{"id":698981,"date":"2024-04-17T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T00:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=698981"},"modified":"2024-04-22T20:16:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T03:16:21","slug":"quote-of-the-day-stop-obsessing-about-ordinary-peoples-pocket-change-they-know-better-than-you-where-that-money-ought-to-be-spent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2024\/04\/quote-of-the-day-stop-obsessing-about-ordinary-peoples-pocket-change-they-know-better-than-you-where-that-money-ought-to-be-spent\/","title":{"rendered":"Quote of the Day: \u201cStop Obsessing About Ordinary People\u2019s \u2018Pocket Change.\u2019 They Know Better Than You Where That Money Ought to Be Spent.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
A recent WeChat post from <\/span>oft-controversial<\/span><\/a> entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist <\/span>Chen Guangbiao<\/span><\/a> urging the Chinese government to keep its hands off people\u2019s pocketbooks has attracted many supportive comments from social media users. Chen\u2019s message about how the government should stimulate domestic consumption boils down to this: let ordinary people decide how to spend their scant disposable income, and instead focus on broader issues such as encouraging the wealthy to contribute more to the \u201ccommon prosperity\u201d; strengthening the social safety net; and stabilizing income, employment, and the housing market.<\/span><\/p>\n Chen\u2019s post, \u201cRational Consumption Is the Bedrock of a Strong Nation,\u201d<\/strong><\/a> contained six suggestions for Chinese bureaucrats and policymakers:<\/p>\n Chen, who grew up <\/span>deeply impoverished<\/span><\/a> but is now <\/span>conspicuously wealthy<\/span><\/a>, ended his post by inviting government bureaucrats and policymakers to \u201cstep out of your climate-controlled offices\u201d and \u201ccome with me to better understand the real lives of ordinary grassroots people.\u201d <\/span>Written under the folksy moniker \u201cBrother Biao,\u201d Chen\u2019s six-item list drew many admiring responses from WeChat users<\/strong>, <\/span>some of whom praised him for speaking truth to power<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u8881\u540c\u5b66123456: <\/span>The fact that [government workers] earning five-digit monthly salaries, enjoying free medical insurance, and eating cheap subsidized meals at the office (for only three or four yuan a pop) are eyeing the pockets of laborers who subsist on just three or four thousand yuan a month is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous …<\/span><\/p>\n \u5fe7\u6851\u7684\u7262\u5e9c: <\/span>Brother Biao has risen in my estimation!<\/span><\/p>\n \u54c7\u9505\u9505: Damn, people who speak the truth are an endangered species.<\/span><\/p>\n \u8fea\u514b\u725b\u4ed4\u7537\u5b69: <\/span>They\u2019ve rounded up everyone who spoke the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n \u8138\u4e0a\u6709\u8089666: <\/span>There aren\u2019t many people left who know how to speak the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n \u5c41\u5b69\u8fd8\u5e74\u8f7b: [The government\u2019s logic] in a nutshell: \u201cLet them eat cake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u738b\u5b89-\u738b\u5b89: Well said. Officials and bureaucrats just feign ignorance. <\/span>[<\/span>Chinese<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chen\u2019s post and the supportive responses from netizens are a reflection of the structural problems that continue to plague China\u2019s post-pandemic economic recovery. This week brought news of <\/span>better-than-expected first-quarter 2024 GDP growth<\/span><\/a>, but it appears to have been <\/span>driven largely by manufacturing <\/span><\/a>and <\/span>external demand<\/span><\/a>, and questions remain about whether this will translate into broader prosperity for everyday citizens. As mentioned by some of the social media users who responded to Chen\u2019s WeChat post, the Chinese government seems intent on pursuing policies designed to get Chinese consumers to \u201c<\/span>loosen their purse strings<\/span><\/a>,\u201d rather than enacting deeper structural reforms to the market-economy or bolstering the social safety net\u2014actions that could stimulate consumption by giving Chinese households a greater sense of stability and confidence.<\/span><\/p>\n As CDT has documented, online Chinese-language content touching on meaningful political-economic reforms or offering prescriptions for rescuing the ailing economy continues to be vigorously censored. Recently deleted content includes a Weibo essay blaming China\u2019s stagnating economic growth on \u201ca failure of political reform\u201d and <\/span>likening the Party-state to gangsters<\/span><\/a>; a WeChat post by Tsinghua University sociologist Sun Liping suggesting “<\/span>Three Simple Points” to revive the economy<\/span><\/a>; another WeChat post about a <\/span>Guangzhou public opinion poll<\/span><\/a> showing record dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, job prospects, and anticipated income; and \u201c<\/span>Ten Questions About the Private Economy<\/span><\/a>,\u201d a discussion between four prominent Chinese economists that was posted to the well-respected WeChat finance account <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Caijing 11<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span> There was an example of retroactive censorship\u2014the disappearance of a 2016 People’s Daily Online article confidently <\/span>predicting that China would enter the club of “high-income” nations by 2024<\/span><\/a>\u2014and the Weibo censorship of a <\/span>Singaporean paper\u2019s blistering opinion piece<\/span><\/a> arguing that China\u2019s <\/span>current economic malaise<\/span><\/a> is a product of overly centralized leadership with Xi at its core.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Chen Guangbiao\u2019s WeChat post about consumption, while not targeted by censors as of this post’s publication, does mark something of a departure for the audacious, generally pro-government, pro-CCP entrepreneur. As previously noted, the plain-spoken Chen is no stranger to controversy. After founding the <\/span>recycling company<\/span><\/a> that made him his fortune, Chen came to public attention for <\/span>personally rescuing 13 people<\/span><\/a> after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and carrying 200 bodies from the rubble. His contributions to rescue efforts after the <\/span>2011 Tohoku earthquake<\/span><\/a> and tsunami earned him the ire of some anti-Japanese nationalists in China. His past endeavors have ranged from the audacious (a mooted <\/span>billion-dollar purchase of The New York Times<\/span><\/a> and a bid to <\/span>demolish the quake-damaged San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge<\/span><\/a>) to the misleading (<\/span>a reneged-on promise<\/span><\/a> to pay $300 each to a group of unhoused people in New York) to the headline-grabbing (<\/span>selling cans of \u201cfresh air\u201d<\/span><\/a> to bring attention to the problem of air pollution in China). Chen is also known for philanthropic projects with decidedly pro-CCP themes: he once offered two million dollars to <\/span>fund reconstructive plastic surgery<\/span><\/a> in the U.S. for an (alleged) former Falun Gong adherent and her daughter, who he claimed had self-immolated and later recanted their religious beliefs. That story was the <\/span>subject of a leaked censorship directive<\/span><\/a>, translated by CDT in 2014, from China\u2019s State Council Information Office: \u201cAll websites must find and delete the Tencent article \u2018At U.S. Press Conference, Chen Guangbiao Offers 2 Million USD to Self-Immolators for Plastic Surgery.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A recent WeChat post from oft-controversial entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist Chen Guangbiao urging the Chinese government to keep its hands off people\u2019s pocketbooks has attracted many supportive comments from social media users. Chen\u2019s message about how the government should stimulate domestic consumption boils down to this: let ordinary people decide how to spend their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[99,2,14744,100,5,38,4202],"tags":[2650,15615,16000,7302,1594,1492,6943,3623,1049,7800,2544,2418,16857,5132,7392,4393,3788,15953,3467,5157,15230,392,17622,4667,1522,301,18521,7556,17919,490,15301,17007,15912,14820],"class_list":["post-698981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cdt-highlights","category-economy","category-level-2-article","category-politics","category-society","category-the-great-divide","category-translation","tag-bureaucracy","tag-cars","tag-chen-guangbiao","tag-consumer-spending","tag-consumers","tag-consumption","tag-criticism","tag-economic-policy","tag-economic-reform","tag-economic-slowdown","tag-economics","tag-economists","tag-employment","tag-entrepreneur","tag-government-policy","tag-housing-prices","tag-income","tag-income-distribution","tag-macro-economy","tag-market-economy","tag-medical-treatment","tag-middle-class","tag-online-censorship","tag-online-public-opinion","tag-philanthropy","tag-political-reform","tag-quote-of-the-day","tag-savings","tag-social-media-censorship","tag-social-security","tag-stimulus","tag-translation","tag-wechat","tag-weibo","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n