China’s profits of above-scale industrial enterprises declined year-on-year in October
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China cited by Lianhe Zaobao: from January to October, the total profit of above-scale industrial enterprises nationwide reached 5.86804 trillion yuan, a decrease of 4.3% year-on-year. In October, the profits of above-scale industrial enterprises in China decreased by 10% year-on-year, with the decline significantly narrowing by 17.1 percentage points compared to September.
According to statements from Chinese official spokespersons: as a series of policies in China begin to take effect, production stability and growth in Chinese enterprises in October led to a noticeable reduction in profit decline.
Among various industries, the manufacturing sector saw the largest narrowing of profit decline, driving the overall above-scale industrial profit reduction to 17.8 percentage points.
However, when we consider the report from Lianhe Zaobao in September regarding profits of above-scale industrial enterprises in China, it shows that in September, profits experienced an exaggerated decline, turning the entire year’s profit accumulation for Chinese industrial enterprises from positive to negative. That is to say, even with the narrowing of profit decline in October, the profit accumulation of Chinese industry remains in negative territory.
Similarly, the September profit report from Lianhe Zaobao partially reveals the reasons for the sharp profit decline: the decline in profits of above-scale industrial enterprises nationwide is due to insufficient effective demand and falling prices of industrial products. This means that the sluggish consumption of industrial products in society led to large stockpiles, causing a severe drop in industrial product prices. The significant decline in prices affected the realization of industrial product value, which in turn impacted the profits of industrial enterprises.
In September, enterprise profits plummeted sharply, while the bourgeoisie shifted the losses onto the working class, delaying wages and going bankrupt or fleeing. Consequently, there was a surge in strikes, with the “China Labor Communications Collective Action Map” recording 156 worker protests in September 2024, a significant increase from 86 incidents recorded in August.
To stabilize the collapsing capitalist economy, the Chinese government took numerous policies from October to November to promote industrial consumption and expand production. For example, extending the old-for-new car policy to 2025, and continuously promoting the replacement of household appliances, machinery, and other products. These policies aimed to expand domestic sales markets for industrial products and to increase sales of steel, cement, and other products by lowering real estate loan interest rates, building airports, canals, etc.
On the other hand, the government introduced various “pseudo-caring” measures—such as increasing statutory holidays by two days and raising the minimum wage by several hundred yuan—to try to ease the increasingly intense class struggles.
The Nazi Chinese government relies on exploiting laborers through taxation and confiscation of income, borrowing heavily to provide large subsidies to industrial capitalists, thus implementing the so-called old-for-new policies.
Taking the Nazi government’s “Equipment and Consumer Goods Old-for-New Policy” as an example, before the profit decline in September, China’s vehicle old-for-new policy had already led to a noticeable increase in car sales. According to the Ministry of Commerce, in the first half of 2024, car sales increased by 3.4% and 4.4% year-on-year respectively. Among them, new energy vehicle production and sales reached 5.914 million and 5.934 million units, with year-on-year growth of 28.8% and 31.1%. The Nazi Chinese government also hopes that the growth brought by this policy can be sustained long-term, extending it to 2025. In the consumer goods sector, this old-for-new policy resulted in significant year-on-year increases in sales of refrigerators, washing machines, mobile phones, and televisions—by 82.1%, 70.4%, 63.9%, and 54.3% respectively—greatly alleviating overproduction of these goods and effectively halting the sharp decline in prices caused by stockpiles.
While strikes increased, the Nazi government used terror attacks initiated by the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie driven by individualist ideas, claiming to “protect the lives of the people; severely crack down on extreme criminal activities; maintain social stability.” This prepared public opinion to suppress dissent against Nazi rule.
However, social development cannot be dictated by individual will. In today’s capitalist society, the deepening impoverishment caused by proletarian exploitation by the bourgeoisie leads to the continuous strengthening of fascist dictatorship established by the Nazis. Every large-scale economic stimulus and production expansion inevitably results in more severe overproduction and economic crises, worsening the damage to the working class and pushing development towards class struggle.
Despite all efforts this autumn, the Nazi regime has failed to reverse the downward trend in industrial enterprise profits. This decline can only be thoroughly resolved with the demise of capitalist society.