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Xinhua: Chinese Communist Party’s Grass-roots Organizations Continue to Expand

Xinhua recently reported that, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Organization Department’s latest statistics, as of the end of 2014, the total number of members of the Chinese Communist Party was 87.8 million, a net increase of 1.1 million over the previous year, or a growth of 1.3 percent. The Party’s grass-roots organizations had 4.36 million members, an increase of 56,000 over the previous year, or a growth of 1.3 percent.
The Party’s grass-roots organizations have continued to expand. CCP organizations are in place in 7,565 urban Street Offices (城市街道), 32,753 townships, 92,581 communities or neighborhoods (居委会), and 577,273 administrative villages, with a coverage rate of more than 99 percent. 194,000 state-owned enterprises have Party organizations, accounting for 91.0 percent of the total state-owned enterprises. Party organizations have been installed in 1.6 million non-public (private) enterprises, accounting for 53.1 percent of the total number of non-public enterprises. Party organizations have been installed in 184,000 nongovernment organizations, which is 41.9 percent of the total.
Source: Xinhua, June 29, 2015
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-06/29/c_1115760026.htm
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Nearly 10,000 Falun Gong Practitioners Press Criminal Charges against Jiang Zemin

According to Minghui.org (whose English version is en.minghui.org), between May 27 and June 18, the Minghui website editors received copies of criminal complaints that had been filed by 9,748 Falun Gong practitioners in China and other countries.  
These 9,748 practitioners filed suit against Jiang Zemin the former head of the Chinese Communist Party. The complaints came from more than 1,400 counties and cities. They were from 29 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China, as well as from the United States, Canada, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. The top five provinces in China where the persecution of Falun Gong is most severe, including Hebei, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, and Shandong also saw the most practitioners filing lawsuits against Jiang.
Background: In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong. Over the past 16 years, the persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners. More have been tortured and many families have been broken apart. Under Jiang’s personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” so named for having been formed on June 10, 1999. The organization’s authority overrides the police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang’s directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.
Source: Minghui.org, June 20, 2015; En.mingui.org, June 22, 2015
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2015/6/20/311166.html
http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2015/6/22/151201p.html
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

China’s Post-80 Generation’s High Divorce Rate

CanKao XiaoXi reported on Jun 17 that those who were born in the 1980’s (“Post 80”) are becoming the main group that is experiencing divorce in mainland China. The reasons for their divorces vary a lot and some are quite strange. There are many reasons why those “Post 80” are becoming the main driving force in divorce cases. Those “post 60” and “post 70” have passed the peak time for divorce and those “post 90” have not yet gotten married. Their divorce triggers include “who should wash the dishes,” and “who should own Transformers models." One couple had a record short marriage – from getting married to divorce, it took them only 25 minutes. Taiwan’s Central News Agency quoted a Chinese news article about a Shanghai court staff member saying that, between 2011 and 2012, the divorce cases they handled showed that the marriage time for “post 80” was much shorter than their predecessors. Twenty-six percent of the cases they handled in these two years filed for divorce after two years of marriage; more than 40 percent filed for divorce after three years of marriage; only 9 percent filed  for divorce after seven years’ marriage. 

Source: Cankao Xiaoxi, June 17, 2015
http://china.cankaoxiaoxi.com/2015/0617/819953.shtml
Briefings | | |   Social Stability

China to Require Censoring Personnel for Internet Video Providers

On June 10, Beijing city’s local newspaper, Jinghua Times (京华时报), reported that the State Council Legislative Affairs Office called for public comment on the "Administrative Approaches to the Dissemination of Audio-visual Programs via the Internet or Other Information Networks (revised draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "draft"). According to the draft, Internet video broadcasters should be staffed with professionals who review the program contents. If broadcasters do not do so, they should be given a warning for correction and subject to a fine up to 30,000 yuan ($US 4,834). In addition, the current affairs audio-visual news programs that the Internet service providers broadcast should be those programs that regional or city level radio stations or TV stations already produced and broadcast. This means that homemade current affairs news programs are to be banned from the Internet.

Source: Jinghua Times, June 11, 2015
http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2015-06/11/content_206133.htm
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

The Legacy of the June 4th Movement – The Legacy of Jiang Zemin

Twenty-six years ago on the night of June 4, 1989, on Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) answered student’s hope for democracy with tanks and guns. That night, the Tiananmen appeal became the Tiananmen Massacre. Not only have many people’s memories of that night faded; any discussion of what really happened has become taboo in China. To those who live in China, but were born later, it never happened.

Continue reading →

Perspectives | |

China’s Water Pollution – More Than 60 Percent of Groundwater Not Suitable for Humans

On Thursday, June 4, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (CMEP) published information quoting the "2014 China Environmental Bulletin," which said that it would not be good for humans to be in direct contact with nearly two-thirds of all groundwater and one-third of all surface water.
China will "declare a war on pollution," trying to reverse some of the environmental damage caused during the past 30 years of rapid economic growth. One of the biggest and most expensive challenges is processing polluted water. China classifies water quality into six grades. Of the 968 CMEP locations that monitored surface water last year, only 3.4 per cent found the water quality to be of the highest standard or "the first grade." CMEP said in its annual report that only 63.1 percent of the monitoring locations reached a water quality at or above the third grade, which is suitable for human intake. The rest were not totally unusable; they were only suitable for use as industrial water or irrigation water. As for the water quality, the 968 state-controlled surface water-monitoring stations (points) that are distributed across China’s 423 major rivers and 62 lakes (or reservoirs), carried out water quality monitoring last year. They found that water quality was between the fourth and fifth grade level and that those with a quality worse than Grade Five were as high as 27.7% and 9.2% respectively. Nearly 40 percent of water did not reach drinking water standards, and also was not suitable for aquaculture or swimming.
Source: BBC Chinese, June 4, 2015
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/china/2015/06/150604_china_water_pollution
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Beijing to Step up Control over Foreign NGOs in China

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Jun 2 that the “PRC’s Foreign NGO Administration Law (Second Draft)” public comment session will end on Jun 4. The most controversial part is that the PRC Ministry of Public Security will monitor the activities of foreign NGOs in China, whereas they used to work most closely with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The draft says that foreign NGOs need to have a Chinese government entity as their “administrative authority.” The foreign NGOs will need to submit an activity list for the next year’s operations before Nov 30 of each year and their operation plans will need to be approved; those who do not comply with this requirement will be subject to criminal punishment, which will apply to the foreign NGOs as well as to their cooperating Chinese counterparts. The EU representative in Beijing as well as the European Chamber of Commerce in China both expressed “concern” over this draft law. RFA quotes Liu Qing, a Chinese human right activist based in the U.S. who said, “There will be almost no real (Chinese) NGO in China as these organizations need to have a government entity to ‘manage’ them. Usually there are two functions for an NGO – the first is to provide aid and help to people; the second is to monitor the government; the Chinese Communist Party won’t allow either one.”
Source: Radio Free Asia, June 2, 2015
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/nu-06022015122138.html
Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

PLA Daily on Cyber Security

On May 20, People’s Liberation Daily published an opinion article calling for the defense of China’s cyber security and cyber sovereignty.
"China’s cyber sovereignty is a symbol of its national sovereignty. Cyberspace is also the space for national security. If we don’t occupy the online battleground, others will take it; if we don’t defend our online territory, we will lose sovereignty and even become the bridgehead for the hostile forces’ encroachment and disruption.
"With the assistance of the Internet, computers, and mobile phones, Western hostile forces viciously attack our Party, discredit the founding leaders of the new China, denigrate our heroes, and set off erroneous ideological trends of historical nihilism. Their purpose is to confuse us with ‘universal values,’ create interference with ‘constitutional democracy,’ subvert our governance with ‘color revolutions,’ turn us upside down with the use of negative opinions, and shake up our faith with ideas of ‘separation of the military from the Party,’ ‘separation of the military from politics,’ and ‘nationalization of the military.’
"To strengthen the cyber ideological work is to defend the highest interests of the country and the battle, and safeguard people’s fundamental interests. In the face of this conflict, we will not and cannot afford to retreat; we will not and cannot afford to lose. If we do not pay attention to Internet security and put our hands on the online ideological work, the enemy will pull the masses away and the military will change its nature. One can say that this is the most dangerous battlefield and the most critical battlefield.
"On the journey toward a stronger nation and a stronger army, we shall not only resolutely safeguard our national sovereignty, our security and our interests on a tangible traditional battlefield, but we will also resolutely defend our ideological security and political security on the invisible cyber battlefield."
Source: PLA Daily, May 20, 2015
http://jz.chinamil.com.cn/n2014/tp/content_6498731.htm
Briefings | | |   Defense/Military