Internet Investment Boom

Lifeweek Magazine
February 24

Chinese Internet operators are expanding into the financial business by launching various Internet-based fund products. Online investment services, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba's Yu'ebao and Internet icon Tencent's WeChat-based Licaitong, have appeared to overtake the traditional bank deposit to become the preferred method for many investors.

Emerging online investment services draw depositors because of their more convenient services and better returns than traditional banks. By investing in these new financial products, small amounts of money in the hands of millions of private investors are no longer sitting idle. Furthermore, the risks of these new investment products are alleged to be well controlled.

Yu'ebao has attracted over 300 billion yuan ($49.18 billion) since last June. Its success is due to Alibaba's two biggest strengths, the mature e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall, and its trusted online payment system Alipay, where e-shoppers are already accustomed to depositing money.

The new wealth management products initiated by Internet companies have changed China's financial landscape dramatically. In particular, they change small sums of common people's money from deposits into investment, greatly expanding the range of investment services. For years, China's financial market has been dominated by traditional banks, which have strict regulations on interest rates, loans and returns. With rapid economic growth, banks cannot satisfy increasingly strong demands for verified financial services. Non-market oriented bank rates have long been a bottle neck in Chinese financial market reform. However, emerging Internet investment products have taken the lead in reforming China's financial market.

Education Dilemma

Guangzhou Daily
March 3

In the past decade, China's graduate students have grown tenfold. Does China really need so many graduate students?

Indeed, remarkable achievements in many areas can be attributed to people who have received higher education. However, a growing number of graduate students will not necessarily be a good thing. Not only will it squeeze the job market further, but it will also lead to a waste of education resources.

The current program and course arrangement at universities do not match the Chinese market's requirement for graduate students, and a certain number of graduates find themselves unable to find suitable jobs as a result. There are also not enough qualified tutors to cope with the sudden surge in graduate students. If colleges continue to expand their admissions, graduates will find it even more difficult to find proper jobs.

Improving or reforming current graduate student education modes is now an urgent matter and the focus should be moved from the quantity to quality of the students, or society will have to endure severer employment pressures.

Advocating Filial Piety

Legal Daily
March 4

Wuhan, the capital city of central China's Hubei Province, is exploring the possibility of setting up a system where those who display filial piety will be praised and those who do not will be put on a black list and condemned, so as to promote filial piety in society as a whole. Some other cities in the country also have similar systems in place and even stipulate that those who are put on the black list will not be able to be recruited as civil servants.

Filial piety will never lose its value or significance. China is fast becoming an aging society, with more and more old people left behind in rural areas while their children have moved to the cities to make money. A family that has filial piety not only brings a happy life to the family's elderly, but also brings harmony and happiness to everyone else in the family. Moreover, when taking care of their parents, they are also setting examples for their own children. When they themselves become old, their children will be also kind to them. Families are microcosms of society and harmonious families join together to form a stable and harmonious society.

Recent years have seen the government pay more and more attention to filial piety, such as the issuing of laws that demand children "must often go home to look their old parents," and filial piety is used as a rigid criterion when selecting civil servants. These may read as a positive response to the aging of the society.

Canada's New Immigration Policy

China Newsweek
March 3

Canada's recent cancellation of its 28-year-long Investor Immigrant Program (IIP) has had an impact on Chinese millionaires wishing to immigrate to the country.

IIP allowed wealthy individuals to buy permanent residency by making an 800,000 Canadian-dollar ($730,897) interest-free loan to the government of the province where they intended to reside, excluding Quebec. They also needed to prove they had a net worth of at least 1.6 million Canadian dollars ($1.45 million).

Rapid economic growth over the past decades has created tens of thousands of millionaires in China. Emigrating to countries like Canada and the United States is increasingly popular among the rich. There is no question that the IIP was a shortcut for rich Chinese to move to Canada. More than 130,000 people have migrated there through the scheme since 1986.

But now Canada hopes to tighten immigration criteria to attract more high-quality foreign entrepreneurs with a new business visa policy. The new immigration policy is a blow to both Chinese applicants and Chinese communities in Canada. Traditionally, Chinese immigrants have strong links with their motherland and home towns. Wealthy Chinese immigrants generally relocated their families in Canada through the program but still work or do business in China. The trend has given the Canadian Government a reason to reject China's rich.