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Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of China, recently mentioned in response to a reporter that 600 million people in China have an average monthly income of only 1,000 yuan (RMB) ($140.82 US). This figure is far from the data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which indicated that China’s GDP per capita exceeded US$10,000 for the first time in 2019. The huge gap between the numbers shocked the Chinese netizens. Critics expressed that Li Keqiang was giving “precautionary shots” to the people, warning that they were going to have a hard life ahead. Others think that he was leaving himself a way out for the future.On May 28, the Premier of the State Council of China, Li Keqiang, replied to a journalist’s question that in China, the annual per capita income is 30,000 RMB ($4224.52 US) but 600 million people have an average monthly income of only 1,000 yuan (RMB). It may be difficult to survive with only 1,000 yuan in a medium-sized city, not to mention the difficulties brought by the pandemic.
He Junqiao, a mainland enterprise observer, expressed that the real situation was more serious than Li Keqiang said: “There are 1 billion peasants in China, with over 400 million of them working out of their own villages. If these peasants can get 3,000 yuan a month, each person could earn an average of 1,000 yuan in a family of three; but the reality is that they are not guaranteed this amount of money every month,” he said.
He Junqiao indicated that the peasants who reside in the countryside earn even less. In 1995, the net income from growing food crops was about 300 yuan ($42.25 US) to 500 yuan ($70.42 US) per acre. However, the prices of food have gone up more than ten times after 25 years but the net income remained at about 500 yuan per acre.
He continued: “The whole world is talking about the China Miracle. Let me tell you, China’s economy never created miracles. Actually, the cities were propped up using income plundered from the peasants.” However, people at the lowest levels in cities are poor as well.
“The average wage of an employee of a private company is about 3,000 to 4,000 yuan. There are a few categories of people in China who receive high incomes as follows: Number one, the officials in the system whose incomes cannot be touched. Number two, public servants in the system and number three are the employees and managers of foreign and national businesses,” He Junqiao said.
Li Keqiang also said that the total number of people who applied for monetary social benefits, unemployment benefits, or special relief is about 60 million per year and it is estimated that it will increase this year. As a result, “employment” is the biggest livelihood issue.
Li Keqiang also proposed to replace the ‘Six Stabilities’, which include employment, finance, foreign trade, foreign investment, investment, and expectations proposed back in 2018, with the “Six Guarantees,” which include the people’s employment, basic livelihood, market order, food and energy security, the stability of supply chains, and operation of basic/local government functions. He said that in order to raise funds to promote the “Six Guarantees,” Beijing will increase the deficit and issue special anti-pandemic bonds.
Qin Peng said: “The purpose of the current special national debt or the increased deficit is to solve the problem of small and medium enterprises, including paying into the social security fund or reducing the interest rate of loans. But the majority of small businesses will not be able to receive any help; so the government is essentially doing nothing to help these small companies.”
He said that the CCP claimed to increase employment by 9 million people this year but did not mention the increased number of unemployed.
“From observing the current situation, tens of millions of unemployed people are almost a certainty, so the CCP changed its annual core targets from ‘Six Stabilities’ to ‘Six Guarantees,’ with a special emphasis on ‘Employment for Residents.’ In fact, this is a kind of bottom-line thinking, the idea that we have to protect the regime,” Qin Peng concluded.
Since the Chinese Communist Party has always reported good news and ignored bad news, Li Keqiang‘s words about 600 million people earning only 1,000 yuan monthly have aroused heated debates on the Internet, and related video clips are circulating wildly. Nevertheless, netizens noticed that the next day, Li Keqiang’s video had been removed from government websites including “The Chinese Central Government’s Official Web Portal” and “People’s Daily.”
Frank Tian Xie, the Chair Professor in Business at the University of South Carolina Aiken, indicated that Li Keqiang is a special case among Chinese Communist Party officials. He once admitted to the former U.S. ambassador that China‘s economic statistics were falsified and so he did not believe them.
Frank Xie believes that Li Keqiang is trying to leave himself a way out by quoting this number. “In the future, when the CCP dismantles and when facing history, reality, and the people, he can at least say that he did not exactly deceive the Chinese people with the fake numbers created by the CCP,” he concluded.
