China's Restructuring: 1998 and 2015

choi

Mark Magnier, China Lowers Goals for ‘Zombie’ Factories; Beijing aims to shake up state industries, but adjusts amid slower growth, fears of unrest. Wall Street Journal, Mar 4, 2016.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the text, because we do not, but will, know whether China will follow through with doing away with bloated state-owned industries. But Taiwan has not done better; President Chen-Shui-bian tried (it started by Lee-Teng-hui) hard but abandoned it after facing vigorous resistance (in part fanned by KMT) while President Ma Ying-jeou never tried.
(b) The only interesting about this report is the graphic, whose heading reads: "Pain Management[:]  China is going through a difficult retrenchment as factories shed jobs, but is armed with a much larger economy and social safety net when it last restructured."  Ignore the left panel.  

The right panel has:

"China then and now

……………………..GDP …………………...LABOR FORCE ……………...INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION  ………….WORKERS AT STATE-OWNED COMPANIES ………..SOCIAL SECURITY FUND ……..EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
……………………..Trillions of yuan ....In Millions of people …......Change from previous year ……….....in millions …………………………………………………………..in billions of yuan ……………….in millions of people covered
1998 …………….8.5 ……………………..706.4 …………………………..8.9% …………………………………………….90.6 …………………………………………………………………..79.1 …………………………………79.2
2015 …………...67.7 …………………...774.5 …………………………..5.9% …………………………………………….63.1 (2014) ………………………………………………………5,246 (2014) …………………….173.3
Source: National Bureau of Statistics