China’s 2021 ‘Accomplishments’: What Chinese Premier Li Didn’t Mention in His Economic Report

Beneath the claims lie many uncomfortable facts

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speaks from the podium at the opening session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 5, 2022. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

News Analysis

Watching the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “democracy with Chinese characteristics” in action is illuminating, mind-boggling, and laughable. These also apply to formal presentations by Party officials to their rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

• Illuminating in the absurdity of the CCP’s ongoing efforts to insist that its version of “democracy” compares in any way to commonly understood definitions.
• Mind-boggling in considering the manpower expended in relentlessly attempting to create the notion that there is anything democratic whatsoever in the Chinese regime or in the NPC.
• Laughable in seeing the sloganeering, cliches, and downright gobbledygook used, which parrot Western concepts in a blatant attempt to convince Chinese citizens (and others) that communist China “really, really is” a bona fide democracy.

Before we get into the laughable as it applies to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s recent economic report to the 13th People’s Congress, let us dispense with the CCP’s notion that China is anything remotely resembling a democracy.

In a democracy, people are allowed to hold any theories and beliefs they choose, with the only constraints being on societal limits for the expression of designated “extreme beliefs” associated with inciting violence and sedition. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are at the heart of real democracies. Not so in communist China where deviation from approved CCP political speech results in prison time or worse.

Furthermore, democracies freely elect their assemblies, legislatures, and leaders. While Chinese voters can directly elect deputies to the people’s congresses of townships, towns, districts, and counties under Beijing’s rules, the only slates of candidates during elections are approved by the CCP. The end result is that bodies such as the NPC vote in lock-step for CCP-generated plans and policies, without real debate or actual dissent, or even input from average Chinese citizens. That is what “democracy with Chinese characteristics” means.

Let us now examine some of those CCP slogans, other blarney, and “economics with Chinese characteristics” that Party officials try to pass off as the result of faux “democratic action” in Beijing’s “Work Report” that Li delivered to the 5th Session of the 13th Congress on March 5.

The report lists the following supposed economic accomplishments in 2021:

1. We kept macro policy consistent and targeted, and kept the major economic indicators within the appropriate range.

Right off the bat, Li started the gobbledygook! “Communist economics” being an oxymoron, one wonders what a consistent and targeted macro policy means by the CCP’s definition.

Does that policy include the restricted default of real estate giant Evergrande declared in December by Fitch Reports, per this CNN report?

How is the cascading default affecting Chinese homeowners who “hold 70% of their wealth in real estate,” according to Business Insider?

In fact, the real estate crisis is not mentioned anywhere in Li’s rosy report—although the real estate sector is nearly 30 percent of China’s GDP! The closest the report gets is the claim that “2.8 trillion yuan of central government funding” (about $443 billion) was “sent to prefecture- and county-level governments.” Local governments are highly leveraged in real estate, which means that Beijing very likely bailed out those local governments to keep them afloat.

A crane stands at the construction site of Evergrande Cultural Tourism City, a China Evergrande Group project whose construction has halted, in Suzhou's Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China, on Oct. 22, 2021. (Aly Song/Reuters)

2. We refined and implemented policies for easing the difficulties of businesses and consolidated the foundation of economic recovery.

More Marxist economics, as the report claims is that “tax payments were postponed for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in manufacturing as well as coal-fired power plants and heating-supply enterprises as a temporary measure.”

Aside from the red flag about coal-fired power plants in lieu of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s grand claim that China will be “carbon neutral” by 2060, postponing taxes does not abolish the tax obligation; all that does is kick the can down the road and prop up failing businesses (the communists don’t believe in the “creative destruction” of a market economy; they pick the winners and losers).

3. We deepened reform, expanded opening up, and continued to improve the business environment.

Here is an interesting nugget buried in the explanation for this claim: “The reform to delink industry associations and chambers of commerce from government was basically completed.”

That’s pretty laughable, as the leaders of those groups are all communists who follow the CCP’s lead in all things. Cutting any “formal ties” is window-dressing and meaningless.

4. We promoted innovation-driven development and stabilized industrial and supply chains.

How about this claim in the explanation? “Intellectual property right protection was strengthened.”

Does that include IP stolen from joint ventures with foreign companies?

Because that is the standard operating procedure in China: start up a joint venture with a foreign company, steal promising IP, transfer the IP to a separate Chinese enterprise, and then “regulate” the joint venture out of existence. And then there is the ongoing straight theft of IP from the United States, as summarized here by the American Enterprise Institute.

5. We promoted coordinated development between urban and rural areas and between regions, and improved the structure of the economy.

From the explanation: “We advanced rural revitalization and designated 160 key counties to receive assistance in pursuing rural revitalization.”

What does “rural revitalization” actually mean? It sounds good.

And does “designate” mean something will actually be done in the future?

Maybe the CCP is referring to the bailout of local governments due to their “hidden debt,” as real estate and infrastructure over-leveraging is delicately referred to by Caixin Global here and The BL here. That debt amounts to half of Chinese annual GDP. The bailouts—unremarked in Li’s claims of economic success in 2021—must go on!

6. We strengthened environmental protection and promoted sustainable development.

This explanation was shockingly absurd: “An action plan for peaking carbon emissions by 2030 was unveiled.” Never mind that China is “planning to build 43 new coal-fired power plants and 18 new blast furnaces,” as reported here by TIME.

More on the CCP’s egregious green lies is detailed in this Epoch Times article.

A Chinese farmer works his field next to a state-owned, coal-fired power plant in Huainan, Anhui Province, China, on June 15, 2017. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

7. We worked to ensure and improve the people’s well-being and accelerated development of social programs.

The report was silent on the CCP’s “social programs” focused on Uyghur reeducation or the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities.

8. We made progress in building a rule of law government and developing new ways of governance and maintained social harmony and stability.

The report forgot to add the word “arbitrary” before “rule of law” because whatever the CCP states at a particular point in time is the law, and that could be changed due to “Lysenkoism with Chinese characteristics.” Like China’s “zero-COVID” policy or the (now) three-child policy. The social harmony and stability that the CCP craves is administered at the point of a gun, for all practical purposes.

Unnumbered (#9). We promoted the building of a human community with a shared future, fostered global partnerships, and played an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system.

Highfalutin words! We’ve seen the Chinese legacy media echo these oft-repeated cliches and slogans from Xi for years now. The CCP’s goal is to replace the international system with one with distinct “Chinese characteristics”—one in which any moral element is entirely missing. Because that is what Godless communists do.

Conclusion

Li’s report to the 13th People’s Congress is not worth the paper on which it was printed, but it does make for useful propaganda for the CCP. It conveys a veneer of democratic processes that mask the CCP’s authoritarianism in running a command economy. Do not be fooled!

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.