned that many economists inside and outside of China often do not want to speak the truth because they have personal interests or close ties to the CCP. Hence it is quite difficult to assess the true condition of China’s economy.
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