The rise of China's central region

Good evening, everyone. This week has zipped by, and ever since the Two Sessions concluded, I've been exceptionally tied up, thus the infrequent updates. This situation has got me pondering whether I should venture into a paid-subscription model as sometimes I find it hard to ensure the consistent publication…

Recently, I stumbled upon a disheartening story that was a revelation even to me, after having lived in China for 34 years. I can’t say too much about the story because it’s someone’s personal story. But because of that story, I realized that foreigners residing in China must register with the local police within 24 hours of settling in accommodations other than hotels. Failure to comply can result in a warning and a possible fine of up to 2,000 yuan (about 280 U.S. dollars). This comes at a time when China has gradually introduced visa-free policies for some European countries, prompting me to remind everyone of this regulation.

So, what if I compiled a list of hotels in China's, let's say, top 20 or 30 cities that are open to foreign guests? Would that interest anyone? If you're more clued up about this than me, please let me know if this seems like an unmet, yet needed service in the market. I know people can search for that on Ctrip’s app, but is that convenient?

Today's newsletter will be brief as I've been quite swamped lately. I'll just touch on the most crucial points. Over the past several days, Xi Jinping's inspection tour in Hunan has been making headlines, with the narrative focusing on the rise of the central region, and new quality productive forces. I happened to catch an article on a WeChat public account that provides some background on this topic, which was also mentioned by Sinocism yesterday. Therefore, GRR has translated some of that content to help you get a grasp of the policy context behind the importance of the rise of China's central region.

The WeChat blog is called 政知见(Zhèng Zhī Jiàn), a mobile publication under the Beijing Youth Daily focusing on providing professional coverage and analysis of current political news.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired a symposium on further energizing the central region in the new era in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, on Wednesday. This is the second time in five years that Xi has chaired a symposium with the theme of "promote the rise of the central region."

Since last year, the central government has held several symposiums on regional economic development. This symposium is related to the central region. Since the mid-to-late 1990s, with the accelerated development of the eastern coastal areas, western regions, and northeastern regions, the central region has once been trapped in a "basin" of national economic growth.

In March 2004, "promote the development of the central region" was first included in the government work report. In April 2006, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued the Several Opinions on Promoting the Rising of the Central Region of China, marking the official implementation of the strategy to energizing the central region.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC explicitly mentioned "accelerate the rise of the central region."

At Wednesday's symposium, Xi highlighted the central region's pivotal role as the country's important grain production base, energy and raw material base, modern equipment manufacturing and high-tech industry base, and comprehensive transportation hub.

The central region consists of six provinces: Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Hunan. With abundant resources and enormous market potential, it holds a crucial position in the national regional development pattern.

Data shows that during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), the economy of the central region grew at an average annual rate of 8.6 percentage, ranking first among the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions, achieving a transformation from "lagging behind" to "leading the pack."

In 2023, the GDP of the central region reached nearly 27 trillion yuan (about 4.22 trillion U.S. dollars), accounting for over one-fifth of the national total.

At the symposium, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Party chiefs from the six provinces spoke successively to report on the work of promoting the rise of the central region and put forward suggestions.

Several details are worth noting:

First, the change in the name. In May 2019, when Xi inspected Jiangxi, he chaired a symposium on "promote the rise of the central region." This week’s symposium, compared with the one held five years ago, added the words "new era" to its name.

At this symposium, Xi affirmed the work of the central region in the past five years, mentioning that "the development of the central region has reached a higher starting point." Xi also noted that further energizing the central region still faces many difficulties and challenges that require practical research to solve them.

Second, the symposium proposed the requirement of "proactively cultivating and developing new quality productive forces." Xi emphasized the need to drive industrial innovation through technological advancement and actively foster the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces. During this year's Two Sessions, Xi took part in deliberation of three delegations and talked about the term three times, profoundly expounding the methodology of developing new quality productive forces.

The central region consists of six provinces: Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Hunan.

Xi’s inspection in central China's Hunan Province this week is his first local inspection after this year's Two Sessions. Hunan is a major economic province in the central region, with its economic aggregate surpassing 5 trillion yuan for the first time last year.

During the inspection, he visited BASF Shanshan Battery Materials Co., Ltd, focusing on understanding the local acceleration of the development of new quality productive forces and the expansion of high-standard opening-up. China Media Group said that this trip to Hunan by Xi is field guidance on accelerating the development of new quality productive forces.

At the symposium, Xi emphasized attaching greater importance to the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation and strengthening the dominant position of enterprise innovation.

Xi also mentioned the "Central Leading Group for Coordinated Regional Development." This group was initially made public in September 2023 and is responsible for the unified management of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region's coordinated development, integration of the Yangtze River Delta, development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin, construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the establishment of the Hainan Free Trade Port, among other initiatives.

Xi also stressed the need for the group to strengthen overall coordination and oversight. Relevant central departments should increase their support and propose policy measures for further energizing the central region in the new era. Local party committees and governments should shoulder their primary responsibilities, resolutely implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, and promote the implementation of key tasks and major reform measures.

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Additionally, I attended an event on Wednesday known as the democracy forum. This forum, now in its third year, coincides with the democracy summit held in South Korea this week, also marking its third anniversary. Covering the parallel forum of “AI and the Future of Democracy” of the event as a reporter for Xinhua News Agency, I jotted down some interesting observations to share here:

Zheng Bing, Deputy Director of School Affairs Committee of Jilin University, Dean of Northeast Revitalization and Development Research Institute of Jilin University：

The information culture shifts cultural rights from monopolistic to egalitarian, creating conditions for the enhancement of social democracy through information sharing. Cultural rights refer to the qualifications and capabilities to create, receive, and enjoy culture. In traditional societal cultural structures, this is represented by a pyramid shape, where cultural levels are higher at the top and lower at the bottom, distancing those at the bottom from social management and cultural creation, thereby leading to the phenomenon of cultural privilege. Cultural privilege forms the psychological basis for the worship of cultural authority. Cultural monopolies create a sense of mystique around culture, enticing the general public into blind adoration. Consequently, culture is characterized by strict stratification, for instance, a significant gap between the creators of a society's stratified culture and its consumers.

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The development of artificial intelligence is driving new adjustments in social stratification. In China, internet technology is changing traditional economic models, thereby forming new layers within society. The application of AI in payment methods has altered the occupational distribution within society.

The first wave toppled traditional media; practitioners in print media and the printing industry faced massive layoffs and had to change careers. The second wave hit brick-and-mortar stores, making online shopping increasingly common and leading to the closure of many physical stores. The third wave impacted banks. Currently, China's major banks are seeing an annual reduction in branch locations and staff by about 5 percent due to financial activities moving online, which changes employment and social stratification. Entering the information society, how can we adjust online participation and social stratification reasonably? This should be considered from three aspects:

Firstly, the ability of internet technology and artificial intelligence to amass wealth and other social resources is very strong, accelerating the widening gap between social classes. Our "internet celebrities," once they reach tens of millions of followers, can amass substantial wealth. Despite not having high cultural or professional levels, they quickly become part of the middle or even wealthy classes.

Secondly, internet technology and artificial intelligence mainly rely on intellect rather than general manpower, leading to a rapid decrease in the demand for various labor-intensive jobs and increasing social employment pressure.

Thirdly, the development of self-awareness capabilities in artificial intelligence carries social risks. Scholars have already warned that we must fully estimate the potential negative impacts of technological progress on human society. Therefore, it is emphasized that necessary controls must be strengthened, meaning science and technology must be regulated and applied reasonably.

Zhang Haidong, Professor, Executive Director of the Shanghai New Social Strata Research Center, Secretary-General (China) of the East Asian Sociological Association:

New Characteristics of Youth's Occupational Choices

• In the past decade, the new occupation population have attracted widespread attention from various sectors of Chinese society. In the Chinese context, these new occupation population are described in various ways, including: new employment groups, new gig economy participants, practitioners of new business formats, platform economy workers, and flexible employment groups (Li Peilin,2023).

• Various survey data show that the total number of this group is estimated to be between 80 million and 100 million people. For example, according to the results of the 9th National Survey of the Labor Force conducted by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in 2023, the total number of workers in the country is approximately 402 million, among which the scale of workers in new employment forms is 84 million, accounting for 21 percent, mainly consisting of young and middle-aged people.

• If we focus on the occupational choices of young people, we will find that they have many new characteristics:

Young people are unwilling to work in factories.

• According to the “Top 100 Occupations with the Highest Demand for Recruitment in the Fourth Quarter of 2022” released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the manufacturing industry has the largest labor gap, with 41 occupations related to production and manufacturing personnel, such as automotive production line operators, machinists, and welders. It can be said that there is a structural unemployment problem among young people.

• Although there are also many blue-collar occupations relying on platforms in the the new occupation population, young people prefer new career models rather than traditional factory models. In Chinese society, the blue-collar characteristics of the new occupation population include eight categories: truck drivers, couriers, caregivers, domestic service workers, shopping mall information assistants, online food delivery riders, real estate agents, and security guards.

• Why are young people no longer willing to work in factories? If it is said that young people no longer like physical labor, many of the above occupations are still physically demanding.

Young people are choosing multiple careers and identities, becoming slash youths (or slashies).

• Fixed or stable careers are no longer favored by some young people, and more and more individuals are opting to become freelancers or flexible workers. Data suggests that the size of this group is approximately 200 million people (unofficial data), and they frequently move between various professions, exhibiting instability.

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