Recently, during his research and inspection in Guizhou, Li Qiang emphasized the importance of “firmly guarding against the occurrence of large-scale poverty return.” This inadvertently contradicted the pride Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, takes in his poverty alleviation achievements. Not only are ordinary people falling back into poverty, but in recent years, government officials have also been facing a widespread wave of salary cuts. In the first quarter of this year, the fiscal tax revenue of the Chinese Communist Party experienced a significant decline, plunging local governments into deep financial crises.
The Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Finance issued a notice at the end of March, requiring central and local government finances to implement the principle of “tightening belts,” in line with Xi Jinping’s instructions. Local governments have spared no effort in cutting expenses to comply with this directive.
According to data from the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Finance, in the first quarter, the national general public budget revenue was 608.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.3%, which is a larger decline compared to the last quarter of 2023. In March, general public budget revenue fell by 2.4% year-on-year, an increase from the slight 0.1 percentage point decline in January and February. Tax revenue dropped by 7.7% year-on-year, expanding by 3.7 percentage points compared to January and February.
Non-tax revenue growth rate increased from 8.6% in January and February to 12.2%. Non-tax revenue includes revenue generated by Chinese government departments and institutions utilizing state assets and profits derived from exercising public power, including fines. The rapid growth in non-tax revenue indicates an intensified effort by the Chinese Communist Party to extract money from the people using their authority.
In March 2024, the main tax revenue sources such as value-added tax revenue dropped by 12.1% year-on-year, while vehicle purchase tax revenue fell by 22.0%. Real estate-related tax revenue growth rates slowed significantly compared to January and February, with deed tax revenue falling by 21.8% year-on-year and land value-added tax revenue dropping by 8.1%. Additionally, stamp tax revenue growth rate drastically decreased from -7.1% in January and February to -42.0%. This suggests that the real estate market continues to decline.
Throughout the first quarter, local government revenue from land finances remained consistently low. Land transfer fee revenue growth rate was -6.7%, with March’s revenue declining by 23.3%, marking a significant increase compared to January and February. Government fund revenue on a national scale accumulated a 4.0% year-on-year decline in March, significantly lower than the 2.6% growth rate in January and February.
Personal income tax amounted to 424 billion yuan in the first quarter, down by 4.5% year-on-year.
Broad fiscal expenditures in the first quarter accumulated a 1.5% year-on-year decrease, with government fund expenditures plummeting by 15.5%. The slowdown in expenditures was attributed to reduced income and the slow issuance of new special bonds during the first quarter, potentially impacting the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive fiscal policies aimed at stimulating the economy.
While it is reasonable for the government to save money as taxpayers’ funds are involved, local Chinese Communist Party officials have resorted to various forms of formalism to show off their cost-cutting efforts.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, to cut costs, at least 21 provincial-level governments have reduced their budgets for official vehicles this year. Recently, the governor of Guizhou province pledged to reduce operational expenses of the provincial government by 15%. In Yunnan province, an official from a local statistics bureau informed employees that air conditioning temperatures must not be set below 26 degrees Celsius during the summer, and employees at a local state-owned iron smelting factory were “urged” to reduce water consumption, strictly controlling the consumption of bottled water in each unit, reducing last year’s bottled water expenditure of 270,000 yuan by 30%.
In Sichuan’s Yibin city, officials have mandated the use of lower-quality paper for printing daily documents, while government organizations in Inner Mongolia have been instructed to reduce equipment purchases, with furniture, computers, and other items expected to be repaired and reused.
How much money could the Chinese Communist Party save with these showy cost-cutting measures? Is saving on paper money enough to tighten their belts? Local officials are clearly just putting on a show and have found a convenient opportunity to lie low under the guise of austerity measures.
The Chinese Communist Party’s frugality appears to be a façade. In order to ensure political security, prevent the impact of international sanctions, they initiated a directive under the Central Office of the Chinese Communist Party in 2019, requiring all government and public utility organizations to remove all foreign computer equipment and software within three years. With nearly 50 million personnel within the Chinese Communist Party’s official and party system organizations, the cost of replacing these with domestic computer operating systems, office hardware and software, antivirus software, servers, and network equipment will amount to nearly a trillion yuan in funding. This does not even take into consideration the service fees to third-party companies or the initial costs of software and hardware development.
A package of A4 paper in China costs between 25 to 40 yuan, yet the presence of exclusive dining facilities within the Chinese Communist Party’s government and organization establishments sees a single meal costing far more than the market price of the ingredients. In March 2021, netizens discovered a menu in a government canteen in Huangpu District, Shanghai, wherein prices for special dishes were scandalously low, such as 3 yuan per serving of Kung Pao chicken, 3 yuan for spicy meat and rice, 1.5 yuan for salted vegetable and minced meat, and 2 yuan for double mushroom and meat slices. Despite sparking public outrage online, individuals who exposed this incident were later arrested by public security under the pretext of “leaking state secrets.”
Furthermore, it was revealed by netizens that retired central-level officials of the Chinese Communist Party are entitled to various privileges, including housing subsidies based on a standard of 220 square meters, access to full-time drivers doubling as security guards and medical personnel, four domestic retreats annually lasting three weeks each, premium seating on airplanes or soft sleeper train berths, three sedan or two minibus provisions, premium suites at hotels, all expenses reimbursed, and free medical care.
The total number of retired provincial and ministerial-level cadres across the country amounts to approximately 40,000, with around 30,000 deputy provincial and ministerial-level officials. These retired officials reside long-term in scenic areas such as Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, where the costs for single police officers, medical staff, and travel expenses add up to millions annually per retired provincial or ministerial-level official, totaling up to hundreds of billions of yuan each year, not including their retirement pensions and special provisions for food and medical care.
In 2023, several regions in China unilaterally amended the medical insurance fund system, directly reducing personal medical insurance accounts, prompting mass protests in Guangzhou, Wuhan, Dalian, and other places. Overseas Twitter accounts cited internal revelations within the Chinese Communist Party’s system, indicating that the Central Health Commission is allocated an astounding 16.48 billion yuan annually for no more than a thousand central and provincial-level high-ranking officials, while the Hubei Construction Commission received a meager 5.16 billion yuan, making the annual healthcare expenses of these officials three times the total cost of healthcare for the 6 million residents of Hubei province.
Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party’s annual public budget expenditure on stability maintenance and military spending amounts to tens of trillions of yuan.
From Mao Zedong’s “Revolution is not a dinner party” to Deng Xiaoping’s era of “small wine every day for the revolution,” and now Xi Jinping’s calls for tight belts, the Chinese Communist Party has experienced a tumultuous seventy years transitioning from revolutionary chaos, the rise of elite capitalism, and the struggle between poverty and wealth, ultimately returning to a more frenzied era of collective destitution and dual plunder.
Last August, Song Shoucheng, the former Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba China, released a video online revealing that starting from August 2023, the Chinese Communist authorities would implement a “personal income and property registration system” to record one’s number of properties, vehicles, and assets owned. The system aims to “investigate the assets” of individuals, particularly targeting those with high net worth. Individuals with assets exceeding 2 million yuan will fall under supervision, while those with assets over 6 million yuan will become key targets for regulation. This system essentially represents a form of “butchering the rich.”
On April 21, the online voice-based social platform, Banban App, issued an official statement titled “Wuhan Changxiang Company’s Notice to All Employees, Anchors, and Partners Regarding Suspension of Operations,” revealing that the Shunde Public Security Bureau in Guangdong province enforced a “high-seas fishing” style of cross-province law enforcement, leading to the criminal detention of 25 company management personnel and employees on April 17, 2023, allegedly for running a casino and illegally transferring 300 million yuan of company funds to Shunde Public Security Bureau. Under the Chinese criminal procedural law, law enforcement agencies are only permitted to inquire about and freeze assets of criminal suspects, but they are not authorized to transfer funds or detain them. This incident drew public attention and was criticized as a public act of robbery by the Chinese Communist Party.
In recent times, several regions across the country have experienced inexplicable spikes in gas fees. Residents in major cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu, Nanjing, and Hefei witnessed sudden surges in their gas meter readings, resulting in gas companies profiting excessively and sparking public outrage. On April 28, Chongqing Gas Group acknowledged the errors in meter readings and improper estimations, promising to refund excess charges amounting to 2.86 million yuan. Cities like Kunshan in Jiangsu and Dazhou in Sichuan also reported abnormal increases in gas fees. On April 19, a netizen’s comment revealed that Huarout Gas Company in Dazhou has been charging excessively since February 2024, with gas consumption and fees for April and February doubling that of historical charges, a characteristic practice by state-owned enterprises monopolizing the gas, water, and electricity industries to swindle ordinary citizens’ money, a common occurrence over the past decade.
In a bid to stimulate economic growth, the Chinese Communist Party has initiated a vigorous campaign promoting the exchange of old for new products, under the guise of an old-for-new program. On April 12, a collaboration involving China’s Ministry of Commerce and fourteen other departments issued the “Action Plan to Promote the Replacement of Consumer Goods with Old Ones,” pushing grassroots governments to persuade residents to buy new cars, home appliances, or install kitchen and bathroom electronics in exchange for old ones. Residents in communities across Shanghai, Shandong, and Guangdong have been pressured to fulfill this task as a political duty. Tianjin has started registering domestic appliances’ lifespans, eliciting discontent among the populace.
According to a post by user “Yesterday (@YesterdayBigcat),” Sichuan’s Guang’an Yuechi County saw a collective taxi driver strike, protesting against the local government’s forced procurement of new energy vehicles.
In their quest for money, the Chinese Communist Party government has resorted to numerous devious tactics, exposing their extreme cruelty and repulsive behavior, demonstrating a complete disregard for the abuse of power. Throughout history, trade and commerce have been open and free within the economy, but the Chinese Communist Party has twisted these principles into a political movement, essentially engaging in daylight robbery, a new version of the rampage of the Cultural Revolution era.