People Daily reported that the State Council recently issued, “Opinions to Implement the Pilot Reform of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).” It plans to expand the SOE reform pilot program and form a replicated model for more SOEs to follow.

The Opinions focus on the following four principles:

First, to ensure that the party maintains the overall leadership of state-owned enterprises, to implement the legal status of the party organization within the corporate governance structure and to ensure that the party’s and the state’s policies on major decisions are implemented.

Second, to insist that the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation while better enabling the government to play its role in further implementing the dominant market position of the State Owned Enterprises.

Third, to focus on supply-side reforms to establish a complete operational guideline that enables SOEs to become stronger and better.

Fourth, to be firm in preventing the loss of state-owned assets and to build a monitoring and evaluation system.

The article also quoted directions that Xi Jinping gave during the 19th Congress on SOEs. Xi called for SOEs to improve an asset management system, optimize the economic model, make structural adjustments and strategic changes, enable SOEs to become stronger and better and grow to be competitive first class world companies.

Source: People’s Daily, August 1, 2018
http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0801/c1004-30184188.html

Epoch Times published an opinion article titled, “The Reality that Xi Jinping Is Facing.” The following is a summary of the article:

For the Chinese Communist Party as a whole, one of the first and most important tasks for the leader in such a position is to preserve the wealth and interests of the few top level families and the interests of the members of the high-ranking power group.

However, the facts that Trump was elected president of the U.S. in 2016, and especially that the Sino-US trade war began this year, have touched the fundamental interests of those at the party’s top level. Trump’s trade policy toward China will ultimately fundamentally change China’s trade status and will greatly impact the interests of those families. From this point of view, if Xi Jinping cannot protect the interests of that group, then Xi will become their enemy and will be discarded. This is one of the reasons why Zhongnanhai has been in political turmoil lately and Xi Jinping is facing challenges.

Within the party, Xi Jinping’s political enemies are waiting. The Party’s interest group at the top level knows that, after the Sino-US trade war is over, they will lose access to the wealth they used to have. In itself, this will become sufficient reason for Xi Jinping to step down.

The Chinese Communist Party has no solution to the social crisis in China. This is the reality that Xi Jinping is facing today.

Source: Epoch Times, July 27, 2018
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/7/27/n10596622.htm

Radio Free Asia reported that Xi Jinping recently visited the Middle East and African countries and provided economic aid amounting to billions of dollars while he was there. It resulted in dissatisfaction among the general public in China. People felt that the residents who live in impoverished regions in China need more help. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, China provided low-interest or interest-free loans to foreign governments in the amount of 2.26 trillion yuan (US$330 billion) but it only allocated 800 million yuan (US$117 million) in funding to the 10 provinces in southern China that suffered from the flood disaster. At the same time, it was reported that Heilongjiang Province, whose pension insurance was losing 20 billion yuan (US$2.93 billion) announced that it would delay the pension payments. In addition, statistics showed an overall economic downturn in the first half of the year and a reduction in summer grain production. The article quoted one resident from Shanghai who told Radio Free Asia that he hopes that the U.S. will win the trade war. He said, “If the U.S. were to win the trade war, Chinese citizens would gain true freedom, democracy and human rights. The government would not inadvertently rob us of our property. We would live in a happy environment and would not eat poisonous and harmful products.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 26, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/ql2-07262018092232.html

Major Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily recently reported that a number of real estate management companies in Beijing received orders from public safety authorities to remove all publicly displayed Xi Jinping posters and other materials that have his picture printed on them. The background of this move was a recent incident in Shanghai. A woman poured ink on such posters and then the method spread. It was rumored that the order for removing the posters came from Xi himself. At the current economic crossroads when China is facing a trade war with the U.S., in addition to this latest poster removal order, multiple unusual things have occurred recently such as an increased number of reports on Premier Li Keqiang. A project to study the years Xi Jinping spent in a county named Liang Jia He was called off. Another noticeable fact was that, on the front page of the July 9th People’s Daily newspaper, no mention was made of Xi Jinping’s name in any of the headlines. This was the first time in five years.

Source: Apple Daily, July 13, 2018
https://hk.news.appledaily.com/international/daily/article/20180713/20448515

A successful movie release based on a true story called “Dying to Survive” became a box office hit in China. The story touched the general public but the Department of Publicity had to face some backfire. This realism film told the story of a Chinese leukemia patient who couldn’t afford imported cancer treatment drugs and was forced to turn to India to buy cheap generic drugs. He was then arrested and punished. The Douban film review website rated the movie 9.0. The movie made over 1.3 billion yuan (USD$200 million) in box office revenue in just four days after its release on July 5. According to RFA, the official’s initial intent was to set the timing of the movie so it was released right around the start of the trade war hoping to incite resentment among the Chinese public towards foreign governments and pharmaceutical companies for the high cost of imported drugs. Little did they anticipate the level of unhappiness among the general public in China about the high cost of medical care. They also did not anticipate that the Chinese people would understand that it was the Chinese officials and the medical system that caused the real problem of the high cost of drugs and medical treatment in China.

RFA reported that the Ministry of Publicity issued a verbal notice on Sunday July 8. The notice required that all media must follow the guidelines of “not interviewing, not reporting, not commenting, and not referring to the movie.” It also asked the official media to strengthen public opinion guidance, pointing to the criticism of foreign pharmaceutical companies, emphasizing that the Chinese government has imposed zero tariffs on imported anti-cancer drugs, and that the government is working hard to require foreign drug companies to cut their prices. The RFA article stated that it is the Chinese government that sets the price of drugs, especially of imported generic brand drugs. Even though it announced that, starting on May 1 of this year, it would not impose tariffs on imported drugs, the price of drugs still remains high.

Source: Radio Free Asia, July 9, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/medicine-07092018074900.html

The Central Institute of Socialism (CIS), the Chinese Communist Party’s training and education facility for its officials, recently saw its very first batch of graduate students receiving Master’s degrees with a major in united front studies. The program is a joint effort between CIS and Shandong University and was launched in 2015.

The united front is an alliance of groups against {communism’s} common enemies. They employ a tactic that socialism and communism have carried out in their revolutionary political and/or military campaigns. The Comintern, an international communist organization that former Soviet communists created in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution first developed the theory.

According to the thesis of the 1922 4th World Congress of the Comintern:

“The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.”

Chinese Communists extensively adopted this tactic during communism’s earlier years, before 1949, when carrying out propaganda and military campaigns against Nationalists. In later years, it also used the united front in its international politics, such as the recent attempts to ally with the European nations and to strike back at the tariffs that the U.S. imposed. According to the Jamestown Foundation, “The United Front Work Department (中共中央统一战线工作部) is the department of the CCP charged with consolidating support for Party policies among non-CCP members, including among individuals of Chinese descent overseas. It is has long been a key, albeit well concealed, element of the CCP’s foreign policy.”

The majority of studies on the united front at CIS include four fields of research: the theory and policy of the united front, China’s system of political parties, the theories of ethnic groups and religions in the united front, China’s traditional political thought, and the culture of the united front. In Shandong University, the program is housed in the School of Political Science and Public Administration, a subsidiary program under Political Science. Since its launch in 2015, the program has recruited 38 doctoral and 50 masters degree students.

Li Jinhe, a professor at CIS, said, “The united front is the study of the laws regarding the governance of the Chinese Communist Party. This is very important.”

Sources:

1. Central Institute of Socialism, July 4, 2018
http://www.zysy.org.cn/a1/a-XDI93M823C37528A39F066
2. Jamestown Foundation, June 19, 2018.
https://jamestown.org/program/understanding-the-role-of-chambers-of-commerce-and-industry-associations-in-united-front-work/

People’s Daily reported that, on July 1, during the ninth conference of the All China Lawyers Association, the Association passed a revision to its charter to recognize the party’s leadership over the Association and to strengthen the Association’s work of developing the party. Fu Zhenghua, the Minister of Justice participated in the conference. He expressed the requirements that “lawyers must make the work of developing the party their top political task” and that “lawyers must follow the Party no matter what happens.” On July 8, only days following the national Lawyers conference, the Beijing Lawyer Association took the lead and adopted a similar revision to its charter. The amended language reads as follows: Adhere to Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics as the guide, firmly defend that Comrade Xi Jinping is the core party’s authority and centralized leadership, and strengthen the party’s development work.

Source:
1. People’s Daily, July 2, 2018
http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0702/c117092-30099388.html
2. Legal Daily, July 8, 2018
http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/Lawyer/content/2018-07/09/content_7589090.htm?node=32988