Popularity of virtual payments means cashless society will soon be a reality
of the 12th National People’s Congress, Yu Chun, a deputy from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, called for more efforts to establish a cash-free society. Thepaper.cn commented on Saturday:
Yu, a bus driver, said she was talking from her own experience, as more and more passengers were asking her: “Driver, I can use Alipay, I don’t have any change.”
It has taken the country just a few years to embrace third-party mobile payments apps such as Alibaba’s Alipay. In the big cities, it is now more important to carry a smartphone than a wallet. People can now effortlessly survive a day without cash, making all their payments digitally with a smartphone.
In fact, the growing popularity of digital payments is a worldwide trend. The European Union has been scaling down its issuance of large banknotes in recent years, and Denmark granted retailers the right to refuse cash payments last year. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also encouraging the use of digital payments.
A cashless society means not only more convenient and efficient exchanges between customers and retailers, but also the establishing of a credit-based society. The more people use mobile payments the easier credit supervisors can assess a person’s credit record, including income and current financial status.
A cashless life also has the potential to break the barriers separating governmental payments, commercial exchanges, and individual consumption. A “cashless society” can be promoted as the foundation for public services, whether it is government’s paying health insurance or social security, or people paying their taxes or parking fines.
However, as a cashless society emerges, it is also important to help the “digitally underprivileged”, those who cannot use smartphones and mobile payments adeptly or simply do not have access to a smartphone.
One key initiative in reducing excess capacity, as Premier Li Keqiang noted in this year’s Government Work Report, is to shut down those companies without productive operations that feast on government subsidies or bank loans. These parasites are facing a moment of truth as the central government has vowed to deal with them.
What constitutes a “zombie enterprise” should be made clear as soon as possible. Enterprises that are in debt and financially incapable of getting back into profit, for example, cannot be mistaken as anything but failed.
Yet local governments are often tempted to turn a blind eye to these zombie enterprises because putting them to rest would “taint” the performance evaluations of local officials. Or else they “meddle” with the business operations of these enterprises in the name of trying to revive them. Li’s comments came less than a week after he worth a try. But the sources of China’s air pollution Therefore, the laws designed to propledged the government would “work faster” to rein are different, hence it can only be eradicated when tect State-owned assets should be in pollution caused by coal burning and “make our the country applies the right cure. That explains why revised as necessary, so that these zomskies blue again” while delivering the 2017 Governthe central government is willing to offer a prize to bie enterprises are put out of their misment Work Report.ery.scientistswhocomeupwiththeurgentlyneeded
As he has reiterated on many occasions, tackling answers. his should not be difficult given the the country’s severe air pollution is a top priority of A feasible solution is that environmental proteccommon sense that an enterprise that social governance and should be pursued at all costs. tion enforcers work closely with air pollution scienis unable to pay its debts, be it State
This is not to say that China is at present making tists. A 2015 study by Zhejiang University has proved controlled or private, is by any definilittle effort to do so. Quite the opposite, the battle for the first time that autophagy, which plays a key tion bankrupt. However, the real nuts against smog is being institutionalized in terms of role in keeping cells clean, has something to do with that are hard to crack are always those enforcement, with heavy polluters facing harsher inflammatory airways caused by smog. companies with government subsidies punishments and supervision. The missing piece of Scientific findings like this should be given propand official endorsement. the puzzle though is a more targeted, scientific er attention and applied to the fight against air polThis highlights the need to formulate response mechanism, particularly to secondary pollution. Los Angeles only began to get rid of its smog a binding definition to identify the lutants, such as nitrates and sulfates. when studies into its causes and effects boomed zombie enterprises and make sure they
Emulating the success of Los Angeles and London, and rumors concerning the smog accordingly disdo not resort to rent-seeking for their two cities that used to be plagued by thick smog, is appeared. China has all the reason to do the same. pointless survival.