Chinese discovered their personal pensions had plummeted/No way out: Pension void can't be filled

China's pensions will be exhausted at some critical point it has to do with the peculiar policy of the Chinese Communist party that is the Family Planning policy that has been in place for more than 40 years it has resulted in the simultaneous arrival of an aging population and low birth rate as a result the pension depletion happens at an accelerated Pace many countries around the world are facing the huge challenge of an aging population the increasing authoritarian Chinese communist government is at its Wit's End in the face of these challenges recently people in Shanghai and Shenzhen have discovered that their personal pensions have plummeted after they joined the so-called nationally coordinated pension program first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen have previously had generally High pensions the Chinese government is now pushing for the so-called National coordination of Pensions which will significantly reduce the gap between the pensions of these developed cities and those of other regions a Shanghai resident who disclosed Social Security account had a pension of 9832 Yuan before and 5404 after joining the new program while another Resident showed a pension of 3674 before and 2274 Yuan after now this situation has spread to Shenzhen and Guangzhou as well and many people are on edge according to the official announcement Shenzhen social insurance information system was shut down from Midnight on April 24th to 9 A.M on May 8 2023 it was shut down to complete the switch to the centralized system of Guangdong Province while connecting to the National integrated information system for Enterprise employees pension Insurance affected by this the social insurance information system of Guangdong Province was also shut down from May 1st to 7th after the Shenzhen social insurance information system resumed operation on May 8th many Shenzhen residents were surprised to find that their social insurance account balances had decreased significantly one resident said that he had a balance of three hundred and ten thousand yuan in April but only 190 000 Yuan remained after switching to the new system it was a reduction of more than one-third in the balance and widespread complaints can be seen on China's social media the explanation given by shenzhen's social security is that the amount shown in the previous system is the principle paid by individuals and employers plus interest the amount shown in the current system only shows the principle that is to say the new system excludes all the interests from these years from the personal account but there is no official explanation as to why the interest is removed regardless of whether it is Shenzhen or Shanghai the official answer Remains the Same that is pensions are coordinated across the country and the new system will have no impact on the pension calculation and distribution method there will be no change but here comes the question since it has no impact why bother with a national coordinated pension plan Chinese residents have soon discovered that pensions were coordinated at the county level later at the municipal level at the provincial level and now at the national level people suddenly understand that because the collapse of the Social Security System continued to expand first at the county level and then at the provincial level as a result the scope of coordination is expanding as well in some provinces the pension deficit is too large to make ends meet and need support from wealthy areas according to Chinese media based on calculations on 2020 budgets only seven provinces where Revenue contributors three provinces were on par and the remaining 22 provinces in xinjiang were Revenue beneficiaries in other words all 22 provinces relied on the support of seven provinces and cities to pay out their pension payments Shanghai and Shenzhen are both affluent regions the officials said that pension payments in these regions wouldn't be affected the question becomes how long can they hold on to their pension surpluses before they are emptied by other regions it's not just affluent cities in mainland China that are made to make up the pension shortfall Hong Kong is also on the radar of the red regime since Beijing imposed a comprehensive National Security Law on Hong Kong in 2020 there has been a massive Exodus of Hong Kong residents these people have suffered huge financial losses many have had their pension savings withheld the Chinese foreign Ministry announced in January 2021 that China would no longer recognize the use of the British national overseas passport bno as an identification document this move directly resulted in Hong kongers who moved to the UK on a bno Visa being unable to withdraw the retirement savings a 47 year old Hong konger who escaped Hong Kong in 2021 told Al Jazeera that he was denied access to his retirement Savings of about U.S 100 000. Hong Kong watch a uk-based advocacy group estimated in May 2023 that more than U.S 2.8 billion have been withheld from the retirement Savings of Hong kongers who moved to the UK of this amount HSBC headquartered in the UK has denied Hong kongers more than 600 million pounds in retirement savings withdrawals currently about 150 000 Hong Kong people have immigrated to the UK through bno visas they can only withdraw their retirement savings after they become British citizens or turn 65. given the flip-flop policies of the CCP it's a question whether this money can be retrieved in the future the Communist Party said the cuts to Hong Kong Shenzhen Guangzhou Shanghai and other cities and shows that the Chinese government is in financial distress and its pensions are in Dire Straits so it can only cope by tearing down the East wall to make up for the West Wall for ordinary Chinese residents they too are noticing more irregularities here is a case of a resident in Northeast China who as required deposited his share of the pension into a bank strangely enough four months later the money wasn't transferred from the bank's account by the Social Security Bureau which is now demanded a back payment of over 9000 yuan including a hefty late charge yet the bank refused to prove that the resident had made the payment on time you are the bank you have to tell me which link has gone wrong where do I go and who can help me with this I was asked to deposit it in the bank which was supposed to be deducted it's the problem with the province you say there's a problem with the provincial level units you show me the paperwork of the provincial government what are those rules we don't have them here it is Chinese New Year we are all celebrating the New Year why don't you give me a signature to prove that I deposited my pension into the bank after that I will think about the problem of the province I can't sign anything if you can't give me a signature can you tell me where I should go you talk to the provincial government we can't do anything here the bank staff used all kinds of excuses but the most likely outcome is that the resident would still have to pay a hefty late charge to the Social Security Bureau that is to say in the context of physical deficit and late payment has become a convenient way to fill the hole on April 10 2019 the world Social Security research center of the Chinese Academy of social sciences released the report titled China pension Actuarial report 2019-2050 it predicted that the accumulated balance of the basic pension Insurance Fund for urban workers was expected to Peak at 6.99 trillion Yuan by 2027 and then begin to decline and would be exhausted by 2035 the headline of the Chinese media report on this is that China is expected to have a pension shortfall of 8 trillion to 10 trillion Yuan or 1.12 to 1.4 trillion US dollars in addition according to the report the accumulated balance of individual accounts was supposed to be about 10 trillion one but in 2021 the pension balance for Enterprise workers was only over 5 trillion Yuan and the balance of the urban and rural Resident was only over 1 trillion Yuan if we subtract the total of both from 10 trillion Yuan the shortfall was more than 3 trillion Yuan or 420 billion USD so where did the U.S 420 billion deficit go well China's pension is a pay-as-you-go system which means that the money from the current young people is used to support the current elderly I'm curious that right now there are fewer young people contributing to Social Security so the funds aren't enough and people's retirement has to be delayed but where did the money go when there were more young people in recent years many Executives from the medical insurance Bureau and Social Security Bureau have been arrested and we applaud they embezzled and got arrested and things are supposed to be over has the money been recovered how much was recovered where did it go how come the money they have embezzled and wasted has to be paid for by the Pension funds of the people across the whole country in 1985 it was said that the government would provide for the elderly in 1995 it was said that the government would help the elderly in 2005 it was said that the elderly couldn't rely on the government and in 2012 it was said that the elderly should provide for themselves and in 2018 it became that supporting the elderly is an obligation and it's shameful to pass it to the government let's share this to have more people see it the time for China to have the pension system is relatively short about a dozen years as of 2023 China has a three pillar pension system but it's different from the international concept of three pillars the first pillar is the government-led compulsory basic pension insurance which is the Mainstay of China's pensions today as at the end of 2021 there were about 1.03 billion people insured under basic pension Insurance in China the second pillar is the employer-led corporate occupational annuity by the end of 2021 the number of people participating in corporate occupational annuities in China accounted for five percent of China's population the third pillar is voluntary market-based personal pensions which are still in their infancy the authorities have released the executive policy only in April 2022 in addition by the end of 2021 China's pensions of all types totaled U.S 1.65 trillion accounting for about 10 percent of China's GDP while the global average was 72 percent this is the basic picture of China's pensions it's simply not keeping up with the retirement needs of China which is aging rapidly China's population is shrinking the Chinese Bureau of Statistics claims that the population in the year 2022 was 850 000 less than in 2021. this is the first time since 1961 that the CCP is admitted to a population decline China the red state where economic planning is the Mainstay originally needed to rely on accurate population figures to formulate major economic policies but the demographic problem with Chinese characteristics has resulted in corrupt government officials at all levels having to falsify data the real situation is expected to be much worse at present data that can be used as a reference is that in June 2022 someone sold information on an online Forum it claimed to be from the Shanghai public security database which included information on 1 billion Chinese residents and billions of case records some samples of the information was released as well after analyzing the sample ifusien a demographer expert currently living in the U.S believes that the sample conforms to statistical laws indicating that the data is credible he believes that China's population is likely to have fallen below 1 billion now that China is aging more people are collecting money and less people are paying creating an enormous pressure for the Chinese government in 2016 the CCP implemented a comprehensive to child policy in 2021 it announced the introduction of a three-child policy but these measures have failed to increase the fertility rate adding fuel to the fire of China's pension crisis is the unfairness in the distribution of Pensions and the confrontation between the government and the masses the first pillar of basic pension insurance is artificially divided by the Communist Party into two major parts for urban and rural residents with disparate treatment in the basic pension insurance for urban workers there was another distinction made between government and government-related institutional employees and corporate workers in the actual treatment of the two is again extremely different there is virtually nothing the Communist Party can do to solve the pension problem demographic changes have forced the CCP to change its social benefits policy for example Beijing has already admitted the need to raise the official retirement age by an at least 10 years but it hasn't done so why because it would rock the foundations of the CCP regime there are large Urban middle class interests in the pension system including retired government officials party cadres and their families these are the people the CCP doesn't want to offend and is an important basis for supporting the CCP they are different from other groups that the CCP suppressed in the past at present benefit Cuts aimed at the middle class and even spreading to the upper class are likely to detonate large-scale conflicts our Channel previously reported that in February 2023 tens of thousands of elderly people in Wuhan and Dalian gathered to protest the shrinking of medical insurance some people chanted the slogan down with the government which was dubbed gray hair Revolution by some overseas Chinese media check out the link below the video if you're interested perhaps such scenarios will become the norm in the next few years then what the CCP officials can do is to transfer the crime crisis to the rural population who are at the bottom of the social strata according to official Chinese figures China's elderly population is disproportionately concentrated in the countryside in 2020 17.7 percent of rural residents were age 65 and over compared with 11.1 percent in urban areas rural residents receive about U.S 26 dollars a month in pensions compared with about U.S 506 for urban residents for China's rural elderly the current trend is becoming increasingly hopeless China's rapidly aging migrant workers would need to care for themselves and their aging parents in the countryside with very limited support from siblings and the government how long would it take you to earn 10 000 RMB or U.S 1400 a year oh I can't even earn that amount in five years how much is your pension a year more than 1600 Yuan a year or U.S 225 dollars is that enough how can it be enough I dare not buy medicine when I'm sick so you can still keep healthy in general how long does it take for you to earn U.S 1400 in a rural area it would take like four or five years how much money does your family earn from growing crops you can't even make money from growing crops you can't make money from selling grain and the money we get is just enough to put food on the table how much money do you get from your old age pension a year in my entire life I've saved up about ten thousand Yuan that is a bit over us fourteen hundred is it enough unless you have no mishaps and don't buy anything you might have enough how long does it take you for you to earn U.S 1400 it's hard to say in many cases it's unstable at least two to three years I say growing crops is not profitable you make nothing is it costly to grow food a growing crops is actually losing money it's the worst deal population decline isn't unique to China many countries have tried to alleviate the pressure of planning Workforce by instituting immigration policies that attract Foreigners for employment however this won't work in red China the CCP has systematically destroyed China's traditional culture replacing it with patriotism which is really party-loving culture in the ccp's prolonged brainwashing propaganda the state and the party are one and the same the teaching of patriotism has led to an increasingly strong nationalist sentiment as a result the channels of introducing foreign labor are also closed by this patriotism in 2020 the CCP published a draft regulation on the administration a permanent residents of foreigners it was met with overwhelming opposition from Chinese netizens they wrote China is not a country of immigrants I hope that the land of China will always be purely yellow-skinned black-eyed black-haired Chinese I am afraid of people who don't even speak Chinese and so on there are also many Chinese experts who are proposing to sell state-owned assets to make a up for the pension Gap the vast number of peasants aren't in this actual Social Security fund now that China is aging more and more people are collecting money and less and less people are paying the pension you pay is not for you it's for your previous generation the retired people the Chinese Academy of social sciences says that by 2035 China's pensions may be all used up before the generation born after the 1980s can retire the pension money would be gone by then the Family Planning policy for more than 40 years has caused this scenario where an aging population and fewer children arrive at the same time the problem will be put off until later it can only rely on printing more money creating inflation and increasing inflation to fill the Social Security pension hole which is also an act of suicide I think the only solution might be selling State assets we believe that under the CCP system unless the political landscape is drastically changed it's possible to sell state-owned assets to a alleviate the pension crisis however the last thing the CCP wants to do is political reform which is more undesirable for the CCP than any other way relationship [Music]