China's 2020 auto sales fall for third year amid coronavirus

Three essays in a row....now that can't be a coincidence.

Do not believe everything you read.

Should we really thank China as one writer suggests?

Desert Tortoise , “Laughable. My family lost their home to the Red Guards.”

I heard this same story repeatedly, but in the end you should thank China for your life now in LA. The struggling is what make people better. China has changed a lot in the past few decades and what you have described were very old stories, maybe a few decades old. Chinese people are getting better and richer, the last I heard number of middle income people in China is more than the population of the US. A lot of my friends complained that they should have remained in China.

What you have mentioned about Xi is the Western version of the story, but the main point is he painfully struggled to get where he is now. Unlike the western leaders who are all rich and famous but most lack ability to be good leaders. A country needs good leaders to advance further. I know that there is good and bad in every government but the thing is there is more “good” than “bad” in Chinese government. China has lifted more people out of poverty in a very short time than any countries in the world in the history of mankind but the main thing is Chinese people are happier and trust their government more than any other countries in the world. More and more advanced products are coming out from China first, so you can understand why Western companies are not willing to leave China. China has the largest car and cell phone markets in the world just to mention a couple, and there are many other largest things in China. I now know that you are Chinese and you hated China because of what happened in the past. But everything changes with time and only time can heal all wounds if you let it. Current CCP is not the same CCP in the Mao era, a lot of improvements have been made so to hate the current government for the past government’s fault is not reasonable. So, hating Trump is to mean hating Biden too, you must still be living in the past. So sorry for you.

For you to boycott completely first you need to give up driving your cars because all the cars in the world have Chinese made parts no matter what brand it is they have a lot of Chinese vendors

My cars and motorcycles are old and pre-date the use of Chinese parts. I restored one of the old Audis because I won't buy the new models with automatic braking and all the ridiculous electronics I don't need. An old 1990s Avalon is next up for refurbishment. Selling a newer Avalon to pay to fix the older one, the new one is just miserable to maintain. When I buy spare or repair parts I always buy US, EU or Japanese manufactured parts. Batteries are always US made. Tires mostly German or Japanese. No Chinese crap tires. Most of my clothes are made in the US or Latin America. All of my shoes except one pair of boat shoes and a pair of walking shoes are made in the US. The boat shoes come from the Dominican Republic, the walking shoes are from Vietnam. Bedding is US or occasionally India. Same for towels. Our vacuums are a Kirby, a Tristar, both US made, a Miracle Mate (Canadian), an early 1980s Kenmore made in Kentucky or a modern Japanese market Panasonic made in Japan (for some reason 100 volt Panasonics run happily on US 120 volt power but some really cool Sanyo models like the Airsis wont).

I'm lucky I guess to live in California because virtually all the food we eat is grown locally. Even the "Asian" foods are mostly grown and packed in California including our wonderful Calrose rice, the world's best. My wife is originally from the countryside outside Shanghai and won't eat anything that comes from China. She 100% doesn't trust it, especially their seafood. Taiwanese products are ok however. Taiwan has quality control.

Why would I give my enemy even one cent of my hard earned? No! I am certainly not going to help them by feeding their economy. Boycott China. Read labels on what you buy and if the product or its packaging says "Made in China", don't buy it. I have done this for many years. There is virtually nothing made that is only made in China. There is always a non Chinese made alternative

Lol that’s far from enough for you to boycott China.

For you to boycott completely first you need to give up driving your cars because all the cars in the world have Chinese made parts no matter what brand it is they have a lot of Chinese vendors.

Second you and your family can’t buy any phones, especially 5g cell phones because every phone you buy you are paying a high patent fee to Chinese companies like Huawei or Zte. When you see a made in Vietnam T-shirt you need to check carefully to see if it’s raw materials are from China.

And you can’t go outside and eat because China is Japans largest trading partner and second largest food supplier since 2003 which means Japanese people eat a lot of Chinese food for a long time and the fact is It is almost impossible to avoid Chinese food in Japan because almost all the restaurants in Japan are using imported food materials from China.

And the most important thing, more than clothes and foods China controls many critically important resources and industries like Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients in pharmaceutical industry without Chinese api you can’t make many essential drugs like antibiotic which the World needs desperately right now. Experts estimate it will take at least 10 years for the US to be self efficient without Chinese supply.

That’s why despite the trade war with the US China’s trade surplus hits a record high in 2020 that means unlike you the people around the world need China and love Made in China products more than ever.

The Chinese system is Meritocracy

No. Everything in China runs on patronage and the "red envelope". My wife could not attend university in China because her family, having been driven into poverty by Mao, didn't have money to fill those red envelopes for the admissions department so she could get in and get the classes she wanted, nor did they have enough money for her professors to guarantee she passed her classes. When you join a firm or the party you find a patronage network to join, often your first boss is your patron if he or she likes you, and you rise up the ladder with your patron. As your patron promotes he or she finds better and better jobs for the people in their network. This is extremely true of the CCP and these patronage networks fight tooth and nail for power within the party.

Chairman Xi was almost unknown in the party before becoming General Secretary. Study how he came to power. It wasn't merit so much as he was considered a safe choice between two powerful factions of the CCP who were fighting each other and widely viewed as corrupt. Xi was barely known in the party. If you asked someone who Xi Jinping was you would usually get a blank stare. People knew him as Peng Liyuan's husband. Xi was seen as clean and not affiliated with either faction. They miscalculated. Xi is a Princeling, the son of one of Mao's close associates who himself had been imprisoned in a cave for a time by the Red Guards. Lacking a powerful faction behind him he knew his appointment as CCP General Secretary stepped over more powerful members and their patronage networks. He immediately had enemies to worry about. His "anti-corruption" drive is really an old fashioned party purge and a way for him to assert dominance absent a large and powerful patronage network behind him. There was a PLA led attempted coup in late summer or early fall 2017 that led to four top PLA Generals going to jail, one of which "committed suicide" (kind of like what happened to Momma's first husband, the Red Guards came for him one day and the next day they told Momma he "committed suicide" but the family was never allowed to view the body). It was after the coup attempt that Xi arranged for term limits on PRC President to be eliminated (they were instituted by Deng to prevent another dictator for life like Mao to emerge, btw) and the elimination of the maximum age to serve, so Xi could keep a handful of trusted lieutenants in the Politburo Standing Committee who were hitting the mandatory retirement age. Xi has been very busy imprisoning the high ranking members he views as enemies, but in doing so he has cut off the path for advancement for their patronage armies, and thus has created masses of enemies within the party whom he now must resort to ever more repressive measures to keep them in line. But don't doubt he has enemies and since he has eliminated term limits he now owns all the problems that might occur. His position is not as stable as it looks and if enough bad things start to pile up and if he ever looks weak or uncertain he'll be shoved aside by others in the party if for no other reason than to prevent a revolution that might sweep the CCP away.

 Your relatives were right; when you have a trusted and effective government why rock the boat!

Laughable. My family lost their home to the Red Guards. Momma was forced from the classroom and the whole family exiled to a rural area to live in poverty. Mao took everything, banished us and eventually Momma lost two fingers without compensation in a state owned factory. My wife had two forced abortions, without anesthesia and the doctor on the second one berated her for complaining about the pain. A party cadre still lives in the family home in Shanghai. We can walk by and look at it. It's in the old French Concession. Nobody trusts any level of government in China. The have a boot to everyone's neck. You know so little.

Desert Tortoise, My relatives there say "the government does what it wants and we do what we want".

You seem to have a very limited understanding of China’s political systems. The Chinese system is Meritocracy that is the government officials are selected on the basis of their ability. It took 30 years for Xi to become the leader of China, unlike the West where some rich bozo can be the president damaging the country for years to come.  Your relatives were right; when you have a trusted and effective government why rock the boat!

“The CCP wants to control everything and dominate the world. They are the enemy of individual liberty and individual rights. Given the opportunity they will try to limit my rights.”

I wonder what kinds of individual rights you have. Chinese people believe in the majority rights not some selfish egocentric rights. Take the current pandemic for example, Chinese people wear masks without any questions, but Western people had to do some masks studies for months and fear of eroding freedom is getting into their heads. Eventually they still have to wear masks but not until so many people have died. This time the pandemic has shown that rights and freedom have their limits. And yes, you have the right to buy the products that are not made in China. But what you lose is your own savings, as for me I really don’t care where the product comes from as long as it has the quality and value that I am looking for. I wouldn’t lower my standard of living for the sake of politics that will not make me any richer.

Please don’t make these baseless claims to fool people around and read some real time news. Instead China is a huge opportunity this year. If you smart enough you would invest in china.

Your position is short sighted and greedy. Why would I give my enemy even one cent of my hard earned? The CCP wants to control everything and dominate the world. They are the enemy of individual liberty and individual rights. Given the opportunity they will try to limit my rights. No! I am certainly not going to help them by feeding their economy. Boycott China. Read labels on what you buy and if the product or its packaging says "Made in China", don't buy it. I have done this for many years. There is virtually nothing made that is only made in China. There is always a non Chinese made alternative so learn to shop carefully and never buy anything made in China.

Xi is to blame, but also the Chinese people for blindly following him out of self interest

Ever been to China? Half my family is there. The Chinese people have no choice but to put up with whomever the CCP Central Committee makes their General Secretary and whom as a result always ends up as the PRC President. There are no elections and political opposition is not permitted. They don't even have unfiltered internet access to know what is going on in the world. The government and the people are two different entities and most Chinese try to limit their contact with any arm of government to the absolute minimum possible. My relatives there say "the government does what it wants and we do what we want".

The International Monetary Fund is projecting China's economy to surge 1.9% in 2020.

Actually, that's very low compared to the usual 5%-7% (that's what China needs to keep up with the millions of new job-seekers every year)

But in a Covid year where all other major economies are contracting, it is a surge relatively

Robert maes

Please don’t make these baseless claims to fool people around and read some real time news. Instead China is a huge opportunity this year. If you smart enough you would invest in china.

The International Monetary Fund is projecting China's economy to surge 1.9% in 2020.

Observers expect China's upward trend to continue well into 2021.

"China will deliver one of the strongest and fastest macro recoveries in 2021 among major economies globally," Goldman Sachs noted in its China outlook report, forecasting a 20% rebound in Chinese corporate profits and staying overweight Chinese equities.

Morgan Stanley has additionally portended China as "solid," with the country's benchmark CSI300 Index is expected to rise to 5,570 points at the end of 2021 in a best-case scenario.

The Chinese boom is fed by cheap loans, government subsidies and forced labour.

the official numbers are fantasy and China is by no means doing better than the rest of the world. It is unsustainable and because of its political and lately imperialistic stance, China will fall back soon.

Xi is to blame, but also the Chinese people for blindly following him out of self interest