On March 16, China Minsheng Bank held a ceremony for the official release of "Platinum" and "Diamond" credit cards by China Minsheng Bank at the Hyatt Hotel in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The diamond credit card issued by Minsheng Bank carries a monthly overdraft of three million yuan (US$375,000), 60 times the current maximum prescribed by national regulations. This type of credit card mainly targets the following types of upper-class clients: celebrities, business tycoons, and officials above the rank of Vice Minister.
Some people question why the overdraft limit is so high while the monthly income for high-level senior officials above the rank of Vice Minister is only a few thousand yuan. If the credit card overdraft reaches three million yuan, the person will not pay off the debt in tens of years even if he devoted every penny to debt service and stopped using the card. The explanation provided by the bank is, "The diamond credit card [advocates] forming an alliance with the top brands and serving first-class clients."
It looks like what the bank truly desires is the "first-class position" those high-level senior officials hold. The bank won't do any business that loses money. If the bank gains the favor of high-level officials, the resulting policy benefits would far exceed a few million yuan. The bank willing trades credit for influence; having senior officials deeply in debt to the bank is good business indeed.
In the past, some high-ranking officials unfortunately "fell off their horses," such as former Communist Party Committee Secretary of Guizhou Province Liu Fangren and Vice Governor Wang Huaizhong of Anhui Province. By looking at the millions or even tens of millions of yuan they owned, one can see that converting power into money is "normal" in China. The capability for power to overdraw money is extraordinary. An investigative report from China's Ministry of Commerce claims that in recent years approximately four thousand high-ranking officials have fled the country, carrying with them about US$50 billion.
China is a "rich country" with enough resources for communist officials to overdraw for many years: Enough for General Secretary Hu Jintao to "generously" give dollars away while visiting foreign countries. It has been said that China's economy is leaping forward and that China's GDP has maintained a high increase rate of eight percent in the last few years - one of the highest in the world. This gives communist officials great pride.
High-speed Development Overdraws upon Resources
It is difficult to slow down China's GDP. One can examine two examples: One is the development of the Dianchi Lake tourist site in Yunnan Province, which has created over two billion yuan ($250 million) of income. However, due to overdeveloping, the water in the lake has been severely contaminated, and China has invested over four billion yuan ($500 million), twice the revenue, for water treatment.
According to China's GDP calculating methods (in this case adding expenditures for development and cleanup, though one is actually subtracted from the other,) the development of Dianchi Lake and water treatment for contamination has created an overall GDP gain of over six billion yuan ($750 million).
Another example is the Three-Gorges project, with 200 billion yuan ($ 25 billion) project investment and 300 billion yuan ($36 billion) to treat water contamination caused by the project, thus adding at least another 500 billion yuan ($60 billion) to China's GDP.
China's GDP growth is expensive. A retired professor from Qinghua University once published a paper on the Internet stating, "For every dollar of GDP China produces, the energy consumed is more than four times the energy consumed by the U.S. and more than seven times consumed by Japan. Although it looks like China is making money now, from the long-term perspective, China is losing money - the money will be lost in future generations."
The development over the last twenty years and the mass scale of logging and coal mining might have already overdrawn China's resources for the next two hundred years. In fact, China's resource consumption rate in the last thirty years is 11 times of the rate of the last three hundred years. If the development continues in this speed, China's natural resources are likely to be consumed within fifty years.
The New York Times reported on February 6, 2006 that a Barbie doll imported from China was sold at the price of $20 on the U.S. market; but China only gets $0.35. This amount of money is not even enough to clean the water contamination caused by producing this Barbie doll. The economic development model led by the Chinese Communist government is converting natural resources, which are difficult to regenerate, into cheap export products. High cost, small profit margin, mass production and a tiny benefit - but China continues to enjoy talking about its position as the "world's factory."
Only because China has the cheapest labor (some of it slave labor) in the world and ignores its environmental problems, can China's cheap products be competitive in the international market.
Overdrawing on Social Security
In order to keep up the illusion of economic prosperity for a period of time, the Chinese government is using all kinds of ways to develop the economy ― mostly "killing the goose that lays the golden egg." Increased exports are the product of Chinese laborers who have no social security and who work under lousy working environment with very low pay. Workers are crippled or killed in mine accidents and oil pipe blowouts one after another. But sympathy is the only "help" these workers receive from the Chinese government.
Conservative calculations indicate that China overdraws on its Social Security by 480 billion yuan ($60 billion) each year. Those laborers will become a major part of the seniors in 50 years. The Chinese government is overdrawing its social security fund for many years in the future to finance the increase of exports at present! As a big agricultural nation, agricultural facilities, land, the income and social security funds of peasants have always been overdrawn. The overdrafts on Chinese people's savings shows the evil nature of a financial market controlled by Chinese government.
Completely Drain China and Abandon Ship
China's Gini coefficient (an indicator of asset allocation; the higher the index, the more difference between the poor and the rich) is above 4.3. It is said Chinese people are following a wolf's way of life - cities are swallowing the countryside's natural resources and financial resources; there is no trust between friends as they use and harm each other like strangers; the corrupted officials "bite the sheep (underprivileged people) with very sharp teeth;" the hospitals and schools all open their bloody mouths widely to wait for victims; the price of production goods is increasing, medical fees are increasing, and education fees are increasing.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials represent the powerful class who are overdrawing from a socially weak group, sucking the life out of their own society. This kind of mooching of the Chinese nation's present and future is avaricious, but it is unavoidable in a country ruled by one Party without a monitoring mechanism.
The ability of the CCP officials to overdraw is astonishing. They would withdraw the value of the whole country if they could, as they and their families have long planned to move out of China. There is information showing that over 1.2 million high-ranking officials' family members are living aboard, with over 200,000 in Europe, U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and about 150,000 as citizens of those countries. The U.S. and Canada have become lands of escape for those officials' family members, and many of them are family members of those above the level of vice minister!
We can now see the sharpness of Chinese bankers!
