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China’s Ambassador to UK: China is not a Communist Country

On January 23, 2012, Jeremy Paxman interviewed China’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, live on BBC 2’s Newsnight program. During the interview, Liu made the remark that China cannot be called a communist country. Paxman asked Liu whether he was a communist. In response to the question, Liu did not answer directly but stated, “Well, in China, the ruling party is the communist party. The communist party now has more than 80 million party members. But you have to remember China is a country with 1.3 billion people. So I don’t think you can call China a communist country, just as you can not call the UK conservative UK.” The Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom has posted the full English text of the interview on its official website. Media in China, such as the popular portal sina.com, had reported the interview earlier.

Sources:
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in United Kingdom, January 26, 2012
http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/EmbassyNews/t899190.htm
Sina.com, January 24, 2012
http://dailynews.sina.com/gb/chn/chnnews/ausdaily/20120124/16313091588.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

State Economist: The Real Challenge in 2012 Will Be the Structural Adjustment of the Economy

Outlook Weekly recently interviewed Fang Jianping, the Chief Economist at China’s State Information Center. In the interview, Fang stated that the real challenge to the economy in 2012 will be the economic structural adjustments, rather than inflation or GDP growth. “Although the price level and growth rate may both show downward movement, it will not be drastic and will not exceed the expected range of the State’s macro-control. The potential growth rate of the economy is between 8 and 9 percent. The real challenge is whether there will be substantial progress in the structural adjustments.”

Source: Outlook Weekly, reprinted on China’s Communist Party website, January 17, 2012
http://theory.people.com.cn/BIG5/49154/49155/16901916.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Official Says Price Controls Effective, but Residents Disagree

On January 12, 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics released information on China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI). According to the latest release, the CPI fell during the five consecutive months prior to the close of 2011. In December, the CPI showed an increase of 4.1% compared to the same month last year. This was a record low for the prior 15 months. The annual CPI increase for 2011 was 5.4%. Ma Jiantang, the Director of the National Bureau of Statistics, expressed that the government’s regulation and control of prices had achieved remarkable results. However, a survey conducted by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, during the fourth quarter of 2011, showed that 68.7% of the residents surveyed believed that prices were “high and hard to accept.” Many residents indicated that their “income could not catch up with price increases”

Source: Xinhua, January 22, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2012-01/22/c_111457063_2.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

GDP Rises While Chinese Migrant Workers Aren’t Paid

Nanfang Daily published a commentary on migrant workers whose wages had not been paid due to local governments’ drive to increase GDP. The commentary reported that the Ministry of Railways recently obtained 250 billion RMB to use before the 2012 Chinese New Year (January 23, 2012) to pay off the unpaid wages owed to migrant workers for the work they had done on railroad construction. “The reason why migrant workers are not paid on time for their work is because the government [rather than the contractors that directly employ the migrant workers] fails to make payments. A number of local governments have no budget. Nevertheless, driven by their political need to show that their performance contributes to a rising GDP, they have blindly ordered new starts on projects. They are thus, at the outset, inevitably short of funds to pay migrant workers’ wages.” The article cited examples. One was of a migrant worker in Xinjiang. It took that worker 27 years before he was able to collect unpaid wages of 5,000 RMB from a local government. Another example was migrant workers on the government’s landscape project in Guangdong. They had been working for over a year without receiving any wages at all.

Source: Nanfang Daily, January 21, 2012
http://opinion.nfdaily.cn/content/2012-01/21/content_36772533.htm

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Wen Jiabao: China Will Face Bigger Challenges in 2012

On the eve of the New Year, the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council held a joint Chinese New Years’ event in the Great Hall of the People. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivered a speech at the gathering. “The new year is an important year in the course of the development of our country. We will strengthen and improve macro-control, continue to maintain rapid economic development and stable prices, accelerate the transformation of development patterns, adjust the economic structure, improve the coordination and sustainability of development, push harder on the reform and opening up, continuously increase the vitality and momentum of economic and social development, and place more importance on protecting and improving people’s livelihoods to let the people share in the achievements of the reform and development!”

Wen stated, "We are going to face bigger challenges in the new year."

Source: Xinhua, January 21, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2012-01/21/c_111456893.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

The State to Dominate China’s Culture Industry

Study Times recently published an article on the promotion of the reform and development of Chinese culture based on the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. “In recent years, the State has launched a series of policies on the culture industry in order to establish an environment in which culture enterprises can grow and be innovative, and where cultural innovation and vitality are protected. It can now be said that a culture industry has been formed. It is one that is under the guidance of the State, with enterprises dominating the coordination of production and research, for the purpose of developing a culture industry that is dominated by State ownership with diverse ownership being responsible for co-development.”

Source: Study Times, January 16, 2012
http://www.studytimes.com.cn:9999/epaper/xxsb/html/2012/01/16/06/06_48.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

It Is the Party That Develops and Spreads Mainstream Socialist Culture

Study Times published an article on the Communist Party’s objective of developing and promoting its mainstream culture. According to the article, the key to enhancing China’s soft power “is to develop and nurture our own mainstream culture that is attractive, appealing, and easy to spread.”

“In today’s society, the socialist mainstream culture in our country is the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics that is guided by Marxism, drawn from the fine traditional Chinese culture and the fine cultural heritage of the world, [maintains] the advanced nature and the spirit of contemporary times, and serves the people.” The article expressed the belief that the mainstream culture must be heavily promoted and marketed in order to ensure that the people accept it. “Moreover, [we] should have brand-name mainstream culture products to effectively take over the international culture market, win over international consumers, and ultimately improve the position of our mainstream culture in the world’s culture and enhance the our country’s cultural soft power.” 

Source: Study Times, January 16, 2012
http://www.studytimes.com.cn:9999/epaper/xxsb/html/2012/01/16/15/15_26.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Communist Party Preparing for its 18th Congress

In preparation for the Party’s 18th National Congress, an unidentified senior official from the Communist Party’s Organization Department stated in an interview with Xinhua that representatives from the front line grassroots will account for more than 32% of the total representatives and Party leaders at various levels will account for no more than 68%. There will be a significant increase in representatives of the workers working in national State-owned enterprises. Of the total representatives who are from provinces, districts, and cities, about 10% will be workers.

The representatives will come from about 3,890,000 local Party organizations with over 80 million Party members. According to the Party official, there will be 2,270 representatives attending the 18th National Congress of the Party, 50 more than the number that attended the 17th National Congress. “The representatives to the 18th national Congress must be the outstanding elements of the Party. [We emphasize that they must be politically advanced, which means] the representatives must hold firm beliefs [in Communism], be politically correct, have good character, excellent job performance, and a strong ability to perform their duties as representative.”

Source: Qiushi, January 13, 2012
http://www.qstheory.cn/dj/201201/t20120113_134700.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics