of no understanding the reality reporting from the ex, in the hospital with phil. this gentleman is just behind me. hundreds of people have been and back to a to is an in depth coverage thailand states it's future on fossil fuels know renewable. i'll just use teams on the bring you closer to the heart of the story. china is plans for the coming year have been sent out to the national people's congress. the full terms of defining the 2nd largest economy in our global interest as our political intentions to what's in store for china and for the rest of the world. this is inside storage, the color, the and welcome to the program. on jo, know there was

a time when the world sold the business of the chinese communist party. those launch the 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 more volatile geo 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 kimberly reports on what was discussed at the congress to join his economies. 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 liked the facial recognition scanners knowing 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 and, but some international companies find china is regulations unappealing duty and they will, i don't, it's necessary to introduce some more targeted measures to facilitate to trade the general administration of customs will take the lead in organizing special campaigns to facilitate across the board of trade, offering 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. please hold on one of the real estate enterprises that are 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 to record high of nearly 15 percent. intentions are rising in the south china sea . for the countries worried about an increase in minute troy activity 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 composite. we are the united states, britain, and australia, to abandon the cold war mentality and to faithfully fulfill international obligations to stop creating greater trouble for regional peace and stability. joiner is the world's 2nd largest economy and emerging superpower. and it's joyful great of growth is being closely watched by global competitors image and kimber. i'll just say era for inside story, the or that spring. and now i guess now in beijing, the time it is a senior fellow at the time he institute in jakarta. but hoffman is a professor at the station institute to national university of singapore. 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 sense of freakonomics and business research and a full met u. k. government economic advisor. welcome to you all. so there was no customer a press conference following this is congress by a premiere the key can with would have helped us read the rules and try to understand china. those challenges in china is few to direction. so i let me come 1st of all 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 figure 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 just 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 a 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 we is afraid of the price or something. remember that these are not politicians and 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 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 it around. other interesting, fascinating, really statistics. 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 forwarding to just $75000000000.20. lending to industry. meanwhile, that was $83000000000.00 in 2019 has sort to $670000000000.00 in 2023. a remarkable change of direction for an economy and just for 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,

but 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 command, which basically discouraged landing to a 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 as being constructed, but of course, we've already seen a lot of the the, the fallout from that to include a in the building is not finished and people waiting for an housing. lots of bankruptcies are probably going to follow, but at the same time the, 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 protection isn't being level of china from around the world. citing and i am a 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 trades environment is become more difficult, in fact has become more difficult for lots of countries. and we are perhaps moving into us or d u, but as ation phase. it also explains why china is now looking to fix much going developers, domestic economy and, and perhaps relying with been 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,

and that was causes quite in fulton for a country that has traditional relied on exporting to the rest of the world. and also, the destination of this exports has changed quite significantly. so it was too much in the us because of course there will be sections that won't restrictions that as well, but also redirecting 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 china do suggest that this re 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 gross that we may get this year is a little less than what used to be the case in the past. and, and that is really because of the fact eva of china is becoming too much economy on his con, grab quite so fast as it did before, but also because on the export side and therefore money function 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 completes a lot more with the us than others. but well that's given the fact is out there, the export is there or other inputs restrictions which sign 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 big electric comic

because of japan and south korea and i was and so for it, i mean, it is a very serious question. and clearly, the new drive is across or to the future industries are, are being built as 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 2.6 percent of total gdp. and that, of course already results into a competitive industries and the electric field cost solar and 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 or 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 different 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 there. i mean, west and bach. it's see this coming done today, particularly in the sphere to say electric vehicles where the a, you, a is looking at putting tasks onto chinese inputs in the yes, there is a bit of a concert. let's 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 countries cannot compete to get more of the set. of course, 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

buffalo has done. and we've seen right now, what's going on in the you where there is lots of re emphasizing the growth in the bring industries. and also of course, what happens in the us with the installation reduction acts where they are subsidizing a lot of the green production. when quoted that of, for a reason other from 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 trying 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. 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 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 u. s. europe that are looking to subsidize their industries 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 another for

a lot of the global south, we see this is the 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 we 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 try is not alone, but they have

a sense that a i does have dangers, do it back in 2013 the bait 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 a lot of 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. kind of putting a lot of money into defense. clearly, at the same time, something interesting came out of the congress, which was a very subtle changing language in the premise work report. last year,

it referred to a peaceful move towards the 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 to no, i don't think so. i mean, if you look at the last 6 years, i mean there were years when it was 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 taiwanese to resist, the u. s. is providing a higher, very, very high grade. uh, not only defense, but also weapons that 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 that moves closer towards the likes of rush, or 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 well, clearly, china's 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 this do 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 this. i think that this is a very big increase. no, it's not. it's 5 percent gdp growth plus 3 percent for the chinese thing, 3 percent inflation. so it's not growing 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 he 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 huge impending 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 as well, china is a, 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 i 0 call that 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 u. s. is far more powerful economic be politically and militarily and is intense on keeping china down. that's patients view oil, and if you look at the evidence, you know, everything that the us us doing from keeping ships going,

it seems that that would be in fact the impression anyone would get in a reasonable thing. so in terms of, you know, you're wrong and also russia. i don't know that having friend relations is it's, they're not only having good relations with those countries, but has was tested, testified by the 152 countries that showed up for the belt road initiative, 10 year anniversary. trying to has good relations with practically everybody. so i, you know, single, single thing these out and saying, well they have good relations with 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, a real threat to us dominance. and as we know of the way that the japan was treated

in the seventy's that us does not play well with this idea of other dominic countries. so, but unfortunately they created even more stronger. um, you know, competitor in terms of russian resources, chinese manufacturing, china is manufacturing right now. signs stands at a 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 wearing washington, not this idea that china is being friendly, but looking critically amused. you want to come in on that but well, look for you or of course, the close relationship of china. russia is a bit concerned because for russia has invaded another country, it tests rather than all of the principals that europe stands for d o s c cents for, and the u. n. stands for. and that's, of course, where china is quite uncomfortable because that happens very much emphasizing the,

the, the, that the, the prime position of sovereignty. and this is here, here is one of the strategic partners 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, is trying to nativist to expand, dealt with finland and 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, of course, not good, hard 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 inbox on a so this 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 can't afford

to it is true. but as close as going on between china and russia has, has meant that it has allowed russia to so collect enough revenues to continue spending on munitions and defense spending. so, so that's always a worry, obviously for the, for the west a, but it's absolutely true that china is still very, very important trading partner for loads and loads of countries and that phone, 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 over 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 will see you have no change, sanction, or negative inflation. so deflation, within the country produced the price is going down. that has been reflected 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 trading pot. and 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 to do except 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 in town,

so i'm not 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 preceded the, the conflict and right in ukraine. okay, well i think we're going to leave our discussion there. my thanks to all of my guests sign 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 builder, 0 dot com and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a inside story. and even also during the conversation on x out handle, is that a inside story for me, joe, to all of the whole team here? good bye for now, the the latest news as expressed several philistines were killed as they were trying to get

much needed food to survive with detailed coverage. families of captive for joined by thousands of israeli as they marched from the gauze, the border to west jerusalem from the heart of the story on my left, mazda has been completely lost in the news. really, they have no place just where everywhere is tops. nowhere is safe from dawn to dusk, the be nice to miss you as relentless on a mother's toils nose no rest. her determination fused by love alone. she labours for scan to avoid enduring every hardship gives a hope of securing life. changing, searching for daughter to an easiest fields over cities, a portray of the of ocean with this on a just so you know what constitutes exempt. so we can talk to a see,

i want you to start with just the fact runners to what happened this independent. we won't be, i want to, we don't have to leave them in different countries policy. i'm going to get 50 percent representation and accountability benefit. no 1000 service this placement and you're saying you're reports for that. i should just trust too much that unity often is the cold that used to produce outstanding gentleness and elders. the integrity in the pursuit of truth for right to use human appeal has been making the most of your mfc, our team successfully deliver your charity to those who need it most. across the mostly mild, we are feeding building, tearing julie, planting, fuel refined, teaching,

and helping transform lives. this is messy in action. this is human appeal. the hello, i'm not a inside in doha here. top stories on al jazeera deployments. if a 1000 kenny and police officers to help restore law and order and haiti has been put on hold and comes out to haiti's prime minister announced he would resign. theresa bo is in the neighboring dominican republic and has the latest on plans for you and back security task force in haiti this move hi nation.