All posts by NNL - 145. page

Hong Kong Oriental Network published a commentary on three major campaigns that Xi Jinping has conducted in the past five years since he took the top leadership role in China. All these battles were against established interest groups and were met with many objections; yet Xi has been able to carry on the fight.

The first one was whether the (head of the) Party directs the “gun” or the “gun” directs the Party. During Hu Jintao’s era, Hu did not have control over the military or the police and the legal system. Guo Boxiong, Xu Caihou (two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission) and Zhou Yongkang (head of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee) had the real power and ignored Hu. Xi fought several fierce battles to take them down and reclaim control.

The second one was whether the (head of the) Party directs the “money” or the “money” directs the Party. Though huge wealth has been generated in China, it has largely been concentrated in the hands of the families of high-ranking officials. For example, businessmen Che Feng (the son-in-law of Dai Xianglong, former Central Bank Governor and Tianjin Major), Xiao Jianhua (said to be linked to former top official Zeng Qinghong’s son Zeng Wei), Wu Xiaohui (ex-husband of Deng Xiaoping’s grand granddaughter and said to have connections with Zeng Qinghong), and Huang Rulun (said to have a good connection with a former top official Jia Qinglin) have, through their political connections, not only accumulated huge wealth, but also a lot of political power.

The third battle is whether to let the people have money or to let officials have money. Before Xi, it was the officials, not the people, who accumulate a lot of wealth. Xi has been trying to limit the officials’ power and has asked them to report their wealth.

Source: Oriental Network, June 26, 2017
http://hk.on.cc/hk/bkn/cnt/commentary/20170626/bkn-20170626000914761-0626_00832_001.html

Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong featured unprecedented security measures, including extremely tightened security controls, the Liaoning aircraft carrier’s visit to Hong Kong, and a last-minute decision on which hotel to use. Apple Daily commented that this is due to the Communist Party’s fierce in-fighting.

“The threat to Xi’s safety is, for sure, not from Hong Kong demonstrators, the non-existent Hong Kong separatists, or the overseas extreme religious or separatist forces. Rather, it is from the Communist Party’s power struggle.”

Reason one, for over a month, Liao Xiaobo had been diagnosed with late term liver cancer. The government had successfully hidden the information for so long but then let it leak two days before Xi’s visit to Hong Kong. It was similar to a setup for Hu Jintao when he visited Hong Kong in 2012.

Reason two was that the Xi had plans A and B for two hotels to stay at. It was not until the last minute that they decided to change hotels, creating great chaos for the media and the Hong Kong police. “This arrangement showed a distrust of the internal population rather than the outside people.” “This made people want to link to Li Keqiang’s visit to Beijing University in April where the officials sent divers to search the lake at the university and used a special car to deliver food to Li when he dined at the cafeteria.”

“This arrangement let the outside world realize that the Communist Party’s power struggle has come to the point of life or death for its leaders.”

Source: Apple Daily, July 1, 2017.
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20170701/20074884

July 1 will be the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. The Democratic Party in Hong Kong held a forum on June 11 to discuss the “One Country, Two Systems” situation in Hong Kong.

Wu Chi-wai, the Chairman of the Democratic Party said, “From the 2014 (Beijing’s) People’s Congress’ whitepaper on implementing the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ in Hong Kong to the speech that Zhang Dejiang (Chairman of the People’s Congress) gave recently, you can see that the central government has a general goal: to use a series of approaches to effect the gradual conversion of the hidden powers (of the central government), as defined in the Basic Law, into truly effective, clear, standardized, and enforceable powers (for the central government). This is having a big impact on (the principles of) ‘One Country, Two Systems’ that ‘Hongkongese rely on to manage Hong Kong’ and its ‘High-degree of self-determination.’”

Wu expressed that C.Y. Leung has long been claiming a severe “Hong Kong Independence” issue. This has given the Communist Regime in China an excuse to interfere in Hong Kong’s internal affairs.

Sources:

1. YouTube, June 11, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Ng-QQXCdg, June 11, 2017
2. New Tang Dynasty TV, June 14, 2017
http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2017/06/14/a1329003_p.html