Qin Gang Succeeds as Chinese Foreign Minister
Wang Yi stepped down as Foreign Minister, and then-Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang was recalled from Washington to succeed him.
Wang Yi stepped down as Foreign Minister, and then-Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang was recalled from Washington to succeed him.
The European organization Safeguard Defenders has released a report revealing that the Chinese Communist Party has set up 102 police stations overseas, spread across 53 countries.
On November 30, 2022, former General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee Jiang Zemin died in Beijing at the age of 96.
Dissatisfied with the long-term, strict dynamic zero-COVID lockdown policies, people across China launched rare nationwide protests. Demonstrators held up blank sheets of paper to symbolize censorship, eventually forcing the authorities to make a sudden and chaotic reversal of their pandemic control policies.
Former US Army helicopter pilot Shapour Moinian was contacted by fake tech recruiters via an employment website, provided aviation information to China, and made false statements on a security clearance review, resulting in a 20-month prison sentence in 2022.
From late November to early December 2022, people in many parts of China held white-paper protests during memorials for the victims of the Urumqi fire, protesting the harsh zero-COVID policy and restrictions on speech.
Chinese company Fufeng Group purchased approximately 150 hectares of farmland near Grand Forks Air Force Base and planned to invest $700 million to build a corn processing plant, but the project was blocked by the city council in 2023 due to national security concerns.
Chen Yixin, former director of the Policy Research Office of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and former secretary-general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, has succeeded Chen Wenqing as Minister of State Security.
At the closing ceremony of the 20th CCP National Congress, former General Secretary Hu Jintao was escorted out of the venue by staff, and subsequently, Hu Chunhua was not included in the new Politburo list.
At the closing ceremony of a major CCP meeting, former General Secretary Hu Jintao was escorted out of the venue by security guards in full view of the public, marking the complete bankruptcy of political norms such as inter-generational succession designation.
At the closing session of the 20th CCP Congress, political successors left by Hu Jintao—including Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Hu Chunhua—failed to enter the new Politburo Standing Committee, while Xi Jinping successfully secured his reappointment as General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Ye Jianchun was elected as a member of the 20th CCP Central Committee on the list of members of the 20th CCP Central Committee announced on October 22, 2022.
Peng Lifa hung protest banners opposing Xi Jinping and the epidemic policies at Beijing's Sitong Bridge, an event that has garnered widespread attention.
Peng Zaizhou hung a banner on Beijing's Sitong Bridge to protest the lockdown, and was later arrested.
At the closing session of the CCP's 20th National Congress in October 2022, former General Secretary Hu Jintao was unsteadily escorted out of the venue early, in full view of everyone, drawing widespread attention.
University of Chicago scholar Martinez, using satellite nighttime light data, found that annual GDP growth in authoritarian countries is overstated by an average of about 35%, and that China's figure may have been overstated by about one third over the past two decades.
Overseas leaks claim that the Politburo of the 20th Central Committee was unprecedentedly set at an even number of 24, indicating that a name was scraped off the list before the closing, reportedly Peng Liyuan, who was pushed back by the military's old marshals.
The Bank of England is conducting targeted purchases of long-term government bonds to provide liquidity to LDI funds and buy time for deleveraging, after which bond prices subsequently converged.
The Changchun Intermediate People's Court publicly announced its first-instance verdict on Sun Lijun for accepting bribes, manipulating the securities market, and illegally possessing firearms, sentencing him to death with a two-year reprieve, followed by life imprisonment without reduction.
Rising yields led to margin calls and collateral requirements for pension funds using LDI strategies, forcing funds to sell government bonds for cash, which further pushed up yields.
A sudden change in UK fiscal policy expectations caused 30-year government bond yields to rise by 140 basis points within 4 trading days, triggering intense volatility in the bond market.
The Bank of England later estimated that during the period of government bond volatility in September 2022, the scale of margin calls related to pension fund LDI strategies exceeded 70 billion GBP.
Between September 23 and October 14, LDI funds sold £23 billion in government bonds, while pension schemes sold an additional £14 billion.
During Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, the Eastern Theater Command launched a dozen Dongfeng missiles around Taiwan, some of which flew over Taiwan's airspace and several landed in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone.
Pelosi's plane arrived in Taipei on the evening of August 2; after she ended her visit and departed, China subsequently held large-scale military exercises.
She Zhijiang, founder of the Yatai New City project in Myawaddy, was taken away by Thai police in Bangkok based on an Interpol Red Notice during a dinner gathering.
On May 15, 2022, Chou broke into a lunch gathering of the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Irvine, California and opened fire, killing 1 and wounding 5, before being subdued by church members; police believe the motive was related to hostility toward the Taiwanese diaspora.
In 2022, several village and town banks in Henan collapsed. The cause was collusion between major shareholders inside and outside the banks and the fabrication of loans, making it a pure fraud case.
On March 28, 2022, Shanghai implemented a district-based lockdown divided by the Huangpu River, which was subsequently expanded to a citywide lockdown. It was not until June 1 that the lockdown was largely lifted. Over 20 million residents were confined to their homes for an extended period, leading to numerous secondary disasters such as food shortages and difficulties in accessing medical care.
Shanghai imposed a lockdown starting on March 28, 2022. It was originally planned to last 9 days but actually continued for about two months, until normal production and daily life resumed on June 1. Residents experienced shortages of supplies, hardship in daily life, and psychological pressure.
Shanghai implemented a lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with residents restricted from going out; the program said the doors of some residents had been welded shut.
A China Eastern Airlines passenger aircraft crashed.
Wang Yi held phone calls with officials from the UK, France, and the EU, stating that NATO has expanded eastward multiple times and that Russia's security concerns should be taken seriously.
The Russian military has begun a full-scale military operation against Ukraine, and the Russia-Ukraine war has escalated comprehensively.
On February 24, 2022, Putin announced the launch of a "special military operation," and Russian forces invaded Ukraine on four fronts, after which Western countries backed Ukraine.
On February 4, 2022, the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Xi Jinping and Putin held talks and issued a joint statement claiming that China-Russia friendship has “no limits” and cooperation has “no forbidden areas.” Twenty days later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Zhang Yimou once again served as chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Winter Olympics, using technological means such as LED floor screens and digital algorithms to present an ethereal and romantic Olympic opening ceremony.
On January 28, 2022, the Ministry of Finance announced that income from the transfer of state-owned land use rights in 2021 was 8.7051 trillion yuan (about 8.7 trillion yuan), an increase of 3.5% year on year, hitting a record high.
The head of UK MI5 issued a national security intervention alert to Parliament, naming Chinese lawyer Christine Lee as a spy for the CCP United Front Work Department and exposing her scandal of buying British members of Parliament.
In 2022, net direct investment on China's balance of payments turned negative for the first time, at -0.1% of gross domestic product.
Meta's ad unit price fell by 16%, capital expenditure rose due to Metaverse investment, and free cash flow dropped from $38.4 billion to $18.4 billion, with the stock price falling to approximately $120.
Meta repurchased 160 million shares for approximately $28 billion, but the buyback failed to offset the impact of declining cash flow and rising discount rates on intrinsic value.
Jiemian News and 36Kr (Times Finance) reported that Zhang Jun, the actual controller of the Fude group, made a low-profile return at the end of 2022 after being absent for several years and reshuffled the senior executives of Fude Group. No public explanation has been given as to the reasons for this or whether he faced any judicial action, and neither of these two sites can be reached from the United States either.
Land transfer revenue peaked at 8.7 trillion yuan in 2021, then recorded double-digit declines for four consecutive years starting in 2022, falling to 4.15 trillion yuan in 2025, a drop of about 52.3% from the peak.
The video claims that Rongding Group estimated China's actual GDP for 2022 to 2025 to be about 11% lower than the official figures; the publicly available Rongding report only gives an actual growth rate of 2.5% to 3% for 2025, and no such cumulative estimate can be found.