Chinese loan sharks in India, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor at 5, and the Central Military Commission gets more power
Welcome to today's issue of the The India China Newsletter.
With China cracking down on notorious online loan sharks that regularly make headlines for preying on students and charging extraordinary rates, some of those companies have been searching out new waters. I've heard anecdotally of some of those apps targeting consumers in India for some time now and using the same modus operandi, but two new cases have shed more light on how they actually work.
A piece in today's The Hindu reports Chennai Police arrested two Chinese nationals in Bengaluru for operating predatory instant loan apps illegally. The police also arrested two Indians who were operating a call centre and “abetting the Chinese nationals in collecting the money from debtors”. This followed a Chennai resident taking loans from as many as 45 different app based companies. Check out the story for the details, which suggest a well-oiled operation.
This, alas, isn't a stand-alone case, and may be the tip of the iceberg. On Friday, the Times of India reported of a Chinese national named Zhu Wei, alias Lambo (!), who ran such an operation with call centres in Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Hyderabad but then sought to flee the country. He was outed by a manager in his operation who, it turned out, was romantically involved with him (!!)
Preying on those in financial distress is a terrible business model on every level. I've lost count of the number of stories I've read in China on how these sharks would particularly look to exploit college students, many of whom had to secure loans by offering, as collateral, nude photos which were then used to blackmail them. As this Sixth Tone report explains, students in China often find it hard to get credit because of strict regulations and the limited availability of state loans -- a demand online apps have rushed to fill.
China has been seriously cracking down on the phenomenon after a high-profile case in 2017, when a case triggered a nationwide debate after a court rescinded a life sentence handed to man who killed a loan shark who had abused his mother. Yu Huan was sentenced to life in jail in February, as Reuters reported at the time, "after he used a knife to attack four of his mother’s creditors who taunted and exposed themselves to his mother while demanding a 1 million yuan ($146,000) debt be repaid".
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor at 5
In today's The Hindu, I report on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor five years on after its launch. Officials from both countries met recently in Urumqi to take stock of its progress. The status, as I report, is a mixed picture. It's neither the cure-all promised for the Pakistan economy nor has it brought financial ruin that detractors predicted.
I recommend this excellent status report by Andrew Small (who also wrote the definitive book on the China Pakistan relationship) from September, who points out CPEC may not be the ambitious project once imagined, but that might not be an entirely bad thing as this brings less financial risk.
The Central Military Commission gets more powerful
Minnie Chan at the South China Morning Post reports today on the revisions to China's National Defence Law, effective January 1, which has "expanded the power of its Central Military Commission – headed by President Xi Jinping – to mobilise military and civilian resources in defence of the national interest, both at home and abroad" and "weaken[ed] the role of the State Council – China’s cabinet – in formulating military policy, handing decision-making powers to the CMC."
Beijing gets its shot
A slideshow from Xinhua showing how Beijing has started administering COVID-19 vaccines among specific groups of people with higher infection risks, which gives you a flavour of how it's unfolding in the capital.
And finally...
A thoughtful 2020 letter from Dan Wang, that challenges some conventional wisdoms on reading politics in China.
He writes:
"As every discussion on China grows more strident, and as every proposition about it has to be vested with sentiment, I submit that it’s all the more important to be able to see things as they are. That entails having coming to terms not just with a rise of its repressive capabilities, but also with its growing commercial and institutional strengths. US elites have abandoned the idea that China would liberalize nicely. They should put another idea to bed: that this authoritarian system, riddled with weaknesses, is on the brink of collapse. The country’s strengths are real and improving while the government becomes more nasty towards its critics and the rest of the world."
It's worth reading in full.
Thanks for the daily updates on china. Rather than scrolling news here and there, your article gives it all on china.