[The Epoch Times, November 10, 2022]Many people know that the China International Import Expo held in Shanghai was planned, proposed, deployed and promoted by Xi Jinping himself. Therefore, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Shanghai attach great importance to it. On November 5, 2018, in his speech at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo, Xi Jinping said that the China International Import Expo “must not only be held every year, but also must be held at a high level, with effective results, and better and better”. Later, during his visit to Europe, Xi further stated, “We take the initiative to hold an international import expo, specifically to buy foreign goods, to balance trade and solve some international trade deficit problems. This will also benefit the Chinese people, who need more International quality product.”
In short, Xi Jinping, who shouted for reform and opening up five years ago, hopes that through the CIIE, Chinese people can buy high-quality products from abroad, and at the same time, he will also gain a good reputation internationally. However, things backfired, and in the fifth year of the China International Import Expo, a tragic situation has already occurred.
On November 10, the five-day fifth China International Import Expo ended dismal. It is bleak because compared with the previous four CIIEs, especially compared with the second CIIE held in 2019 before the epidemic, not only are there fewer foreign heavyweight guests, fewer exhibitors, but also fewer exhibitors. Turnover is even more meager.
Since these five CIIEs have been in the epidemic period for three years and cannot invite foreign heavyweight guests, only the second CIIE held in 2019 can be regarded as a “scenery”. At that time, Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan attended the opening ceremony in person and delivered a speech, and the distinguished guests included French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Jamaican Prime Minister Holness and his wife, Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis and his wife, Serbian Prime Minister Brnabic, etc. There were more than 70 guests above ministerial level. The scale, publicity, etc. at that time also far exceeded the first session.
In 2022, when all parts of the world have been liberalized, mainland China still adopts extreme measures of closure and control, and there are many tragedies. In addition, the prevention and control measures such as code scanning, pop-up windows, and nucleic acid testing in a state of insanity are frightening. In addition to attracting overseas exhibitors and domestic and foreign audiences, the CIIE is more bleak than ever. Some exhibitors revealed that a booth of several million, a few people down a day. In many booths, apart from the staff and others, even the audience could not be seen, and some booths simply sang an empty city plan.
How much volume can such a trade fair have? Let’s take a look at the previous four sessions. Statistics show that in the first CIIE in 2018, more than 800,000 people entered the pavilion to discuss purchases, visit and experience, with a turnover of US$57.8 billion.
In the second CIIE in 2019, a total of 181 countries, regions and international organizations participated in the expo, and more than 3,800 enterprises participated in the enterprise business exhibition, with an exhibition area of 366,000 square meters. More than 500,000 professional visitors from home and abroad registered for the conference, including more than 7,000 overseas buyers. Based on the transaction and procurement results of the CIIE within one year, the cumulative intentional transaction amounted to US$71.13 billion, an increase of 23% over the first session.
Due to the epidemic, the third CIIE in 2020 will not have as many participating countries and companies as the second, but the numbers are not so ugly. 543 companies from 47 countries along the “Belt and Road” and 82 from 30 least developed countries 1,424 companies from G20-related countries, 196 companies from SCO-related countries, and 61 companies from BRICS countries participated in the exhibition. Nearly 400,000 professional visitors registered for the conference, and more than 3,000 domestic and foreign journalists signed up for interviews. The cumulative intentional turnover reached 72.62 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.1% over the second session.
More than 2,900 companies from 127 countries and regions will participate in the fourth CIIE in 2021. This year’s exhibition area hit a new high, reaching 366,000 square meters. More than 280 Fortune 500 and industry leading companies participated in the exhibition. The exhibition attracted more than 3,000 Chinese and foreign media reporters to sign up for interviews, and the on-site transaction results reached 70.72 billion US dollars.
In other words, according to the official data released by the CCP, the total volume of intended transactions in the first four CIIEs was US$272.27 billion. What is the intended transaction volume at this year’s CIIE?
Probably really embarrassed to say it, the CCP media had to avoid talking about it, but talked about the five CIIEs together. In an article on China News Network, “Shanghai Shows “Action Power”: “Progress” and “Promise” and “Blood” and Learn from Others’, there is such a passage: At the 5th China International Import Expo, the Shanghai Trading Group’s memo on the first day of the opening The first order of US$300 million was placed, and the contracted purchase amount of each sub-group has also hit new highs, and the structure of purchased products has been continuously upgraded, involving high-end intelligent equipment, biomedicine and other fields. The five sessions of the Expo have accumulated intentional turnover of more than 270 billion US dollars.
The problem is that the total volume of intentional transactions at the previous four CIIEs is already 272.27 billion US dollars. If it is “the cumulative intentional transaction volume of the five CIIEs of more than 270 billion US dollars”, it means that the transaction volume of this year’s CIIE does not exceed 10 billion US dollars. And this is very likely to happen.
The author believes that the reason for this tragic situation is not only the strict epidemic control, which has caused people’s livelihood and reduced consumption desire, but also a more important reason is the results of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the subsequent public-private partnerships, supply and marketing cooperatives and The comeback of state-run canteens and Beijing’s high-profile preparations for the war have completely shattered the confidence of entrepreneurs at home and abroad, and they are not optimistic about China’s market prospects and China’s future. As a result, foreign businesses no longer invest in the mainland, but further accelerate their withdrawal of funds. A large number of well-known Chinese entrepreneurs and wealthy people have closed their businesses or sold their assets, and “profit” out of China, while small and medium-sized enterprises that are struggling in the epidemic have long been If you can’t support it, how can you buy more products? As for the debt-ridden state-owned enterprises, they are also more than enough.
The dismal CIIE once again sounded the alarm to Zhongnanhai executives: when people completely lose confidence in their regime, anything can happen.
Responsible editor: Pu Shan