The Center for Human Rights at the Catholic University of America has recently published an op-ed by Chen Guangcheng commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. To view this article, check the link in the description or go to humanrights.catholic.edu.
Will Deatherage: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. My name is Will Deatherage, the producer, and joining me as always is Chen Guangcheng.
Chen Guangcheng: Hello everyone. I’m glad to see you here again. Thank you, Will, for coming here to record the podcast with me.
W: Yeah, of course. And today we’re going to talk about some economic news coming out of Communist China. Just to give a little bit of background, the communist party, since they own everything, has this department known as the SASEC, which basically supervises all state owned assets, which is… everything.
And Guangcheng, can you tell us about what they’re saying these days?
G: Yeah, yeah. We got some news from [the] CCP’s office of SASEC. They ask all the provinces and cities, even the counties, to report GDP earnings. The problem is the central government is asking them to report only good data to make the situation look better.
W: So they’re basically… in America we have the expression “cooking the books,” making it look better than things actually are. Right?
G: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because ever since President Trump put the tariffs on China, the CCP’s economy has been getting worse and worse. But they don’t want to admit it. So they are releasing the fake data so the Western media can report that the tariffs were not working.
W: Right. Guangcheng, how do we know that the data is fake?
G: That is the CCP’s normal… you know, the local government has always skewed the data to be what the central government wanted. But this year is special. The central government usually [doesn’t] ask them, they just let the local government report about this. If the report [is] not good, they will refuse.
They say, “Oh, this is not good, please revise your report.”
W: But Guangcheng, this time around you’re saying that, before gathering the data to begin with, they asked them, “Make this look good,” right?
G: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They asked all the country to give good data. Yeah, I got the information from [the] CCP’s office.
W: How did you get the information from the CCP’s office, Guangcheng?
G: This is not secret information. The problem is the Western media, the journalists, they don’t know how to get this. But we understand how to get it.
W: And you have access to people in China who, you know, have talked to officials, right?
G: Yes, yeah, yes. The Western journalists don’t believe the CCP, but they don’t have any other data to use, so they will report what the CCP said.
W: Right. Guangcheng, what indicators are there right now that China’s economy is not doing so well?
G: Before, the airports were very, very busy.
W: Like before the tariffs, you mean?
G: Yeah, before, you know, especially five years ago.
W: Oh, sure, yeah, yeah.
G: But now, you know, if you go to the airport, you will see just a few people there. And before there was a lot of air traffic, but now not anymore.
W: Okay.
G: Another example is, before a lot of Chinese people from rural China, they went to [the] city to find a job every year, right? But this year, [it was] very, very difficult to find a job in [the] city.
W: There were seasonal migrations to the city for work. Right?
G: Yeah, yeah. But this year was different.
W: Yeah. So people aren’t finding employment in the city as much. Right, Guangcheng?
G: Yes, yes. Another thing is, you know, the CCP tried to encourage the people to buy something, for example, the TV, the car. They said, “Oh, if you buy the new car, the government will give you some, for example 2000, 3000 RMB,”
W: Which is their currency.
G: Yeah. And you know, because people, they don’t have a lot of money to buy new cars.
So [it is] still very difficult to sell the car in mainland China. Yeah.
W: And then there’s the population crisis, right, Guangcheng?
G: Yeah, the population. Yeah. No one knows the real number. They just guess what is happening. But the CCP doesn’t want to let them know the real data. Another example is before, you know, the CCP built a lot of buildings in the city. They tried to sell apartments.
And six years ago a lot of people still wanted to buy that. But now the people try to find a way to sell their apartment and get money back. And the housing prices have fallen. Very difficult to sell.
W: Yeah. So these are all indicators that the economy is not doing so well. What about ever since the tariffs? What changes have we seen since Trump put the tariffs on China?
G: Yeah, because [of] the tariffs, more and more companies, especially the foreign companies, move their factories to another country. So that made more and more workers lose their jobs. Before, you know, like Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province, Wenzhou. You know, there are a lot of foreign companies and foreign factories, but now they have to close.
W: So you know, to our listeners out there, it might sound like a lot of this is anecdotal or examples on a micro level, but it’s all we have, right, Guangcheng? We don’t, we don’t have any, like, large scale data because the CCP won’t share it.
G: Yeah, yeah. They don’t want to let the people know.
W: So Guangcheng, if you had one message for Western journalists who are reporting on China’s economy, what would it be?
G: I will tell them: Don’t believe any data from [the] CCP. You should think the opposite. If the CCP said, “Oh, this year the GDP grew 5%,” you should think the GDP fell more than 5%. This is almost close to the truth. And if you want to get the real information, try to find a way to contact people in rural China.
W: Well, we’ll continue reporting on the effect that the tariffs are having on China’s economy as well as China’s economy in general. Be sure to check our website humanrights catholic.edu for more updates. Guang Cheng, thank you very much for all the information today.
G: Thank you Will. Thank you everyone.
The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The documentary features world class human rights experts from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu.