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Leadership: CCDI Criticized Several Prime Ministers in Chinese History

Recently, Chinese-language media outside China reported heavily on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) in-fighting between Xi Jinping and an anti-Xi group. Chinascope is unable to verify some of the claims but will report on these happenings.

The CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) recently published two articles mentioning some prime ministers in China’s history. The CCP has a tradition of hinting about today’s politics using historic stories.

On June 1, The China Discipline Inspection and Monitoring Magazine, a semi-monthly publication by the CCDI, published an article titled “Abandoning Exquisite Egoism.” It criticized two prime ministers: Li Si (李斯) of the Qin Dynasty and Li Linfu (李林甫) of the Tang Dynasty, calling them out for using their skillful acting and carefully created justifications cleverly to conceal their selfish and greedy nature.

On June 7, the CCDI official website published an article titled, “Knowing How To Stop In Front of Your Own Desires.” It asked officials “always to cultivate the virtue of governance, always to think about the harm of greed, always to be disciplined, and always to give up improper ambitions.” It praised two prime ministers Xiao He (萧何) of Han Dynasty and Li Hang (李沆) of Song Dynasty and criticized two prime ministers Yan Song (严嵩) of Ming Dynasty and He Shen (和珅) of Qing Dynasty.

Public Opinion: Shanghai Entrepreneurs’ Open Letter: Lying Flat and Not Producing Anything

Lately, multiple media have reported that Shanghai entrepreneurs published an open letter in response to the government’s order to resume production. They announced that they will “lie flat.” They will resume work but will not produce anything. They were frustrated with the government’s lockdown of the city for two months. People’s living condition have deteriorated significantly, the government’s credibility has been swept away, the manufacturing orders have been reduced, foreign capital has been leaving China, and exporting goods has become much more difficult.

However, there were questions on the authenticity of this letter since big entrepreneurs have their own channels to share their opinions with high-ranking officials and will not challenge the authorities so openly.

In any case, the letter, regardless of whether it was true, expressed the public opinion that people are dissatisfied with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) policies. The following is an excerpt from the open letter.

Compatriots from Shanghai and across China:

During the two-month-long city lockdown, we were repeatedly threatened by the subdistrict administrative offices (街道办事处), residential Committees (居民委员会), police stations, and unidentified people, for quarantine and door-to-door sterilization, which made us completely sober and even woke us up. We, several business owners and investors living in adjacent areas of Shanghai had to suspend our work, study the situation and reach some initial consensus — to lie flat and clear, resume our work but not do any production!

In response to the impending economic crisis, we would like to announce to society that we have made the following collective decisions:

To abolish redundant departments and streamline operations.
To sell off non-performing assets and prepare for a cold winter of our economy.
To not plan or be unable to hire college graduates in the next few years.
To encourage existing employees to voluntarily reduce their salaries and work together to overcome the difficulties of the times.
To expand overseas markets for rebuilding the domestic economy in the future.

We hope that the CCP’s 20th National Congress will bring us the following:

It is urgent to reform the political system and release the political shackles on economic development.
To punish severely all levels of government and grass-roots officials who violated the law and disregarded public opinion during the COVID prevention and control period, so as to restore the government’s image and rebuild the government’s credit.
To redress wronged cases such as the case against Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu and recover the losses of the wronged entrepreneurs.
To release and redress prisoners of conscience, ideological prisoners, and political prisoners who are the backbone and treasure of the nation.
To release and redress those citizens who were politically and judicially persecuted for speaking out for the people or defending their rights and interests during the pandemic; to clean up the law enforcement team and restore the hearts of the people.
To establish the sanctity of private property and, especially to establish the private residences as freehold (the last refuge of the family).
To return the power to the people, reformulating the Constitution, removing the ban on parties and newspapers, eliminating the privileged class, and abolishing feudal systems such as household registration, political trials, and all other unreasonable systems that violate human morality and conscience.

We are eagerly waiting for entrepreneurs and investors from all over the country, scholars from colleges and universities across the country, elites from all walks of life and industrial and commercial people to express your opinions and support our initiatives and propositions.

Some entrepreneurs and investors in Shanghai

May 30, 2022

Government: Shanghai Authorities – It Is All the Residential Committee’s Fault

During Shanghai’s COVID Control and Prevention news press conference on May 29, authorities said the city has never announced a “lockdown” and therefore does not need to “remove the lockdown and (reopen)” the city.

They also blamed the residential committees (居委会) for locking down the residential buildings and forcing people to stay at home. They said the two months of the Shanghai lockdown was not a government action but rather the result of the residents’ self-management .

The authorities then pointed out:

The residential committee is a self-management organization for the city residents and the residential committee’s actions are based on the residents self-management, not the government’s orders.
Any official order and regulation must be published by the municipal party committee or the municipal government. The residential committee’s announcement only represents the view and action of that residential committee and residents of the neighborhood. The government is not responsible for these actions.
If any residential committee mentions “according to the authorities’ requirements,” if it is not based on an officially issued document with a government seal on it, it is a verbal order and the government does not recognize the claim.

People ridiculed the Shanghai authorities. According to the authorities’ logic, the government didn’t lock down Shanghai, but Shanghai residents voluntarily locked themselves down, stopped their own economy and created all their humanitarian problems for themselves.

Source: China Digital Times, June 1, 2022

民国地平线｜蔡慎坤：谁把上海人当傻瓜？

Hot Topics | | June 3, 2022 | Government/Politics Social Stability

Hu Xijin Boldly Interpreted Why Xi Jinping Was not on the CCP’s Core Media

Recently there have been many discussions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infight. One hot discussion was the fight between Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP, and the faction of Jiang Zemin, former CCP head; and another one is the fight between Xi and Li Keqiang, China’s Premier. Chinascope is not able to verify the validity of these reports.

The Epoch Times reported that on May 17 and 18, People’s Daily, one of the CCP’s main mouthpiece, listed Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Li Zhanshu, one after the other, on its front page but didn’t cover Xi Jinping. That was unusual, since Xi usually receives the most coverage on the media. In the CCP’s internal factions, Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, ranked number 2 and 4 of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee members, are in the Communist Youth League faction; Li Zhanshu, ranked number 3 of the Politburo Standing Committee member, is Xi’s ally.

Hu Xijin, the former chief editor of the CCP’s mouthpiece Global Times, made an comment on his Weibo account. He highlighted in a red box an article on promoting China’s economy (which is Li Keqiang’s position) on the front page of the May 17 People’s Daily, and commented, “This is a very important signal. Follow this signal, put aside your doubts and uncertainties, and embrace new opportunities. Then you will be proved to be real business heroes and a hero of these times.” Next to Hu’s red box, were two other articles reporting Li Keqiang’s and Wang Yang’s activities. So Hu’s comments could be interpreted as having double meaning.

There are other reports on the power balancing as well. On May 11, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Li Keqiang steps out of Xi Jinping’s shadow.”

On May 14, both Xinhua News Agency and the People’s Daily published the full text of Li Keqiang’s 9,000-word speech given on April 25. It is not very common to report something 20 days ago, especially publishing the full text.

On the other hand, the front pages of People’s Daily on May 15 and 16 reported Xi Jinping, without the appearance of any other senior CCP leaders.

No article about Xi Jinping appeared on the front page of the Xinhua website on May 18. Nor did the PLA Daily have one on May 18 either.

Source: Epoch Times, May 18, 2022.
https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/22/5/17/n13739454.htm

Hot Topics | | May 18, 2022 | Grapevine

Leadership: “Unwaveringly Adhere to the Zero-COVID Policy”

Xi Jinping hosted the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Politburo Standing Committee meeting on May 5, 2022, to discuss the COVID strategy. People’s Daily reported that the meeting called for continuing Xi Jinping’s “Zero-COVID” strategy, unswervingly adhering to the general policy of “dynamically zeroing out” and resolutely fighting against words and deeds that distort, doubt, and deny our epidemic prevention policies.

The article said, “Practice has proved that our prevention and control policy is determined by the Party’s nature and purpose, our prevention and control policy has stood up in history, and our prevention and control measures are scientific and effective. We have won the Wuhan battle and we will definitely win the battle of Shanghai.” (Editor’s note: It might be a stretch to say that the COVID policy is determined by “the Party’s nature and purpose.” However, it indicates that whether to follow the “Zero-COVID” policy is whether to align oneself with the party. Thus the people who suggest to stop “Zero-COVID” and switch to coexisting with the virus are taking a wrong path from the Party.)

On May 7, The CCP Central Commission on Discipline Inspections supported this decision by publishing a commentary titled, “Deeply, Completely, and Comprehensively Understand the COVID Prevention and Control Policies Set by the Party Central Committee.”

The military also supported Xi’s position. On May 7, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily also published a commentary, titled “Unwaveringly adhere to the ‘dynamic zeroing out’ general policy.”

Hot Topics - 4. page

Leadership: CCDI Criticized Several Prime Ministers in Chinese History

Hu Xijin Boldly Interpreted Why Xi Jinping Was not on the CCP’s Core Media

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