A Chinese Economist Called for Paying Parents a ‘Baby Subsidy.’ Then He Got Banned From Social Media

A widely known Chinese language economist has been banned from social media platform Weibo days after posting feedback calling on the central financial institution to print $315 billion a yr to pay for subsidies to encourage births.

Ren Zeping, who left troubled property developer China Evergrande Group final yr, has “violated related legal guidelines and laws,” based on a discover on Weibo. The ban doesn’t delete his account however he can not put up something new.

The discover didn’t clarify why he was banned and a spokesperson for the social media platform didn’t instantly reply to questions in search of readability.
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Ren drew consideration along with his proposal that the Individuals’s Financial institution of China print 2 trillion yuan annually within the coming decade, which he stated the federal government can then use as funding to supply subsidies to spice up births and construct nurseries. He estimated the plan may improve the variety of infants by 50 million within the subsequent 10 years with out including to the burdens of households, corporations and native governments.

Two articles by Ren on this subject that had been posted on the social media and messaging platform WeChat on Jan. 10 and 11 had been eliminated due to violation of guidelines, based on notices on the platform. A spokesperson for WeChat additionally didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Ren, who has 3.6 million followers on Weibo, was employed in 2017 as chief economist by China Evergrande Group with a reported annual wage of 15 million yuan ($2.4 million). He left Evergrande final yr for Chinese language brokerage Soochow Securities Co., later saying that his repeated warnings to cut back debt had been ignored by the troubled developer.

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China’s birthrate plunged to a brand new low in 2020 and is unlikely to enhance regardless that the federal government has relaxed start restrictions. Some demographers predict that the inhabitants might have already began shrinking.

Ren stated these born between 1975 and 1985 must be inspired to have extra infants since they arrive from a era that also view youngsters as fascinating. These born after 1990 are reluctant to even get married, he stated.

–With help from Zheping Huang.