Briefings - 377. page

The Paper reported that, in order to create a “clean and healthy political ecology,” Xiamen City of Fujian Province recently carried out a campaign among 70,000 of its party members to rectify the behavior of some of the party members. Some members choose to “believe in ghosts and in god but do not believe in Marxism-Leninism (不信马列信鬼神).” The members were asked to conduct a self-check and take corrective action if they found any violations. All violations are subject to serious investigation and an accountability check. The article stated that this is part of Xiamen City implementing the party’s political tasks which include “promoting party organizations, party members and cadres at all levels of the city to safeguard (Xi Jinping)’s core leadership in a conscious manner, firmly implement the party’s political line, and strictly enforce political discipline and political rules in order to ensure the implementation of major decisions.” So far, the city has conducted questionnaires on 20 violations of political discipline and political rules, including 3 municipal cadres. Meanwhile in 2018, Xiamen City and the local districts organized 31 training programs with 2,630 participants to study the “key messages from the 19th congress and Xi Jinping’s socialist thoughts with Chinese Characteristics in the new era.” This was done so that the members could “grasp the discipline inspection and supervision work in the new era more accurately.”

Source: The Paper, January 5, 2019
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2816898

The Central News Agency reported that Zheng Yefu, a famous Chinese social scholar, recently wrote that, since its establishment, the Chinese Communist Party has brought too many disasters. In the past 70 years it has completely lost its ability to correct itself. Only by peacefully fading out from the historical stage can it meet the fundamental interests of the people. However if the public keeps quiet, the people don’t deserve to see the end of this totalitarian regime.

Zheng took the history of Taiwan’s end of the one-party dictatorship as an example. He emphasized that, if there had been no democratic party to fight against the ruling party for many years, the then President Chiang Ching-kuo would not have been able to make decisions toward a democratic transformation. Compared with today’s China, if intellectuals were faithful to their own consciences, they should have been brave enough to express their views and “China would not have become what it is today.”

Zheng Yefu is a retired professor at the Department of Sociology at Peking University. He has long observed Chinese intellectuals and social development issues and has criticized official policies. Among the public he is very highly respected. He made the above appeal in his article called, “The Causes and Difficulties of Political Reform,” which was published last month.

Although this article was not published in mainland China, overseas Chinese media reprinted it and triggered extensive discussions. Chinese netizens have also reprinted on the microblog some of the content that does not contain sensitive vocabulary. They expressed their gratitude to Zheng Yefu for this article. Some people said that Zheng is “the true spirit and patriotism of Peking University.”

According to a report from Radio Free Asia and Radio France International, Zheng Yefu said in the article that most of the party’s policies do not represent the interests of the Chinese people. Instead, the party took the opportunity to turn the private land of the people into state-owned land, and the local governments then sold the land to real estate developers at a much higher price and made countless citizens become house slaves.

He pointed out that since the party came to power, for 70 years, it has brought too many disasters to the Chinese people, and it has almost completely lost the mechanism of self-correction. “Joining the party is to earn an official title and defending the party is to safeguard its vested interests; the party is increasingly hateful towards different political views, and the fear of crisis has made the party dysfunctional.”

Zheng Yefu believes that, currently, the common interest of the Chinese people and the ruling party is for “the Party to peacefully, that is, in order to avoid violence and cause the minimum social unrest, to fade out of the historical arena.” “The only big contribution for the existing party leadership to do that can go down in history is to lead the party to decently fade out of the historical arena.”

He also mentioned, “If we (the public) do not say something and do not exert pressure, we should not, and we do not deserve to see the end of this totalitarian regime.”

Zheng Yefu pointed out that “The rise and fall of a nation rests with every one of its citizens,” which was one of the purposes of his writing the article. “There is also a humble motivation. I have written millions of words over the years. If I don’t say a word on the subject that matters to the fate of the nation, I will look down on myself.”

He mentioned at the end of the article that China has not yet reached the point where all responsibility can be pushed on the politicians. “It is because today’s scholars have not fulfilled their responsibilities. If they were faithful to their own consciences, if they were brave enough to speak their own opinions, China would not be what it is today.”

Source: Central News Agency, January 5, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201901050094.aspx