designs, how big a problem is global food insecurity. counting the cost? oh, no. jersey or the china is plans for the coming year. have been sent out to the national peters congress, the full tubes of the find, the 2nd largest economy in our global interest. as all its political retentions to what's in store for china and for the rest of the world. this is inside story, the color of the and welcome to the program on jo. now, there was a time when the world sold the business of the chinese communist party, those logs, a domestic matter online and apparently secretive politics in

a country essentially closed off to the rest of the world. but not anymore trying this transformation into an economic and technological powerhouse is in a globalized world, means that what goes on there is keenly watched by political leaders and businesses everywhere, both east and west need. each of the economically, the trade between the 2 now takes place in a much small volatile g, a political climate. some of that's due to more confrontational relations between china and the us. and a few upsets in the countries economy, notably in real estate, have worried some investors who was on the agenda at the national people's congress annual gathering, with 3000 delicates meeting over a week to set out china as priorities for the coming year. so what all day, and what do they mean for china and for the rest of the world will be asking, i guess those questions, and more in just a few moments, but 1st image and kimber reports on what was discussed at the congress. a joint is economy slowing,

but the government is aiming to 5 percent growth in 2024. that's the focus of this annual meeting of the national people's congress on the discussion, developing new technologies from electric vehicles to i like the facial recognition scanners knowing in the entrance to the conference. another front with showing a 6 to catch up with the us. attracting for an investment and business is a key thing, but some international companies from china is regulations unappealing. tied to the and it, well, i don't, it's necessary to introduce more targeted issues to facilitate to trade. the general administration of customs will take the lead in organizing special campaigns to facilitate across the board of trade offered more convenience to authorized. i cannot make operate to enterprises and to continue to expand the pilot programs across the board. e commerce, the domestic housing market is among the challenges joined faces to achieving more economic growth. in 2021, the market bust is construction joint,

advert ground run out of money. leaving an estimated millions of people without homes they'd already paid for. the government says auction is being taken wait, hold on one of the real estate enterprises, etc, severely insolvent, and have lost their ability to operate should follow the principles of the rule of law and market ties ation and undergo bankruptcy and restructuring behavior that harms the interest of the masses will be investigated and punished. use unemployment is a record high of nearly 15 percent intentions are rising in the south china sea for the countries worried about an increase in minute trip to the t in the pacific and increased hostilities between the us and china. the 7.2 percent roy's in defense spending will be a concern to join to spends nearly $300000000.00 a year on defense foot. the 900000000 spent by the united states

a fact that worries beijing. so what's your short composite? we urge the united states, britain and australia to abandon the cold war mentality and to faithfully fulfill international obligations to stop creates in greater trouble for regional peace and stability. joiner is the world's 2nd largest economy and emerging superpower. and it's joyful, great to growth, is being closely watched by global competitors image and kimber out 0 for inside story. the. let's bring it now, i guess now in beijing, the time it is a senior fellow at the tie he institute in jakarta, but hoffman is a professor at the station institute to national university of single pool. he was also with the will bank in china for 12 years, 6 of them as country director. and in london, vicky price is chief economic adviser at the center for economics and business

research and a full month u. k. government economic advisor. welcome to you all. so there was no customer a press conference following this is congress by primarily kick young that would have helped us read the runes and try to understand china's challenges in china's future direction. so i know, let me comfortable to you and i want to 1st of all, whether the absence of a press conference was in fact, a way of avoiding scrutiny over the collapse of the massive housing market. and also talk around the 5 percent growth figured posted, which some people for this year, which some people find them vicious. so do you think that the government will draw the not be talking about real estate and do you think that 5 percent g d p growth is realistic? well, let me answer those in reverse order. i do think if they say 5 percent, uh they've been pretty good about hitting their targets in terms of discussing real estate. they discussed it a great line. cuz as in our discussion,

hopefully we'll show in terms of why he didn't to do the press conference. so i'm gonna assume that it was a personal that you had other people talking. i think from his perspective he's, if you look at his track record, he's more interested in results. he does a tremendous number of inspections, work meetings, very, very practical and very, very much ventured on the domestic economy. right. his predecessor used to dabble in the, in the international side a lot more. but you know, i think people are trying to read a little bit too much into this, that somehow he is afraid of the price or something. remember that these are not politicians in the way that the us or europe or great britain has a they simply are people who are professionals are responsible for getting it done . his real judgment will come up next year when there is another work report and he's either accomplished what he's said he was going to do or hasn't. okay,

so nothing to hide there. other people have done the talking to the numbers, do the talking or at least some of them as well. but huffman i want to, i want to read a rather interesting, fascinating, really statistic. i think the new york times for this one ton of central bank lending to real estate was $800000000000.00 in 2019 full years like to edit full into just 75000000000 dollars and 2023 lending to industry. meanwhile, that was actually $3000000000.00 in 2019 has sold to $670000000000.00 in 2023, a remarkable change of direction for an economy in just 4 years, including the pen. demik is an illustration really of the ability of the chinese economic system to change. well clearly uh, this is a major reallocation of resources and banking resources, not the central bank for the banking system. and it started with a correction under real estate development in 2020 the end of 2021 or the 3 red

line policy came in that which basically discouraged lending to real estate, which the leadership felt was starting to become too risky, too much of a bible and so now there is a reallocation to the new, the future direction of, of development. and that is in manufacturing according to the leadership. so you have the banking system that pretty much follows that. it has issues with it. that's great. that does not present. there's less real estate being constructed, but of course, we've already seen a lot of the, the, the, the fallout from that to include a in the buildings not finished and people waiting for an housing. lots of bankruptcies are probably going to follow. but at the same time, the manufacturing sector is doing quite well. the one thing that they don't do is absorb a lot of jobs and i think that's going to be one of the key constraints for the leadership going. for sticky price perhaps consequent to this rise in manufacturing,

chinese officials at the end p. c, complaining about a perceived wave of unfair protectionism being level to china from around the world . citing an i m f report that said that the trade restrictions around the world have tripled in the past 4 years. much of it aimed at china. so is the world ganging up on china? it's true that the trade environment is becoming more difficult. in fact has become more difficult the lives of countries, and we are perhaps moving into a sort of d u. but as ation phase, it also explains why china is now looking to fix much more in developments, domestic economy and, and perhaps we longer the less on exports. and if you look at what has been going on in the last year, the value of expos of goods from china went down. and that includes is quite in fulton for a country that has traditionally light on exporting to the rest of the world. and also, the destination of this exports has changed quite significantly. so it was too much

of the us because of post and all the sections that won't restrictions that as well . but i also read directing exports to other parts of the world. so that has been a switch, there is no doubt about it and i think the plans we're hearing about this year and also for later for time i do suggest of this, we orientation is what they're going to be focusing on. but the experts have been greater significance of gross if you look at what's been going on and the fact that some growth so that we may get this year is a lot less than what used to be the case in the past. and of that is really because of the fact a, the china is becoming much your economy and it's contract price so fast as it did before. but also because on the export side and that for manufacturing particular it's needs to rethink what it does. but also actually in terms of the letters to businesses that you referred to earlier, there's been a big drive to improve is the technology innovation and complete

a lot more with the us than others? well that's given the fact is out there, the export is there or other inputs restrictions, which kind of coming from of goods from the us. right. what i mean that you alluded that to, to changing the political alliances and shifting sands. we will talk about those in a minute, but perhaps, as you mentioned, one way of addressing this issue of domestic, the domestic economy, jobs and so on is a, but this is to you, a drive towards and it was talked about at the congress, so called future industries, we talk about everything from electric cars to surveillance technology, facial recognition, artificial intelligence, even commercial space flight. how big a transition is this for the chinese economy? how effective is it likely to be and how big a risk does it pose to the likes of silicon valley and the think electric comic because of japan and south korea and others. and so for it, i mean, it is a very serious question. and clearly,

the new drivers across or to the future industries are, are being built this we, as we speak and as a lot of resources from the banking system, from the government. and from present businesses themselves being allocated to new technologies, spending our research and development. now in china is higher done in the us to point 6 percent of total gdp. and that, of course, already results into a competitive industries and the electric field cost solar, the new energy that the china is already very competitive, and it starts show up in it domestically, but also internationally. then as a 2nd category, which is the, the future industries and that is more, is that the, the, the cutting edge. so it's, it's not just right for, for production, but china is investing in it's, it's bringing in the science has been in the technology. so that in future day would actually dominate, so they're moving from a absorbing technology set already dinner from abroad to trying to

create the new technology starting to determine in 5 or 10 years the future. and not sure landscape, that's a big move. i'm vicky. i say you, you know, they go on their, i mean west and buckets. see this coming done today, particularly in the sphere of se, electric vehicles where the a u. a is looking at putting tasks onto chinese inputs in the yes, there is a bit of a concert on this close that and it costs a lot of the support that has been given to industry. and china really means subsidies and, and that goods are being exported, particularly electric vehicles as prices which of the companies cannot compete to get more of the set of close. the reviews from china has increased versus substantially in, in the world market some. and i think there's those of issues that everyone has to buy from waves and we've seen right now what's going on in the you where there is a loss of re emphasizing the growth in the brain industries. and also of course,

what happens in the us with the installation reduction acts where they're all subsidizing a lot of the green production. when quoted that of, for a reason other manufacturing areas in, if you're building them in the us. but actually we have seen china also investing international, more chinese companies getting into the market and also up to a point getting run some of those rules and, and i think that's an interesting part of what's been going on. okay, i, i know it says, no i what do you think of that as well as a big area for, for many people it seems that hypocritical, i mean europe in america have been preaching, you know, the, the importance of the market. how you have to trust in it, and as soon as i try to actually does something, it all of a sudden it's uh, you know, we're getting too far ahead. it's now time to put up the walls. and the fact is, 12 years ago, everyone was laughing at china because they said they're going to put a series of,

you know, pitch in for e b is why? because they have real problems in the cities with the exhaust gases. people were complaining about the quality of their things like that. now beijing, us is probably nice. so i live here. so i know i noticed the difference. so china has been initially they tried to, uh, bring this industry along, but right now it's the subject of extremely brutal competition. a lot of these companies are losing money. they are not being subsidized by the government, quite the country. it's us, europe that are looking to subsidize their industry simply because they did not keep up. so this, this idea that somehow it so it's ok when we, when, but not okay when anyone else wins. and you know, not only for try it out for a lot of the global south, we see this is kind of same kind of hip, hypocritical thing thinking that's been going on for way too long. i know i just

want to touch on another aspect to these. so the future industries at artificially intelligence, a huge future global market. of course, china, what we're looking to make it head to head roads, the a and gain a competitive edge. it is suggested by treating a development with a sort of light touch regulation. now, lots of people are already very nervous about the potential effects and consequences of a i should be be worried about the sort of a i that comes out of china. well, we should be worried about any kind of a i, if you read this note and does. yeah. and what he's spelled, i mean a i is obviously going to be used by governments all around the world in order to do whatever is they think they need to do. quote, protect themselves for security reasons, regardless of the implications for privacy. it, china is not alone, but they have a sense that a i does have dangers, do it back in 2013 the they started this idea of a sovereign inter,

not the idea that countries are responsible for what is generated in their country in terms of uh, information and also what is coming in. they need to protect their people from align appliances. so china is pursuing that. we'll see what happens. china has a big advantage is data is not at the forefront of a guy at this juncture. but as we've seen in the past, under estimating what the chinese can do, you do at your own peril. okay, i know i'm going to stay with you. stay with us, but it's in vicky, but i wanna move on to defense. now. defense spending set at 7.2 percent for 2024. that's a repeat of 2023. trying to putting a lot of money into defense. clearly, at the same time, something interesting that came out of the congress, which was a very subtle changing language. and the problem is, work report last year that a preferred to a peaceful move towards chinese reunification. i'm talking about taiwan. of course

this it would peaceful doesn't feature we're talking about a firm advance towards reunification should be in conjunction with defense spending hikes. a see a shift in tone as a shifting strategy towards taiwan or no, i don't think so. i mean, if you look at the last 6 years, i mean there were years when it wasn't as high as a point 6. the $7.00, as you pointed out, is the same as last year. and it's at the median level. 5 in terms of taiwan, and as you know, there was a report today that came out that said that us special forces are now permanently going to be in taiwan training. the tie, one east to resist the u. s. is providing a high, a very, very high grade, not only defense, but also weapons like we can use on the off ends. us as sailing ships up and down the taiwan straits. china is trying to draw this red line and they've done it consistently, do not interfere with the one china policy. so from beijing's point of view,

there keeps trying to send the message. unfortunately, washington isn't receiving it apparently. well, what washington is doing along with the likes of japan, australia, and south korea, but let me put this to you is also hiking the defense spending not exclusively, but partly because of a perceived threat from china was china moves closer towards the likes of russia, ron north korea, those 3 countries will getting warm woods at the congress is china effectively now, do you think it's a center of a new arms, rice, but as well the clearly china as might because of this economic might, is growing in the region and that makes that makes some countries novice. john has also been more active in the region, including the south china sea, which they say is that solvent territory and many would dispute it because they think it is there somewhere in the territory. and there are exclusive economic jones. so does that the steer up something just on the defense spending,

the 7.2 percent would be exactly in line with nominal g d p. so as a share of g d p. if the targets come out, china's defense funding would not increase on that. so i think that this is a very big increase. no, it's not. it's 5 percent gdc grove plus 3 percent for the chinese thing, 3 percent inflation. so it's not going in share of g d p. moving swiftly along foreign policy now also discussed fairly significant. the, at the congress. we did get a press conference with foreign minister when you giving us some idea of how trying to seize its place in the world, improve relations with the united states following that meeting between the seats in pitting and drove by them in san francisco last year. but also markedly improve relations, as i said, with the likes of russia, iran and north korea. i know, does china think that it can or should it be able to expect that it can have it

both ways good relations with the united states and the west and also good relations with countries that the west many countries in the west view as enemies to well, it's honestly uh if you take china in the us, china is the only one who's saying that they want to improve relations, but a long e in the 2nd part of the speech as your call now said look, the us talks one thing and does another that kind of inconsistency makes it very difficult to pursue a relationship. a china is basically in the position of the prisoner's dilemma. it's uh, the us is far more of a powerful economic be politically and militarily and is intense on keeping china down. that's beijing's view, or if you look at the evidence, you know, everything that the us is doing from keeping ships going, it seems that that would be in fact the impression anyone would get and a reasonable thing. so in terms of, um, you know,

you're wrong and also russia. i don't know that having friend relations is all it's, they're not only having good relations with those countries. but as was tested, testified by the 152 countries that showed up for the belt road initiative, 10 year anniversary. china has good relations with practically everybody. so i, you know, single, single thing these out and saying, well, they have good relations to people. we don't like, i don't think that is very fair. but one thing is, you know, people keep talking about this peek china. i would ask people to consider something us went to great lengths to keep russia and europe a part. the combination would have been very, very, you know, as a real threat to us dominance. and as we know of the way that the japan was treated in the seventy's, the u. s. does not play well with this idea of other dominic countries. so, but unfortunately they created even more stronger. um,

no competitor in terms of russian resources, chinese manufacturing. china is manufacturing right now, signs stands at an equal to the next 9 countries in terms of their manufacturing. russia spans 13 time zones. they have untold resources available. so the combination is something that should be worrying washington, not this idea that china is being friendly, but looking quickly, it moves, do you want to come in on that? but, well, look for you or of course, the close relationship of china, of, of russia is a bit concerned because for russia hasn't made it another country, it tests rather than all of the principles that europe stands for. d o s c stands for, and the u. n stands for, and that's of course where china is quite uncomfortable because that happens very much emphasizing the day that the prime position of sovereignty. and this is here,

here is one of the strategic purpose that is inviting another country. so that is, that is really very difficult for china to handle. frankly, what it has done in europe is to strengthen nature is to expand dog within london, sweden, and maybe, and treat you out of the country. so it's, it's, it's very, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's a hurry, my situation is not good for, for the world economy is not good for the world. and, but the prime reason was a russian invasion of your credit. vicki help us through the conversation to a close china embarked on a so their sense of economic and strategic realignment. there of this divides, differences in areas of mistrust. but you know, this is the world's 2nd largest economy, the economies of the west conte avoid doing business with china. they called a 4th to it is true, but of course that's going on between china and russia, has, has meant that it has allowed russia to so to collect enough revenues to continue

spending on munitions under its own defense appendix. so, so that's always a worry, obviously for the, for the west. but it's absolutely true that china is still very, very important. trading partner for loads and loads of countries and backboards, dramatic addiction is a very important phone. reactions are important. but the interesting thing also is that china has been quite important if you like in, in setting the, the, uh, the pricing of goods international. the so for the last few months over the last year, really well the last 6 months ever since the middle of the summer and china has been exporting deflation to the rest of the world. and if you look at this inflation profile, yes, it was a little bit of an uptick in february, but until then, we were seeing have no changing sanction or negative inflation. so deflation, within the country produced the price is going down. that has been reflecting quite

know what's going on internationally as well. and i think, i think you just see quite a lot of the reduction that we've seen in goods of prices across inflation across the, the wealth, a standing from what's going on in china. i'm mentioning that just as an example was inc told to them still of china as a huge strike the bottom. now, what time is that really impatient, if you like, of all the can only communities may have been in the last few months. i know last what you do accept that china is exporting deflation to the world as well. i think the, the world is, wants to play should i think that was my colleagues point, but i want to get back to some of the birds that, i mean, let's see what happens if donald trump is as president, whether or not that affects nato. since it seems like he's intense on getting out of it, so i don't know that nato has become stronger because it's in all the wars, especially in russia and what proceeded that to the conflict and not in ukraine.

okay, well i think we're going to leave our discussion there. my thanks to all of my guests on a time going to but hoffman and the coast vicky price. and thanks to you for watching, you can see the program any time. again by visiting our website. how does 0 dot com and for further discussion, go to a facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. and even also during the conversation on x out handle, is that a inside story for me during the whole of the whole team here? good bye. for now, the, the unsettled type of 1st takes on the biggest phase of context to what is happening now. it is a complex 3 question, question of 5 upfront without 0. now let me tell you about safari

equal results, the 1st of its kind in west africa. we were surrounded by a wild life. from the moment we entered a coupon. occupied right now able to practice what the now be used, only elected very close here, like coming here, sits on within large tears faced with a look in my private now. thanks royal. i can also visit somebody valley equal, resorted in gun business like this. this brought to you while the peg. this is a line by on one of your this makes model leads. the

business like just is free to you believe i guess is an ice fly on one of your just makes model inflates. asking questions. were you ever warren's about the health effects of power? no understanding the reality reporting from the action. the hospital which seeing this gentleman is just behind me, hundreds of people have been in fact to h as an in depth coverage thailand states. it's future of fossil fuels. nope, renewable. i'll just use teams on the ground. bring you closer to the heart of the

story. the, [000:00:00;00] the, you're watching the news, our live from a headquarters in delphi and getting you navigate. here's what's coming up. in the next 60 minutes, kenya says it will not send peacekeepers the hate to you until a new government is formed. a young palestinian dies from bullet wounds, officer is really forces opened fire at him in the soft costs refugee camp and occupied east jerusalem. the un says more children have been killed during israel's war on gaza. then in 4 years of worldwide conflicts. president 5 and tells