{"id":17078,"date":"2018-03-03T17:41:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T09:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=17078"},"modified":"2018-03-03T21:18:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T13:18:14","slug":"chinas-billionaires-gather-in-beijing-for-npc-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2018\/03\/03\/17078\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s billionaires gather in Beijing for NPC meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping\u2019s policies added four new billionaires every week last year \u2022 Wealth of billionaire\u00a0\u2018lawmakers\u2019 more than doubled since 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam N. Lee, chinaworker.info<\/p>\n

The 13th National People\u2019s Congress (China\u2019s pseudo parliament, the NPC), opens its plenary session on Monday in Beijing. Thus begins two weeks of furious rubber-stamping (the dictatorship has already decided which policies will be adopted).<\/p>\n

Among the 5,130 appointed \u2018delegates\u2019 attending the NPC and its sister body, the Chinese People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference, there will be 104 dollar billionaires (45 in the NPC and 59 in the CPPCC). Their total net worth amounts to US$624 billion (4 trillion yuan), which is more than double Ireland\u2019s GDP. This is the richest \u2018parliament\u2019 in the world by a very big margin.<\/p>\n

Read more: It\u2019s official \u2013 Xi Jinping aims to be \u201cDictator for life\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Just like everywhere else in our crisis-ridden capitalist world, the rich are getting richer and doing it faster. The 104 billionaires wielding\u00a0\u2018votes\u2019 in Beijing\u2019s halls of power this week have increased their combined wealth by almost 20 percent in the past year as a result of Xi Jinping\u2019s policies. Since Xi took office their wealth has more than doubled (from 1.84 trillion yuan in 2013 to 4 trillion).<\/p>\n

This is despite the government\u2019s pledges to tackle poverty and close the wealth gap. There are no proposals on the NPC agenda for a wealth tax, for nationalisations, for confiscation of millions of empty houses or other measures to trim the obscene wealth of the billionaires and use the resources for the benefit of ordinary people.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s credit policies to support big business have fuelled a housing bubble which inflicts real pain on working class and middle class people. Average residential property prices have risen 23 percent in the past year in the 10 largest cities. This is a faster rate of increase than any single year in the US housing market.<\/p>\n

Millions of city people are taking on extreme levels of debt in order to buy a home. At the same time, millions of migrant workers are being evicted from the major cities in a social cleansing campaign against what the CCP calls the \u201clow-end population\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tens of millions of workers especially in the service sector, where most new jobs are created, are driven into precarious informal work, as\u00a0\u2018agency workers\u2019 or\u00a0\u2018individual contractors\u2019, with rates of pay and working conditions worse than in the factory sweatshops, many of which have moved to cheaper countries. The number of workers\u2019 strikes each year has risen 7-fold during the first five-year term of Xi Jinping\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Half the world\u2019s new billionaires are Chinese<\/strong><\/p>\n

To coincide with the opening of the \u2018twin meetings\u2019, the Hurun rich list, a research group based in Shanghai, published its latest survey of the super-rich in China and globally. It shows the world\u2019s billionaires had another \u201crecord breaking year\u201d with an additional 437 people becoming billionaires in 2017 \u2013 almost half of them (210) in China.<\/p>\n

Totally, the world\u2019s 2,694 billionaires increased their wealth by a staggering 31 percent last year, to US$10.5 trillion. This is equivalent to 13 percent of the world\u2019s GDP, up from 7 percent in 2011. This is happening as the poorest 50 percent of the world\u2019s population saw no increase in their income last year, according to a separate report from Oxfam International.<\/p>\n

Read more: Can Xi Jinping defuse China\u2019s debt bomb?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

China leads the world in dollar billionaires for the third year, with 819, compared to 571 in the United States. And Beijing is the \u201cbillionaire capital of the world\u201d according to Hurun, with 131 billionaires compared to New York\u2019s 92. The continuing rise of China\u2019s super-rich elite is partly explained by the big gains on the Chinese stock market in 2017 and the fall of the US dollar. Most Chinese billionaires are in the property sector.<\/p>\n

Among the billionaires elevated to the NPC this year (and for the coming five years) are China\u2019s richest man Ma Huateng of internet giant Tencent Holdings, with a personal fortune of US$47 billion. Also attending are Xiaomi\u2019s CEO Lei Jun (US$16 billion), and Geely\u2019s chairman, Li Shufu (US$17 billion). Li recently became the biggest shareholder in German car manufacturer Daimler. Attending the CPPCC are China\u2019s second richest man Xu Jiayin of property developer Evergrande (US$41 billion), and Robin Li of net company Baidu (US$18 billion).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Extending Xi\u2019s rule<\/strong><\/p>\n

Issues before the NPC include who will fill top government positions, approving a new state anti-corruption body, and scrapping term limits for the presidency and vice presidency, allowing Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely and continue his pro-rich policies.<\/p>\n

That proposal, while expected for some time, has generated an enormous backlash on social media inside China, despite unprecedented censorship. Meanwhile, the news has barely drawn any official response from \u201cdemocratic\u201d capitalist governments who are all anxious to remain in the good books of Xi\u2019s regime and see it as the best alternative for capitalism despite growing economic tensions. A spokesperson for US president Donald Trump, who has previously praised Xi as \u201ca very special man\u201d, said the issue of extending his rule was \u201cup to China\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0Xi Jinping \u2013 How strong is China\u2019s strongman?<\/a><\/h4>\n

The NPC-CPPCC meetings are seen as a talking shop and a ceremony by many Chinese people and in previous years have mainly generated discussion about the incredible wealth of the participants, although this has been toned down in recent years. But as these latest figures show, this is really only about managing public relations and preventing mass anger from spilling over.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s billionaire elite \u2013 crony capitalists with close connections to the CCP regime \u2013 have continued to amass an even greater portion of the country\u2019s wealth, but they do not flaunt it so openly nowadays.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping\u2019s policies added four new billionaires every week last year \u2022 Wealth of billionaire\u00a0\u2018lawmakers\u2019 more than doubled since 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,124],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-china","8":"category-news"},"yoast_head":"\nChina\u2019s billionaires gather in Beijing for NPC meeting - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2018\/03\/03\/17078\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China\u2019s billionaires gather in Beijing for NPC meeting - 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