Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team

Furthermore, in the religious field, Xi Jinping promotes the creator of the campaign that led to the removal of 1.500 crosses and the demolition of many Christian churches

(AUTOMATIC READING)
The Chinese trade balance is abundantly in surplus with all the main industrialized countries. Virtually everyone finds themselves importing much more from China than they are able to export.
This process allows China to achieve steady GDP growth (approximately of 7% anno), therefore achieving the objective set by Beijing. Basically every year, a river of money moves from the West to China. With this money Beijing is buying companies, technology and “know how” from all over the world, it is transforming into a formidable economic and military power capable of influencing world balances and redefining its rules and principles.
In the 2017 China's overall trade surplus was $ 422,5 billion.
China's surplus to the United States in 2017 was equal to $ 275,81 billion (finanza.com).
China's surplus towards Europe in 2017 was equal to € 175 billion (ilgiornale.it).
China's surplus towards Italy in 2016 was equal to € 16,18 billion (infomercatiesteri.com).
These incredible numbers explain the reasons for China's power and difficulties, often disastrous, on the western side. But given that the Chinese have not proven to be leaders in any sector related to innovation, science or technology, so let's try to understand what were the causes that led to this new reality.
IT ALL STARTED IN THE '80s
At the end of the 1980s a process of industrial delocalisation from America and Europe towards China began. This phenomenon, Unfortunately, he brought with him’ also the transfer of experience and technology. China has cleverly used the bait of subsidies and facilities to activate and consolidate this dynamic. Naturally, very low-cost labor and non-existent environmental standards crowned Deng Xiaoping's strategy.
The second fundamental event was China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) In the 2001. The doors of international markets have opened for China and it has been able to attract massive investments. There has also been a continuous transfer of technology, and through agreements made in joint ventures with Chinese companies, is “voluntarily”, which allows foreign companies to secure a privileged position in the Chinese market. All this explains why, in the desire to maximize short-term profits and increase the value of the stock, many large US companies (and European), they outsourced processes and transferred knowledge and technology to China, making a decisive contribution to the economic and industrial strengthening of the Asian giant (How China is conquering the West – Pablo Cardenal, Heriberto Araujo – Feltrinelli).
And in the meantime the trade deficit has become increasingly imbalanced. And the flow of wealth continues to flow towards Beijing. Decline and impoverishment are the reality, at least for small and medium-sized businesses and for the Western middle class.
THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION
Another element to take into consideration are the rules on which the globalization process is based. Rules established in 1999 a Seattle, at the debut of the WTO. Those were days of harsh clashes and protests also due to the absence of references to environmental protection and social rights, offering China indisputable competitive advantages. We have allowed substandard products to invade us, simply by exploiting the price leverage. We therefore condemned our undertakings, who instead must rightly respect workers' rights and protect the environment as a public good.
The cure to resolve this distortion is for them to be rewritten (quickly), rules to obtain open markets on a fair basis.
E’ China has been the homeland of protectionism for decades. On many Western products it applies superduties that are five times higher than those of the Americans. It forces foreign companies to invest in its territory by imposing local partners who steal industrial and technological secrets. This is the globalization that Xi Jinpimg likes. They are asymmetric rules. These rules are outdated and damage the entire West (Federico Rampini Action 5.2.2019).
A GREAT WASTED OPPORTUNITY
Yet globalization was a great opportunity to spread well-being and development but it was wasted. Wasted because China continues to be, anachronistically, a country governed by a totalitarian communist regime, condemned to survive by adapting to changes. The regime manages to maintain its legitimacy only if it manages to ensure a constant improvement in the population's standard of living.
This is why China adopts these unfair practices to maximize benefits at any cost. The flow of money guaranteed by imbalances in the trade balance must be defended at all costs because otherwise “the castle would collapse disastrously on itself”. Even the supreme values ​​of the past have been replaced by a single great value: the money. Money is the glue that allows the population to accept: repression, authoritarianism, denial of human rights, absence of the rule of law.
Unscrupulous enrichment is a widespread practice. Corruption (with the famous ones “red envelopes”), pervades politics, the economy and society in general. E’ It is very difficult to do business in China without having to deal with this reality.
However even if the population, after the dramatic epilogue of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, she appears resigned to the fact that nothing will ever change, the Chinese economic and financial system hides some very important fragilities: sick banking system and very high public debt 300% of GDP (2.1.2018 Action – Federico Rampini).
Sooner or later something will happen. Introducing rules to reduce China's trade surplus would be good for Western economies and would cause some more problems for Xi Jinping.
Note from BastaBugie: Leone Grotti in the article below entitled “China: promoted the creator of the campaign for the demolition of Christian crosses” tells that Xi Jinping promotes Xia Baolong after “the excellent” work which led to the removal of over 1.500 crosses in the province and the demolition of several churches.
Here is the complete article published on Tempi il 23 March 2018:
As if the changes made by the Communist Party to the Constitution in China were not alarming enough, which will allow President Xi Jinping to legally maintain supreme power over 1,4 billions of people for life, in recent days three more bad news have arrived for Christians in China.
The first is the promotion of Xia Baolong to vice president and general secretary of the China Political Consultative Conference (Cpcc). Xia is not just any official, but it's been since 2012 al 2017 party secretary of Zhejiang. More precisely, it is he who in the 2013 launched the unprecedented campaign to demolish crosses and churches which led to the removal of more 1.500 crosses in the province and the demolition of several churches. The countryside, apparently finished in 2016 (now it is going ahead in other provinces, albeit at a slower rate), was commented thus by an elderly Catholic woman from the affected province: «They want to erase every trace of Christianity. During the Cultural Revolution they burned Bibles, but even then they did not remove the crosses from the churches".
Xia is said to have started the "Three Corrections and One Demolition" campaign for aesthetic reasons: they were "too flashy" and dominated the landscape of major cities such as Wenzhou, once defined as the Jerusalem of the East. Others argue that he was frightened by the growth of Christianity in the province and wanted to limit it, starting from its external symbols. Xia Baolong is also a great ally of Xi Jinping, which he evidently wanted “reward him” for the excellent work done. «This promotion shows that there is no difference between local and national governments when it comes to suppressing religions», comments Sang Pu, well-known regime critic based in Hong Kong.
The second bad news is the passage of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (Sara) under the direct rule of the Communist Party. Until now it was subject to the Council of State. As reported by AsiaNews, In essence it shouldn't change much, although Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the Divinity School at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he is worried: «If religion is subjected to a specialized task of the Party, there is an important difference because it reflects the limitless expansion of the Party's power, which directly interferes with the basic rights of citizens. It's a negative regression. I wonder if the Vatican knows these facts".
The third negative news concerns an important exponent of the Holy See. Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, during an international conference on “Christianity in China. Impact, interaction and inculturation”, has recently «approached the term “sinicization” to the dynamics of inculturation, the process by which the proclamation of the Gospel meets and embraces the cultures of peoples and nations", as reported by Vatican Insider.
The concept of sinicization was forcefully introduced by Xi Jinping in 2016 when, during the most important meeting on religions since 15 years now, he declared that religious communities must “mix doctrines with Chinese culture, obeying Chinese laws and fully committed to China's reform and socialist modernization to contribute to the realization of the Chinese dream". In a word, we need to "sinicize religions", make them «join the Party leadership, so that the current position of the Party is strengthened".
Many within the Catholic Church have benevolently wanted to read in these words an invitation to greater interpenetration between Christian and Chinese culture. But what did the president really mean “eternal” Xi, Chinese archbishop Savio Hon explained it well to Tempi: «Some have interpreted the president's words as a call for mutual enrichment between the Gospel and Chinese culture. But it was the party officials themselves who explained to the faithful that this is not the case: “sinicization of religion” it means that Catholics must submit to the party. The training of priests and nuns, theology, even the liturgy and ecclesiastical laws must follow the atheist communist ideology".
What a Monsignor Gallagher, on the doorstep of the presumed and imminent signing of an important and controversial agreement between the Vatican and China, sinicization and inculturation in common is perhaps the worst news of the week for Chinese Christians.