Taipei, Taiwan — China’s ruling party has concluded the Third Plenum of its 20th Central Committee with a communique described as vague and cliché by China watchers, who said it lacks specific measures to address China’s economic difficulties.

Shi He-ling, an associate professor of economics at Monash Business School at Monash University in Caulfield, Australia, said the communiqué was disappointing and that its writers were completely unthinking.

The 5,000-word communiqué, issued on Thursday, touted the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements in “comprehensively deepening reforms” and said the future will be critical for comprehensively advancing “Chinese-style modernization,” building a strong country and rejuvenating the nation.

Shi said that while Chinese President Xi Jinping has set out a new vision of “Chinese-style modernization” to highlight his differences from previous party leaders, the communiqué does not provide any specific definitions that are measurable.

“It does not make macroeconomic adjustments at all but is like a philosophical article, which is basically a cliché,” Shi told VOA.

In addition to “socialist market mechanisms” and “new quality productivity,” the communiqué stressed that national security is an important foundation for the steady and long-term development of Chinese-style modernization; that the modernization of national defense and the armed forces is an important part of it; and that “party leadership” in particular is the “fundamental guarantee” for promoting this policy.

Yeh Yao-yuan, chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, said that under the framework of “Xi Thoughts,” it is difficult for the economic exposition of this communiqué to be new.

Even if the “socialist market economic system” is repeatedly touted, it will not be able to reverse China’s economic decline, he said, adding that Xi’s economic reform is in fact “changing things to their old ways.”

These include forcing the private sector to retreat in order to help the state advance and tightening controls over foreign capital, which will hit the market economy hard.

Ming Chu-cheng,  professor emeritus of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei, offered a similar assessment on Thursday at a seminar in Taiwan.

Xi “is touting the market economy, but what he really pushes is ‘the people retreat and the country advances,’ which is completely opposite to what he says,” Ming said. “I don’t have great hopes for the Third Plenum. Even if you relax the economic restrictions, you will encounter exactly the same problems in another 20 years because politics is choking the economy.”

The communiqué received more than 100 million views on Weibo and made it to the hot search list hours after its release. However, there was hardly any substantive discussion online among Chinese people in the comment areas. Most just reposted and recited some of the communiqué text to express their concerns.

The personnel changes made at the plenum attracted a lot of attention as the CCP officially approved the removal of its former foreign minister, Qin Gang, from its Central Committee.

Qin, who has not been seen in public since last summer, is no longer a member of the Communist Party leadership. He was dismissed as foreign minister in July last year and removed from the post of state councilor three months later.

His resignation from the top body had been accepted. No further details were provided, and the reasons behind Qin’s disappearance remain unclear. He was allegedly investigated for having an extramarital affair, leaking secrets and endangering national security.

The plenum also confirmed the expulsion of former Defense Minister Li Shangfu. Li Yuchao and Sun Jinming of the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force were also removed from the Central Committee.

Many online comments focused on Qin being called “comrade” in the party’s published decision while others were calling Qin’s ousting a “soft landing.”

After the discussion on Qin’s removal became a hot topic, the Weibo accounts of various media outlets seemed to be alerted and comments were concealed.

Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said that Beijing dislikes Chinese people arguing online about the CCP’s high-level personnel because comments might call into question the party’s decisions and judgment, especially as Qin was previously Xi’s close confidant and the foreign minister.

“What happened to Qin has not been particularly public so far,” Chong told VOA, “and too many of these discussions [about Qin] will also distract public attention from the economic reform plan the Third Plenum wants to promote.”

Adrianna Zhang, Yang An, Joyce Huang contributed to this story.
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WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court blocked the implementation of the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan, which would have lowered monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

In a ruling Thursday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion for an administrative stay filed by a group of Republican-led states seeking to invalidate the administration’s entire student loan forgiveness program. The court’s order prohibits the administration from implementing the parts of the SAVE plan that were not already blocked by lower court rulings.

The ruling comes the same day that the Biden administration announced another round of student loan forgiveness, this time totaling $1.2 billion in forgiveness for roughly 35,000 borrowers who are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

The PSLF program, which provides relief for teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public servants who make 120 qualifying monthly payments, was originally passed in 2007. But for years, borrowers ran into strict rules and servicer errors that prevented them from having their debt canceled. The Biden administration adjusted some of the program’s rules and retroactively gave many borrowers credits toward their required payments.

Two separate legal challenges to Biden’s SAVE plan have worked their way through the courts.

In June, federal judges in Kansas and Missouri issued separate rulings that blocked much of the administration’s plan to provide a faster path toward loan cancellation and reduce monthly income-based repayment from 10% to 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. Those injunctions did not affect debt that had already been forgiven.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allowed the department to proceed with the lowered monthly payments. Thursday’s order from the 8th circuit blocks all aspects of the SAVE plan.

The Education Department said it was reviewing the ruling.

“Our Administration will continue to aggressively defend the SAVE Plan — which has been helping over 8 million borrowers access lower monthly payments, including 4.5 million borrowers who have had a zero-dollar payment each month,” the administration said.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Experts say Africa needs to invest in robust infrastructure if the continent is to have reliable internet after recent outages due to underwater cable failures highlighted the continent’s reliance on single-path connectivity.

Disruptions in March and May caused online banking problems and communication delays. Businesses experienced interruptions in many countries.

In March, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, four submarine cables that deliver the internet to at least 17 countries went offline.

Less than two months later, Eastern and Southern Africa experienced outages after two undersea cables were damaged. In Tanzania, the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam closed for two days due to the disruption.

Ben Gumo, a Kenyan who relies on the internet to sell clothes, shoes and children’s wares, said he lost business during the May disruption.

“Someone … puts stuff in the [online] basket, but because of the outage he cannot complete the sale, so he cancels,” Gumo said, adding that he couldn’t update his website with new products.

According to the telecommunications research company Telegeography, over 100 cable cuts occur globally each year. Experts blame undersea volcanic activity, rock falls, recent rainfall and currents in rivers that are much stronger than when some of the cables were built.

Manmade activities also cause disruptions. According to one report, a ship was attacked in the Red Sea and drifted, its anchor pulling up three underwater cables.

Mike Last works with the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, which operates in 20 African countries and has built 36 data centers. He said recent disruptions prompted government officials and businesspeople to recognize the need for better internet infrastructure.

“What it made people realize is that you have to invest in a reliable network, you have to invest in redundancy,” Last said, meaning that internet service is provided by more than one source. “We’ve seen a real boom in clients coming to us wanting connectivity on the new subsea systems.”

Some countries can stay online when one internet source is cut off, although service is often slow and not stable, because service providers and telecommunication carriers invested in more than one international connection.

According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa’s digital infrastructure coverage, access and quality are far behind those of other regions.

However, Africa is embracing the digital future. According to the Submarine Cable Networks, 37 countries have at least one subsea cable connection, and 20 countries have more than two subsea cables.

Last said cables planned by Google and Meta will improve connectivity.

One of the new cables, he said, has a high capacity. Another new cable — named 2Africa and led by Meta, the parent company of Facebook — is being built all the way around Africa.

“It brings a lot of capacity to Africa, and that will help,” Last said.

Experts warn that disparities in connectivity across Africa are expected, but that the development of infrastructure, government policies and private sector investments can accelerate growth.
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Abuja, Nigeria — Nigeria plans to resume local refining of crude oil in early August, national petroleum authorities announced Monday.

The resumption would end years of idleness at Nigeria’s state-owned refineries, and analysts say that if successfully implemented, it would lower fuel prices.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company made the announcement while addressing an emergency session at the National Assembly. Lawmakers called the session to interrogate central bank authorities, the national economic management team and the NNPC about the country’s economic standing.

The chief executive officer of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, said one of the two Port Harcourt refineries in the oil-rich Niger Delta region will begin operations in about two weeks.

He said the other one will come into operation by the end of the year and allow Nigeria to begin exporting refined oil.

“We’re very optimistic that by December this country will be a net exporter,” he said, “that is [in] combination of production coming from us and the Dangote refinery and other smaller producing companies.”

The Dangote refinery is a privately owned facility being built near Lagos.

Nigeria’s minister of state of petroleum resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, voiced optimism about the impact of the revived refineries.

“The easiest way for Nigeria to come out of its economic problems is through the oil and gas sector,” Lokpobiri said. “As a sector, we have a clear plan to gradually ramp up production. Right now, we have a clear plan to see how we can get 2 million barrels and more.”

This is not the first time officials have announced the resumption of domestic oil refining.

They made similar announcements in December and March. On Monday, authorities said unforeseen technical difficulties hampered previous resumption dates.

All four government-owned refineries, which can process about 450,000 barrels of crude per day, have been moribund for years, forcing the country to rely on imports to meet its petroleum needs, estimated at 66 million liters (17.4 million gallons) per day.

Oil industry analyst Faith Nwadishi voiced doubts the refineries will operate again.

“I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and trying to be very optimistic about this because it will go a long way in reducing the hardship and perhaps also reduce the pump price … especially,” Nwadishi said. “But being somebody who’s in the sector, I become a little bit skeptical. We have an allocation of about 445,000 [barrels per day] for domestic consumption, which, if properly refined, we’ll have about 70 million liters. That covers our daily consumption.”

The Nigerian oil industry has been hampered in recent years by theft and corruption. On Monday, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative said about 140,000 barrels of crude oil were lost to theft every day between 2009 and 2018.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Advocacy group Human Rights Watch called Tuesday for greater accountability of public funds in Kenya, framing it partially as a human rights issue.

Kenyans have taken to the streets for four consecutive weeks to protest the high cost of living, corruption and misuse of the country’s finances. What began as a tax protest has morphed into a demand for the end of President William Ruto’s government, with demonstrators saying they do not trust it to solve the country’s political and economic problems.

Human Rights Watch called on the International Monetary Fund to work with the Kenyan government to ensure that IMF’s support for the country is aligned with human rights — and that corruption doesn’t take funds meant to improve the lives of ordinary people.

Allan Ngari, the Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said, “Our greatest concern is that the outrage sparked by the proposed taxes is something that is endemic in Kenya in the sense that corporate tax evasion, for example, is one of the issues that haven’t been taken into consideration, in addition to the opulent lifestyle that we have seen among the Kenyan executive.”

Kenya’s debt pressures spurred the IMF to approve $941 million for the country in January, bringing the total amount loaned to the East African nation by the financial agency to $3.9 billion.

Kenyans have raised concerns about such heavy borrowing, saying it has done little to improve their lives. At the same time, protesters say, citizens are paying more taxes so Kenya can repay the loans.

The IMF argues that the money it provided to Kenya helped alleviate market concerns, allowing the East African nation access to the bond market and partially rolling over a maturing Eurobond.

Ngari said the Kenyan government needs to be accountable to the IMF and other foreign loan providers, but also for the revenue it collects in the country.

“Monies that have been allocated or are within the government expenditure should be for projects and processes of development in the country,” Ngari said. “That’s the reason why these loans have been sought. So, accountability is that [the] public should be really aware of the extent of the borrowing.”

Activists have repeatedly asked the government to disclose the country’s total current debt, specifically the amount owed to China, which the government has been reluctant to make public.

Ruto has formed a task force to audit the country’s debt and report back by the end of September.

In the streets of many cities and towns, protesters continue to cry out about hard economic times and a government that they say has become blind and deaf to its problems.

Sharon, a Nairobi resident who gave only her first name, said that if the borrowed money can be accounted for and used for its intended purpose, it will improve the situation of many Kenyans.

“We need accountability for the money we pay and for the money we borrow,” she said. “This will create more employment opportunities because there will be money to pay for those jobs.”

Stella Nkirote, a 31-year-old street vendor and mother of four, said corruption has hampered the country’s economic growth, saying that people in power have refused to use money in the way it is supposed to be used.

In its 2016 periodic review of Kenya, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said the country has large amounts of illicit financial flows, tax avoidance and cases of corruption involving top government officials that are not investigated.

Human Rights Watch argues that many countries’ problems could be solved if they aligned their economic policies with human rights on every level — domestic and international.
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Johannesburg     — Rotondwa Mbadaliga is a self-professed “shopping addict.” The 25-year-old South African fashion influencer says she is a huge fan of Chinese-linked e-commerce companies Shein and Temu because she can get the latest trends at the cheapest prices delivered straight to her door.

Mbadaliga has more than 200,000 followers on TikTok where she mostly talks about fashion, sometimes posting videos of herself excitedly opening her newly arrived purchases from China.

“The variety is the main thing I really like and enjoy with shopping on Temu or Shein,” she says, adding that South African brands and shops aren’t as trendy.

“I don’t think you can beat the prices,” she adds.

But the prices of clothing on these e-commerce sites are expected to soon get more expensive.

South Africa’s tax authority plans to start imposing a 45% tariff and a value-added tax, or VAT, an indirect tax on the consumption of goods and services on orders of imported clothing that cost under 500 rand, or $27. Some consumers are pushing back with an online petition protesting the higher import duties.

Chinese e-commerce in South Africa

Shein, which has been available in South Africa since 2020, and Temu, which entered the market in January, have had huge success in the country, which has a growing middle class, tech-savvy youth and widespread internet access.

For women’s clothing purchases online, Shein is the top retailer with a 35% market share, according to data from Marketing Research Foundation, a nonprofit South Africa-based marketing survey group.

For its part, Temu is the most-downloaded app among iOS and Android users in South Africa.

Mbadaliga acknowledges that quality can sometimes be an issue.

“With shopping from China, you need to be OK with making a loss in some way,” she says, adding that she has a box of clothes bought on the platforms that didn’t fit or work out.

Her aunts in their 30s, who earn more, prefer to buy from foreign brands with brick-and-mortar stores in South Africa such as Zara because they believe the quality of clothing is better, Mbadaliga notes.

But she says longevity and quality don’t matter so much to her because she will only wear a garment while it is in style.

Industry pushback

South African retailers and local e-commerce platforms have been left reeling by the success of Chinese e-commerce and fearing their inability to compete.

Some South African companies and industry groups have lobbied the government to close an import tax loophole, a so-called de minimis rule, for small parcels of clothing. The loophole was introduced decades ago for items such as gifts before the advent of online shopping.

Under that system, small parcels pay a low 20% import duty. However, local clothing retailers, who order in bulk, pay a 45% tariff plus a VAT rate.

“We don’t mind competition … but what we find unpalatable, quite frankly, is an opportunity which is being taken advantage of where we believe we actually have an unfair and non-level playing field,” Michael Lawrence, executive director the National Clothing Retail Federation of South Africa, told VOA.

“We’re seeing 100,000 parcels a day, I’m told by some players, coming in. So, we’re not talking about an occasional occurrence. We’re talking about a significant commercial activity,” he says.

When South Africa’s tax authorities implement the higher tax rate for imported clothing under 500 rand, those shippers will be paying the same rate of 45% plus a VAT as the bulk shipments incur.

Contacted for comment, a Temu spokesperson told VOA: “Temu operates a direct-from-factory online marketplace that connects consumers with cost-efficient manufacturers. By reducing the number of intermediaries between consumers and producers, we can eliminate extra costs and pass those savings on to consumers through lower prices.”

“We compete fairly and transparently, adhering to the rules and regulations of each market we serve. Our growth does not rely on the de minimis policy. We support policy changes that benefit consumers and believe that as long as rules are applied fairly, they will not affect the competitive landscape,” the spokesperson added.

Shein did not respond to a request for comment.

Local alternatives

South Africa is not without its own e-commerce sites.

E-commerce company Takealot has accused the Chinese online shopping giants of exploiting tax loopholes.

“These platforms contribute to a market imbalance by flooding the market with inexpensive imports,” the company said last month in a statement. “Such trends pose significant challenges to the development and sustainability of domestic industries.”

“This form of commerce extracts value from South African consumers without contributing to local communities, ultimately harming small businesses, local manufacturers and the limited job opportunities available,” it continued.

To boost local industry, Takealot recently signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the government in South Africa’s Gauteng province, which includes the capital, Pretoria, and economic powerhouse Johannesburg. Called the Takealot Township Economy Initiative, it is focused on creating jobs and supporting small, Black-owned businesses.

Local online fashion retailer Zando launched its international e-commerce platform Zando Global earlier this year.

“With the rise of Shein and Temu, South African consumers have often found themselves hesitant to order internationally due to concerns about product quality, delivery reliability, and returns processes. Zando Global steps in as the local hero, offering a trustworthy alternative for those seeking international products without the uncertainties of ordering from abroad,” the company said in an April press statement.

When asked whether the market is already saturated by Shein and Temu, Zando Global’s CEO Morgane Imbert told VOA she believed the company could compete.

“We genuinely believe there is room for a player like Zando, because we think that we can offer a different experience, focusing on the quality of the product, the customer service and curated local and global fashion trends,” she says.

“We’re definitely supporting local brands and companies through the marketplace,” Imbert added.

US behemoth

Zando and Takealot must also compete with U.S. e-commerce company Amazon, which entered the South African market in May, its first foray into sub-Saharan Africa. Reports suggest Amazon had a slow start, but that could change.

On its website, Amazon says it is providing South African consumers with a “new online shopping experience.” It added, the site will include products from independent South African sellers and small and medium-size enterprises “to connect customers with businesses throughout the country.”

Still, like “shopping addict” Mbadaliga, many South Africans will not be easily weaned off Shein and Temu.

The on-line petition to the South African government aimed at stopping the import duty has garnered more than 21,000 signatures since June, hoping to change the minds of government authorities who have yet to implement the new tax rules originally set for July 1.
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