THREAD: Last week, China’s Cabinet announced that, for the first time, fees will be charged for “excessive” freedom of information requests, potentially meaning huge out-of-pocket expenses for lawyers and others who rely heavily on public information from the Chinese government.

Thread:

1. Who runs Taiwan's media? For the longest time, I've said that Taiwanese media is just US MSM translated into Chinese, regardless of whether it is pan-blue (KMT-leaning) or pan-green (DPP-leaning). Below is a breakdown of some shareholder information.

2. Significant shareholders of Eastern Media International Corp (東森國際), which runs ETTV, a pan-blue station, include Dimensional Fund Advisors, Mackenzie Financial, and Northern Trust Investments. They would never lie about US imperialism, right?

3. One of the biggest shareholders of pan-green Sanlih E-Television (三立電視) is Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠), who runs Fubon Financial Holdings (富邦金控). You might know Fubon as the bank that bought up Taipei city government-controlled Taipeibank.

4. Fubon's shareholders include Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and Dimensional Fund Advisors. Look these companies up. They would certainly never want TV stations they control to lie about what bourgeois governments do, right?

5. The biggest shareholder of Formosa Television (民視), which was founded by the DPP, is managing dir. Chen Ching-fu (陳清福), who is incidentally the CEO of Ve Wong Corporation (味王), a food company, whose sharehldrs include Dimensional Fund Advisors & SSgA Funds Management

Here is (for whoever may be interested) the list of books on China that I have read in the past 5-6 years;
in no particular order, with my assessments: 5 stars is the best, 2 the worst.
Books I reviewed on my blog are noted with ++.

John Palmer, The death of Mao, Faber & Faber, 2012 **
Jonathan Fenby, Will China dominate the 21st century, Polity, 2014 ***
Quan Yanchi, Mao: Man, not God ***
Jacques Gernet, Daily life in China on the Eve of Mongol Invasion 1250-76, Stanford UP, 1962. ****

++Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century, Verso, 2007. *****
Minxin Pei, China’s crony capitalism, Harvard UP, 2016. ****
Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition, Harvard UP, 2006. ***

++Martin Jacques, When China rules the world, Penguin, 2012. *****
Cheng Li, Chinese politics in the Xi Jinping era, Brookings, 2016. ***
++Julian Gewirtz, Unlikely Partners Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, Harvard 2017. ****

Zhao Ziyang, Prisoner of the state, Simon and Schuster, 2009. ****
++Wang fan-hsi, Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, Columbia UP, 1991. *****
++Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, Princeton UP, 2000. *****

@dhruv_rajnish @TheKidneyDocto1 See i m trying to keep here my point of view on Democracy in China.. okay.. China isn't a dictatorship if u exclude this Xi Jinping and Mao era.. They conduct fair elections where every candidate is supported by CCP.. They represent people.. (1/2)

@TheKidneyDocto1 China says, they have their own way of Democracy and they don't copy the west.. See "Stability" is most important in a country, especially in economic factors.. what happens in India is, if tomorrow a new govt of a different party comes, (2/3)

@TheKidneyDocto1 it will scrap the economic policies formed by the previous govts and again start a new different policy..It don't benefit anyone.See how Vietnam made most of the profit of Chinese boycott..Vietnam is not a democracy..See now everything comes now to the definition of Democracy 3/4

@TheKidneyDocto1 China and Chinese proudly say that they have Democracy.. Try asking one of them..
Now ethnic minorities..Okay..You do know that bhutan is the happiest country of the world..Many say that one of its reason is, they sent back the Nepalese ethinic groups back to Nepal and India..4/5

@TheKidneyDocto1 Now they live as a single ethinic community..China also doing the same.. They want Han Chinese to be one ethnic group and an atheist nation.. You may not agree with me, but i feel they are doing good.. See if all citezens will be Atheists and one single race, 5/6

Xi Jinping's speech at Davos boiled down to: The world has no choice but to do business with China, and if you want to do business with China, you need to stop criticizing our tyranny and questioning our lies about the

Xi's address to the World Economic Forum will serve as well as any other moment for historians to mark the beginning of the Authoritarian Era. He said nothing new, but he restated the narratives and demands of Chinese fascism from a post-pandemic position of aggressive strength.

For the first time, Xi spoke to a world that is beginning to accept the tenets of authoritarianism, thanks to the incredible political and economic damage from China's coronavirus. China's ideals have become as viral as Covid-19.

Thanks to the pandemic, the political elites of the world now universally see their citizens as dangerous mobs that must be tightly controlled for their own good. Most of them always thought that way, but now they can say it openly and act aggressively on their prejudices.

Xi clearly stated that China will not be contained, censured, or judged for its actions. He denounced Western ideals of human rights as "arrogance" and imperialism. After Covid and Biden's inauguration, he sees no nation with the strength or will to thwart China's ambitions.

The CCTV's program is discussing China's eliminating poverty.
Today's theme is that govt should provide more sports facilities for remote areas and advocate healthier lifestyle.
China's experience is that eliminating poverty ≠ giving money, but providing sustainable solutions.

By the end of December 2019, China's rural poor people's participation in medical insurance rate has reached 99.99%.
More than 16 million poor people in China have received basic treatment services.

The China govt has formulated a three-year action plan to achieve the overall goal of ensuring basic medical care for the rural poor.
There are three main goals, six special actions and ten working standards.
It's called "health poverty alleviation plan".

Since 2016, China's Health Commission, poverty alleviation Bureau and other govt departments have organized nearly one million staff to investigate the prevalence of poverty people in all rural areas, and establish data platform to achieve accurate management.

China has constructed a mechanism of basic medical insurance, serious illness medical insurance and medical assistance linkage system.
All the insurance level has been improved.
Within three years, the govt has subsidized more than 10 billion yuan.