Government/Politics - 133. page

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

The Chinese State’s media, People’s Daily published an article stressing the importance, now that China is getting stronger, of breaking the Western monopoly on the definition of democracy and establishing a Chinese communist democratic discourse system instead.

The article said, “For a long time, Western developed countries have monopolized the right to define democratic concepts, set democratic standards, interpret democratic theory and judge democratic disputes. Western theorists constantly use their discourse hegemony to package Western democracy, decorating it with a “universal” coating and portraying it as a global political standard so as to mislead the people of the world in their understanding and practice of democracy. Under the new situation, China is steadfastly walking its socialist political development path with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, China needs to deconstruct the Western democratic discourse hegemony, profoundly understand the absurdity of the definition of Western “democracy,” strive to build a socialist system of democratic discourse with Chinese characteristics, and reverse the passive situation of being ‘cursed’ by the West.”

“In recent years, with the development and expansion of China, the West continually creates a variety of public opinions that question, misinterpret, and slander China. In public opinion, the issue of democracy is often being used to create an attack target. In the face of the Western democratic discourse hegemony, we must dare to utter our voice, confidently expose the absurdity of Western democratic discourse, and then build a socialist democratic discourse system with Chinese characteristics. We should make it clear to people that Western democracy is only a local experience and knowledge that is built in the context of the specific historical and cultural background of the West. It is not a universal truth, nor is it a universal way to solve the problem of governing the country. The Western democratic model does not value as a ‘model’; it only has a reference value.”

Source: People’s Daily, June 30, 2017
http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0630/c40531-29373312.html

According to an article published in Epoch Times, on June 22, Sima Nan, the unpopular leftist social commentator, posted an offer letter received from Renmin University to be a distinguished professor in its newly established China Painting Research Institute for a three-year term. The appointment soon received strong criticism and objections from the students, faculty members, and university alumni. The university withdrew the appointment letter two days later. The official notice that the university issued cited the reasons for the withdrawal as a loophole in its approval process. The article pointed out that the withdrawal of the offer from the University made Si the most short-lived distinguished professor.

It is a case that the public opinion worked in China, which has been rare to see in the past.

Source:
Epoch Times, June 25, 2017
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/17/6/25/n9303532.htm
Baidu, June 24, 2017
http://www.thepaper.cn/baidu.jsp?contid=1716607

On June 30, statements from Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested that China interprets the law solely based on its own desire.

CCTV  reported that on June 30, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed strong opposition against the U.S. selling weapons to Taiwan. It claimed that, “the sale of weapons seriously violates an international covenant and the principals within the Three Communiqués. It has damaged security interests and China’s sovereignty rights.” It urged the U.S. to “stop military assistance to Taiwan to avoid further damage to collaboration in important areas between China and U.S.”

The same spokesperson made an ironical statement regarding Hong Kong at the same time. Huanqiu reported that he asserted that the “Sino-British Joint Declaration” is a historical document. However, it no longer carries any realistic meaning and has no restraining power on how the Central Administration manages the Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR). The UK government has no sovereignty and governing powers over Hong Kong.” In responding to the statement from China, the British Foreign Office spokeswoman later issued a statement which said, according to Reuters, “The Sino-British Joint Declaration remains as valid today as it did when it was signed over thirty years ago.” “It is a legally binding treaty, registered with the UN and continues to be in force. As a co-signatory, the UK government is committed to monitoring its implementation closely” .

Source:
CCTV, June 30, 2017
http://m.news.cctv.com/2017/06/30/ARTISN8hqfDQoKu5ffF6W5iO170630.shtml
Huanqiu, June 30, 2017
http://world.huanqiu.com/article/2017-06/10921479.html

Radio France Internationale published an article on the withdrawal of China’s table tennis players from the 2017 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour Platinum China Open, which was held on June 22-25. Several of the male table tennis players on China’s national team suddenly withdrew from an international competition in protest over the removal of their chief coach. Following the incident, the male table tennis team issued a public apology letter. Upon a request from the ITTF, the General Administration of Sports agreed to launch an investigation into the issue. The general public was not happy with the answer that China’s Table Tennis Association gave as to the reason for the change in the coaching line up. In Chengdu, the walls inside the subways were quickly covered with notes in which people posted their support for the table tennis players. Some of the posted notes read, “When you walk out of the competition site, you are still a role model,” and “We are wherever you are.” Some of the pictures on the wall were shared on social media but were quickly deleted. On June 29, an announcement was issued that the male table tennis players were not going to participate in the ITTF World Tour Platinum Australia Open. This time the announcement was not issued by the players or the coaches but rather, it came from China Table Tennis Association.

Source:
Radio France Internationale, June 25, 2017
http://cn.rfi.fr/中国/20170625-乒乓罢赛扯19大权斗又引官民相斗
BBC Chinese, June 29, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-40445359

According to an article that Radio Free Asia published, Hong Kong University released the results of a recent survey reporting that the percentage of Hong Kong youths who acknowledged their identity as “Chinese” was only 3.1 percent, the lowest number in history. At the same time, the percentage of those who identify themselves as “Hong Kongese” was 65 percent, 3 percent higher than in the previous survey. The article quoted an interview with a few residents in Hong Kong. They felt that the political milieu and the livelihood in Hong Kong have worsened since its return to the mainland 20 years ago and that Beijing has never kept its promises. One professor from Hong Kong University said that Beijing constantly interferes with Hong Kong policy. Meanwhile Hong Kong youths are not happy with the uncivilized behavior that the tourists from the mainland display while they shop in Hong Kong or tour in foreign countries. The Hong Kong government didn’t bother to understand the dissatisfaction from the Hong Kong youths whose wish to have Hong Kong be independent continues to rise but is being suppressed.

Hong Kong University has conducted the survey once every two years since 1997. The “Chinese Citizen Identity” result was growing in the first 10 years from 1997 to 2006 but dropped sharply starting in 2008 and fell below 10 percent in 2012, two years before the “Occupy Central” movement took place.

Source: Radio Free Asia, June 21, 2017
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/yf1-06212017113643.html

Duowei News reported that the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television recently issued a notice to shut down audio-visual programs on websites including Sina Weibo (microblog) and iFeng because they “air programs that are against national policy on audio-visual political programs and their programs spread negative comments.” This is considered as escalation of further control of the online environment, especially self-media. The article defines self-media as blogs, microblogs, Wechat, and forums. Microblogs will take a big hit because of the policy and it may get more and more difficult for political topics that are discussed on these media to pass inspection in the future. The article said that it is very possible that other types of media might be impacted in the future as well.

Source: Duowei News, June 24, 2017
http://china.dwnews.com/news/2017-06-24/59821752.html