The recent removal of high-ranking officials has cast the spotlight on the longstanding issue of local governments fabricating statistics. As officials compete for promotion, they manipulate economic data to show stellar political achievements, but this leads to bad policies, blind optimism and unrealistically high goals. Zaobao's associate editor Han Yong Hong looks into the matter.

On 25 May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chaired a teleconference on China’s economy with 100,000 attendees. The sheer scale of the meeting and rhetoric used indicates a sense of urgency. The government is keen to convey that it is well aware that the Chinese economy is faring worse than in 2020 when the pandemic first hit and that it has all hands on deck.

With Ferdinand Marcos Jr achieving a landslide win in the Philippine presidential election, how will the Philippines’ China policy change? In particular, given the legacy of the Marcos family’s good relations with China as well as former President Duterte’s pro-China stance, how will the incoming president handle relations with the US?

It is likely that China got more than it bargained for in the Ukraine conflict that is looking to be more protracted than either Russia or China expected. In this scenario, it finds itself in the awkward situation of professing to stand by its principles yet showing tacit support for Russia. It still has options, but the unity that Europe and the UN has shown in condemning Russia should also put China on notice.

President Vladimir Putin had set the stage for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine by couching the country’s relations with Ukraine in ethnocentric terms. Would military action taken in the name of reuniting “one people” give a psychological boost to Beijing in terms of a possible armed reunification with Taiwan?

As Covid-19 cases rise in Hong Kong, pandemic efforts are being elevated to a tussle of Asian and Western ideologies. Han Yong Yong suggests that the crux of the issue may not be so much pledging allegiance to one school of thought or the other, but Hong Kong being given the latitude to make adjustments to their Covid-19 policies. In the end, the mainland may benefit more from letting Hong Kong conduct pilot tests at will than to be cruising along on autopilot.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met face to face ahead of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics on 4 February against the background of Russia-Ukraine tensions. According to Chinese state media, they discussed Sino-Russian relations and a series of major issues concerning international strategic security and stability. It appears that a new deal for more Russian gas to be supplied to China was also a highlight of the discussions. Zaobao’s associate editor Han Yong Hong explains why it is not China's aim to goad Russia on or get involved in the Ukraine crisis, and any suggestion of "Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrrow" may be overstated.

The row continues between China and Lithuania over the naming convention “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania” as China continues to exert pressure via export blocks on Lithuania. The Lithuanian president has also chimed in, calling for the name of the office to be changed. However, this reeks of being a proxy war between the US and China over Taiwan. Han Yong Hong explains.

While China’s economy grew about 8% in 2021, the GDP growth target for this year is expected to be a more modest “above 5%”, taking into consideration various easing measures by the central bank and political considerations heading into the 20th Party Congress in autumn this year. Zaobao’s associate editor Han Yong Hong gives her assessment.