How can China get consumers spending? Here are 5 ideas being floated in Beijing
The country has launched a massive trade-in programme for consumer goods that
has succeeded in driving up sales of everything from cars to smartphones, but there are signs that the policy
is starting to lose momentum and deflationary pressure continues to affect the economy.
That
has led to growing calls for the government to take further action, with top Chinese economists floating a range of new policy proposals. Here are five of the ideas being discussed.
Assess local officials based on their ability to boost consumption
Bai Chongen, dean of the School of Economics and Management at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, has suggested making consumption a key performance indicator for local governments.
China's appraisal system for local cadres plays a key role in determining which officials are promoted to higher levels of government, and the system
is known to shape officials' priorities while in office.
If local economic growth remains the top performance metric, officials will keep prioritising investment-driven development, leading to oversupply, price instability and mounting debt pressure, Bai said in an interview with China News Service.
Making consumption a key performance metric, he argued, would instead steer local governments towards a more sustainable growth model – one that fosters stable employment and strengthens consumer confidence.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
3 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Republicans urge US schools to drop ‘nefarious' Chinese scholarship programme
House Republicans have urged seven US universities to cut ties with a Chinese scholarship programme that lawmakers call a 'nefarious mechanism' to steal technology for the Chinese government. Advertisement In letters to Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and five other universities, leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party raised concerns about the schools' partnerships with the China Scholarship Council, a study abroad programme funded by China. The programme sponsors hundreds of Chinese graduate students every year at US universities. After graduating, they are required to return to China for two years. In the letters sent on Tuesday, Republicans described it as a threat to national security. 'CSC purports to be a joint scholarship programme between US and Chinese institutions; however, in reality it is a CCP-managed technology transfer effort that exploits US institutions and directly supports China's military and scientific growth,' wrote Republican congressman John Moolenaar, chair of the committee. Letters were also sent to Temple University, the University of Tennessee and the University of California campuses in Davis, Irvine and Riverside. The committee said it's opening a review into the programme's 'infiltration' of US universities and demanded records related to the programme from all seven institutions. Advertisement The universities' partnerships with the council bring up to 15 graduate students a year to Dartmouth, along with up to 60 at Temple and 40 at Notre Dame, according to the letters. Some schools split the cost, including Dartmouth, which covers 50 per cent of tuition and provides a stipend to doctoral students. Among other records, lawmakers are demanding documents showing whether scholarship recipients worked on research funded by the US government.
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Will Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' offer opportunities for China?
US President Donald Trump's latest tax and spending act might 'cause some trouble' for China, according to analysts. Advertisement However, they also said Beijing may be able to benefit in certain areas if the act – known officially as the One Big Beautiful Bill – generates further political instability and damages domestic industries such as the US clean energy sector. The act aims to make permanent tax cuts, lock in Trump's priorities on border and defence financing, increase Washington's debt limit by US$5 trillion, slash healthcare funding and jeopardise dozens of planned clean energy projects with ties to China. It has sparked widespread concern across the world over an anticipated surge in US federal deficit – estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to reach at least US$3 trillion over the next decade – and its capacity to reshape global capital flows by sharply reducing incentives for US multinationals to keep profits and investments overseas. The act 'is not aimed at China' but will indirectly affect it and other countries, according to Zhu Junwei, director of Horizon Insights Centre, a Chinese think tank. Advertisement 'Nowadays, when Americans oppose certain domestic policies, they often invoke China – claiming that a certain measure would benefit Beijing and should therefore be rejected. Whether there are exaggerations in such claims requires closer analysis,' she said.
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Steel, cars, copper: the growing list of US import tariffs by category, not country
US President Donald Trump increased tariffs this week on imports from 14 countries with duties of 25 to 40 per cent, making waves in Asia where most of the target countries are located. While those country-by-country outcomes have captured much of Trump's trade spotlight, the US has also raised tariffs on a series of product sectors – in some cases, made anywhere in the world – affecting producers from China to Canada. Copper was the latest target this week. The US now levies tariffs on the following imports, or is studying whether to add them: Steel and aluminium. Washington imposed 50 per cent tariff on imports of the two metals in early June, doubling an earlier rate. Steel and aluminium derivatives are also on the list. US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick had advised Trump that 'steel articles are being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States', the White House said in a June 3 statement. Britain received an exemption from the 50 per cent rate on May 8, paying 25 per cent instead, as part of a preliminary trade deal between London and Washington. The 50 per cent rate could kick in if Britain and the US fail to reach a final deal by this week.
