China’s local governments have been exposed for diverting funds meant for rural students’ nutrition meals to repay debts, sparking outrage among netizens. This has reignited concerns over China’s local government debt crisis.
According to a report by mainland media Caixin on June 30, at the recent meeting of the 14th NPC Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Auditor-General of the CCP National Audit Office, Hou Kai, released the audit report for the year 2023, which highlighted the audit situation of the special funds for the Rural Student Nutrition Improvement Program.
The CCP National Audit Office conducted audits on the special funds amounting to 23.137 billion yuan allocated to 159 counties in 13 provinces from 2021 to August 2023. The audit found that 66 counties had directly diverted 1.951 billion yuan to repay government debts and other expenditures. Additionally, 41 counties and 1,533 schools were found to have embezzled another 270 million yuan through methods like lowering meal standards and fabricating procurement transactions.
Some local education departments colluded with winning bidders to embezzle funds through methods such as vendor kickbacks and donations for welfare distribution. Furthermore, some meal providers operated illegally by cutting corners, providing subpar meals, and engaging in bid rigging and rent-seeking in meal supervision.
The report mentioned that irregularities in the management and use of funds for the rural student nutrition program are not uncommon. A report as early as 2017 indicated that meal fees and school general funds in remote impoverished areas were often misappropriated by school authorities.
Mainland netizens expressed their discontent on Weibo, saying, “Encouraging childbirth under these circumstances?”,”They don’t even have a bottom line.”,”What’s the point of these findings? Has there been any improvement over the years?”,”Still bullying rural children.”,”Save some money on meals to ease the burden on the country.”,”The subsidies for international students are still too low!”,”Don’t just focus on the embezzlement of rural nutrition subsidies, even in cities, the well-connected are feasting on the fat, causing children’s health to be compromised, either too fat from overeating or too thin from lack of food.”,”Feels like a colonial government.”
Some netizens also replaced China with India and expressed dissatisfaction with the CCP’s lavish spending on foreign students. “They dare to divert children’s meal funds, India is truly speechless, giving so much money to black people and international students!”
Caixin reported on June 24 that the current economic situation is dire, facing financial shortages, severe local debts, and various issues like public transport shutdowns, civil servants and public institutions failing to pay their employees.
According to data from the CCP Ministry of Finance, by the end of 2023, the national debt stood at 30.03 trillion yuan, while local government debt amounted to 40.74 trillion yuan. These are only explicit debts, with the total debt including implicit debts being even larger.
A China political and economic observer in the United States, Qin Peng, previously told Epoch Times that under the banner of “Party Leads Everything,” various upheavals by the CCP in the past decade have inflicted greater damage on businesses and individuals, leading to the exhaustion of the previously rapidly developing real estate and land finance economies.
Qin Peng noted that Guizhou province recently attempted to shift its debt burden to the central government but was met with a response of “take care of your own problems” from the central authorities. Wealthier provinces and cities are also reluctant to shoulder the burden for the nation, passively resisting. In the backdrop of the central government withholding funds and exerting high levels of authoritarian control, local governments have become increasingly inactive, waiting for direct commands and deployments from the central authorities, essentially making a mockery of the situation in the capital city.