No need to crush dissent when you can just squeeze it to death.
This is exactly what we've been fearing for the last couple years, links below.
From Beijing mouthpiece CGTN News, June 1:
China releases master plan for Hainan free trade port
China has released a master plan for the Hainan
free port that aims to build the southern island province into a
globally influential duty-free trading center by the middle of the
century.
A trade port system focusing on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation will be "basically established" in Hainan by 2025 and become "more mature" by 2035, according to the plan jointly issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.
The decision to develop the entire island of Hainan into a pilot free trade port was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to the island in April 2018. Recently, President Xi has underlined the importance of high quality and high standards of the construction in the Hainan free trade port, while prioritizing the innovation of institutional integration in the process of building the port.
The president said institutional integration will be prioritized to free people's minds to make bold innovations and ensure sustainable progress. He urged the local government of Hainan to act boldly and proactively to accomplish the goal of laying a solid foundation for the construction of the Hainan free trade port, while the central government should support Hainan's daring reforms and innovation, pushing for new achievements in the construction of the port.
The plan aims to facilitate free trade, investment and cross-border capital flows in Hainan and says designated imported goods will be exempted from tariffs on the whole island.
It lists plenty of work emphasis in periods stretching to 2035. Among dozens of policies in the plan, the following are the ones seen as taking lead in the free trade port:
Innovative management on import-export
The plan says Hainan will establish more special custom supervision regions to help the island implement more flexible import-export management.
The island will be built as a convenient and efficient "single window" while dealing with imports and exports with overseas countries.
Hainan will pull out a list of goods and articles prohibited and restricted from import and export by the port, while the goods and articles outside the list shall enter and exit freely .....MORE
Additionally, a catalog of imported taxable commodities will also be formulated, but goods outside the catalog will be exempted from import duties when entering the free trade port.
Reduce limitations on cross-border services trade
In the key areas, Hainan will take the lead in regulating domestic rules that affect the freedom and convenience of the services trade....
If interested see June 13's "The Slow Strangulation of Hong Kong".
November 2019's "Hong Kong’s Demise:
It appears that one of Beijing's options is to let Hong Kong die on the vine and wither away as a business center, with Shenzhen, Shanghai and even Hainan island assuming some of the various roles that Hong Kong has played over the years.July 7
And if HK is no longer an entrepôt and the gateway to China it faces the possibility of becoming a colonial backwater but one that is so overbuilt it ends up as an urban hellscape....
"Behind China's Takeover Of Hong Kong: The Pearl River Delta Megacity"
February 2019
China’s most popular app is a propaganda tool teaching Xi Jinping Thought"
Of course it is.
Back in August, when posting "China to require patriotism education for intellectuals " (and the rise of "Xi thought") I asked my favorite Chinese translator if there was a way to make money off this.
He said he was sure there was and he'd talk to his wife who has some first rate Beijing connections.
I didn't think any more about the idea until a couple weeks later with "The Little Red Book vs. the Big White Book (Mao v. Xi)" I asked again what his thinking was and he responded that the fam wasn't sure there would be a market for Xi Thought.
Then in November while posting "In Xi We Trust: Inwardly Directed Chinese Propaganda (now with more elephants)" I asked again about maybe making a bucko or two off Xi Thought.
It was then that my interlocutor told me about the time his wife talked him out of buying a pretty nice chunk of Hainan island, which over the last couple decades has been developing nicely and is now poised to take on Shenzhen as a tech hotspot* and I asked "What the Hell? "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
And he said that out of a desire for marital harmony he didn't mention it any more, especially after Hainan Airways started running direct flights from Beijing to San Jose International a few years ago.
And now this....
*****
...And not being a cruel sort I didn't mention my hope that Hainan Air would start a direct flight from San Jose to Haikou International on Hainan so folks wouldn't have to change planes in Beijing when traveling Silicon Valley to Sino-Silicon Valley.Which brings us back around to CGTN, this time July 20, 2020:
See China Speakers Bureau, Jan. 14 "Can Hainan become China’s Silicon Valley? – Jim Rogers".
Wang Yi calls for greater effort in promoting Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy
