Hello everyone, welcome to “News Perspectives,” I am Li Xin.
Today’s focus: Over 41 listed banks in A-shares reduce more than 40,000 employees, with over 70% of staff receiving pay cuts! Nine 90s youth rumored to jump off a bridge in Beijing’s Haidian Shangzhuang! Corruption in officialdom leading to the collapse of the CCP regime!
Once considered as a means to “make money while lying down,” the Chinese banking industry is now facing the challenge of shrinking overall operating income and net profit. According to a report by “Huaxia Times” on the 20th, data for the first half of the year shows that many banks’ commission income from agency services has declined, with declining fee and commission income dragging down performance growth.
Recently, multiple state-owned and commercial banks staff revealed that banks have increased promotional efforts for wealth management services, requiring all employees at branches to promote wealth management and deposit products through methods such as placing flyers in business districts and communities.
On September 19th, Ms. Chen from Chaoyang District, Beijing, mentioned that while on her way to Line 1 of the subway, someone cautiously handed her a flyer, trying to promote deposit and wealth management products. Despite initially wanting to decline, the person whispered, “Learn more about deposits and wealth management.”
Reportedly, besides employees of city commercial banks distributing promotional flyers on the streets, many large state-owned and commercial banks have also intensified their “outreach” promotional efforts.
An employee from a commercial bank stated that everyone is involved in outreach, including the bank president. All branch staff engage in external promotions for two hours each day, which includes the bank president, customer managers, to primarily promote available wealth management and deposit products.
The employee mentioned that distributing flyers on the roadside and setting up stalls require taking daily photos to provide feedback on the day’s outreach results, including the number of new cardholders attracted through outreach and the number of customers adding on WeChat.
Moreover, an employee from a state-owned bank branch in Hefei mentioned, “Our branch does not allow customer managers to work at the branch, they are all sent for customer expansion in villages as soon as the morning meeting is over.”
According to reports, looking at the performance reports for the first half of 2024, many listed banks are witnessing a decline in non-interest income, with middle-office operations generally under pressure. Some banks have seen significant decreases in fee and commission income, influenced by fluctuations in product agency businesses such as publicly offered funds.
This year, rumors of salary cuts for bank employees have repeatedly unsettled the market. With the disclosure of semi-annual reports of A-share listed banks, salary details for 41 banks’ employees have surfaced.
According to a recent report by “Beijing Business Daily,” it was stated that in the first half of this year, the number of employees in 41 A-share listed banks decreased by over 40,000 from the beginning of the year, with over 70% of bank employees reduced.
State-owned banks led the way in downsizing, with a total reduction of over 23,700 employees. Specifically, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China saw the largest reduction with approximately 10,600 employees, followed by Agricultural Bank, Construction Bank, and Postal Savings Bank with reductions of 4,980, 4,790, and 4,224 employees respectively, while Bank of Communications reduced 867 staff members.
Additionally, with overall bank income under pressure in the first half of the year, employee compensation has correspondingly been reduced. The total compensation for employees at 42 banks has decreased by nearly 700 million yuan, with average monthly salaries of employees at 41 A-share listed banks reducing by over 70%.
Two informants informed Reuters that the Beijing branch employees of China Minsheng Bank had their salaries reduced, with some experiencing cuts of up to 50%. Reuters mentioned that Minsheng Bank also ceased payments for certain work-related expenses and other benefits at the Beijing branch, which employs over 4,000 people.
China’s financial crisis has long been an inevitable trend. With capital fleeing, the bursting of the real estate bubble, the fiscal crisis has arrived. When the Ponzi scheme promoted by the CCP government collapses, the attempt to rebuild social trust has become impossible. Chinese society can only rely on a complete political revolution to “reset” the social contract.
On September 21st, mainland netizens revealed to Epoch Times that on the evening of September 20th, nine 90s youths jumped into the river from the Shangzhuang Bridge in Beijing, with seven bodies recovered, while the other two were yet to be found. However, this information has been tightly controlled by the CCP authorities.
According to videos provided, many Beijing residents were gathered at the scene, with police cars and fire trucks on the road. Police put up a cordon at the scene, but residents could still walk up to the bridge to observe. People at the scene were asked to leave by the police. Police officers and rescue personnel in life jackets were seen on the bridge watching the water below.
A Beijing senior media figure confirmed to Epoch Times that indeed such an incident occurred but the specific reasons remain unclear.
A blogger stressed to reporters that false information would not be disseminated for views; there is no need for such actions.
In response, some netizens strongly criticized the CCP regime, “If a country makes young people feel no future, no hope, what hope does it have? What kind of future will it have? This is a shame for those in power!” “Reality is so cold, they go from helplessness to despair! Painful!” “The one-party dictatorship harms people!” “For decades, the CCP has turned the country into hell on earth.”
Some netizens lamented, “In recent years, young people have been committing suicide one after another, which has not happened in thousands of years.”
However, others mentioned, “People once gathered on a ship, created a world-class company, while you nine only create ripples on the surface of the water. If kindness is to accept adversity, then it is not necessary. Some said, ‘You can’t say that. Revering life, being compassionate is the starting point of kindness. Moreover, they chose a clean death, which is a silent protest against the filth. May heaven no longer be so unbearable! Namaste!'”
X Internet celebrity “Mr. 3rights” with 19,000 followers said, “How hopeless it must have been! 90s youth, around 30 years old, probably related to unemployment and house mortgages. Without the rule of the CCP, everyone has no way out, hold on, the CCP will soon be done! It must wait for the dawn!”
Another netizen said, “Young people must not go down the path of no return! Following the current trajectory and direction, in a few more years, the sky will definitely brighten. Take care!” “This is too tragic, they shouldn’t die in such unclear circumstances, it’s not worth it!” “Chaos before the end times, intensifying!” “It’s all because of the CCP’s coercion.”
In recent years, frequent incidents of young people jumping off buildings and into rivers have attracted attention. In June this year, a netizen on YouTube claimed, “Over 4,500 people jumped into the river and committed suicide in China in April.”
China has also seen several incidents of internship doctors, called “regulation and training doctors,” committing suicide. A 25-year-old doctor in the People’s Hospital of Hunan cut his neck, while in Nanning, the First People’s Hospital had two suicide cases in a week; one a 27-year-old doctor and another a 22-year-old intern.
On June 2nd, three young people jumped into the Huangpu River in Shanghai to commit suicide, with authorities urgently denying and claiming only one person jumped and died, but this explanation was met with skepticism by netizens. On May 30th, content circulating online indicated, “The recent record in Hangzhou was 27 continuous jumps in a day.”
On July 1st, the foundation day of the CCP, a female employee in her 90s from China’s Citic Group jumped off a building in Shanghai, shocking the entire internet. Media person “Efforts by Awei” featured on August 9th in a video that another 90s person in debt committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, leaving their ID and a suicide note. The letter stated, “In these years, the pandemic caused all my businesses to fail. I am burdened with enormous debts and now have reached a dead end. Every day, I receive numerous calls from major banks’ websites for high-interest loans. There are endless collection calls daily, and also debts owed to relatives and friends. These are debts of the heart, and my credit is gone.”
The note expressed the desire to protect the family but eventually broke down. Living every day was agonizing, without any hope. Finally, apologies were made to the children and parents.
The media person revealed that they too were in debt of over 4 million, but urged debt-ridden individuals watching to rise up, as there is hope and a chance to turn the situation around only by staying alive, they must persevere.
Radio Free Asia reported on May 24th, in the past ten days, there were multiple cases of residents in Taiyuan, Shanxi, jumping into the river to commit suicide, shocking many internet users. Recently, governments in Hubei, Taiyuan, Chongqing, and Beijing deployed personnel day and night to guard bridges, preventing people from jumping into the river. However, Chinese official media have refrained from discussing such suicide incidents.
Ms. Wang, a former teacher in Taiyuan, stated that many people unable to find jobs or struggling to pay bank mortgages were affected by the economic environment, “In recent years, people at the grassroots level have really been through a lot; some are very young, in their early 20s, some took loans for buying houses, and with these house prices falling, it will definitely drive many people to want to commit suicide.”
A resident of Linyi in Shandong also informed Radio Free Asia that there have been numerous cases of jumping into the river in the locality, which although not reported by the media, “Several people have jumped into the river; students and those unable to repay loans. Jumping off buildings for freedom is becoming common, with more cases than the same period last year, though official media do not report it, the people know.”
However, the CCP has tightly sealed off such news, disabling comment functions on WeChat public accounts, and deleting review videos posted on Douyin.
According to the official website of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the CCP, from January 1st to September 13th this year, the Commission has handled 40 mid-level officials, including 7 at ministerial level, 28 at deputy ministerial level, and 5 at department level. From January to December 2023, a total of 45 mid-level officials were handled by the Discipline Inspection Commission, making it the year with the highest number of mid-level officials dealt with since the 18th National Congress of the CCP in 2012.
In recent years, with high-level officials of the Rocket Forces being “cleaned out,” two former and current Central Military Commission members, State Council members, Ministry of Defense ministers being ousted, other senior officers being investigated or missing, a group of high officials in the CCP military system is also under investigation or missing. Collapses in official circles are becoming frequent across the country.
There has been a “major earthquake” in the officialdom of Tangshan, Hebei for the past few months. According to mainland media reports, since April 5th this year, 11 senior officials arrested by the Hebei authorities are all related to Tangshan. They include Vice Mayor of Tangshan, Li Jianzhong, and the Deputy Director of the Tangshan Municipal People’s Congress among others. Four propaganda department directors of the Tangshan Municipal Committee have been taken down.
Corruption by collapsing has also surfaced in Huizhou, Guangdong, with recently former CCP Secretary of Huizhou City Chen Yiwei being investigated. The governing team of the Huizhou Municipal Committee led by Chen Yiwei includes 10 members of the Standing Committee, of which at least 7 have been arrested for corruption, reaching a corruption rate of 70%, with three consecutive mayors of Huizhou being taken down.
Ma Ningyu, the mayor of Guizhou’s capital Guiyang, has recently been investigated, making it four successive mayors to fall in Guiyang.
On April 16th, Qin Rupei, a former member of the Central Committee and Deputy Governor of the Autonomous Region of Guangxi, was investigated. The recent arrests of five tigers in Guizhou are closely related to Qin Rupei.
Official statistics from the Commission for Discipline Inspection showed that 85 senior officials were investigated in Guizhou in the first half of this year, with 5,090 Party discipline and administrative actions taken. In the state-owned enterprise sector alone, the province had already handled 533 cases and 548 people from January to May this year.
It can be said that the occurrence of collapsing-style corruption in various provinces and cities in China is evident. The entry for “collapsing-style corruption” on Baidu Baike describes it as “a significant form of contemporary corruption… Collapsing-style corruption is an inevitable result of individual corruption accumulation evolving into collective corruption, and heralds the entry of the corruption issue into the final stage. The phenomenon of collapsing-style corruption has appeared frequently both domestically and abroad throughout history. The terminal stages of all dynasties and eras have witnessed the occurrence of collapsing-style corruption.”
It is evident that the frequent occurrence of collapsing-style corruption in the CCP officialdom indicates that the red communist regime has reached the end of its lifespan, ready to crumble at any moment.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
https://bit.ly/3IxaN09
The production team of “News Perspectives”.