On the eve of the military parade in Beijing for the 1937 Incident, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit (SCO summit) was held in Tianjin for two consecutive days (8/31, 9/1). Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping once again made grand gestures, attempting to win over the SCO member countries. At the same time, as the CCP began implementing mandatory social insurance payments from September 1, causing public discontent, overseas netizens took to social media platforms to angrily criticize Xi Jinping’s “grand gestures”.
According to reports by Chinese official media, on the morning of September 1, the 25th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO member countries was held at the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin. Xi Jinping announced that China plans to implement 100 “small but beautiful” livelihood projects in member countries in need, providing 2 billion RMB in aid before the end of 2025, as well as an additional 10 billion RMB in loans to banking consortium members over the next three years.
Xi also stated that starting next year, the quota for SCO scholarships will be doubled based on the current framework.
On the other hand, the CCP’s mandatory social insurance payment policy starting from September 1 has sparked strong backlash among the public. Recent reports by Dajiyuan have highlighted concerns that the policy could further dim citizens’ income and job prospects, impacting livelihoods and the overall economy. Many companies have chosen to shut down factories or outsource employment to evade social insurance payments; on mainland social media, there are many complaints about the mandatory social insurance, with both companies and workers expressing grievances.
At this juncture, Xi Jinping continues to lavish gifts in an attempt to woo other countries, despite no significant backlash on the heavily censored Chinese internet. However, many Chinese netizens manage to bypass the restrictions and criticize the CCP authorities on platforms outside of China:
“The Chinese people are suffering, migrant workers are owed wages, people’s pensions are shrinking, disaster-stricken people are not getting help, but money keeps flowing out endlessly.”
“On one hand, the economy is declining, and pension funds are being misappropriated; on the other hand, there are hundreds of billions in aid and loans… What is this? This is a true traitor!”
“Are we using social insurance to shower them with money?”
“This is the real anti-China force, using China’s resources and the people’s happiness to bond with other countries!”
“When the country was strong, others used to offer tribute to us, now we are the ones offering tribute to them…”.
However, some people joke that Xi’s current gestures of largesse are less in amount, perhaps indicating a lack of funds.
“To be honest, it seems they are running out of money, considering their previous announcements of foreign investments starting at billions.”
“Looking at the numbers alone, it’s not as generous as in previous years.”
“With the economy in decline, or else they would have easily offered $2 billion in aid.”
“It seems they are really running out of resources, it’s only 20 billion RMB.”
The CCP’s military parade burdens the people and causes financial strain, with the undisclosed costs related to the parade also drawing external attention. According to intelligence from Taiwan’s national security unit, the CCP’s military parade on September 3 cost over 36 billion RMB in total, including approximately 800 million RMB for personnel training since April and around 200 million RMB for fuel and maintenance for 45 teams (comprising personnel, vehicles, aircraft, etc.).