Government/Politics - 143. page

China News recently reported that Zhou Qiang, Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court and the Communist Party Secretary of the Supreme Court Branch, delivered a speech at the National High Court Chiefs’ Conference. He called for “clearly and firmly standing up against” wrongful Western thoughts such as “Constitutional Democracy, the Separation of Powers, and Judicial Independence.” Zhou also called for putting up a decisive fight against the idea and the people with the idea of dismissing the leadership of the Communist Party and the Socialist system. He required the high courts of all provinces to set these tasks as the highest priority on their work agenda. Zhou also asked all courts to include these requirements in the human resources systems to measure candidates in their performance review and promotion processes. Monitoring and accountability mechanisms must also be established.

Source: China News, January 4, 2017
http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2017/01-14/8124300.shtml

Deutsche Welle Chinese reported that China Central Television (CCTV) recently announced the establishment of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), which includes six TV channels, three overseas channels, one video reporting station, and a group of new media branches. The Chinese government has long been complaining about the Western media’s control of international public opinion. In recent years, as part of the government’s “Grand International Publicity” strategy, China has spent a large amount of capital to spread China’s opinion on international issues. CCTV had five foreign language channels in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian. CCTV also has one branch in Washington DC and another in Nairobi. The new CGTN has three mobile apps; all CCTV accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr have been renamed and assigned to CGTN. <Editor’s note: All these Western social media are blocked by the Great Firewall and Chinese residents cannot have access and accounts like CCTV does.> Major Chinese broadcasting agencies have spent many years to expand their reach to the West. In 2009, the announced spending was around US$6.4 billion. The Chinese budget for CCTV, China Radio International, and Xinhua English TV in 2016 (as well as in 2017) was 1.84 billion euro (US$1.94 billion), way higher than the BBC (0.47 billion euro, US$.49 billion) and the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG, 0.68 billion euro). China is also sending more and more reporters to the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa for daily news reporting.

Source: Deutsche Welle Chinese, December 31, 2016
http://bit.ly/2ijSot5

In mid-December, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, on its official site, published a short video film of a microblog to remind the public to remain vigilant against a color revolution.

The video, titled, Who Wants to Overthrow China the Most?, lasts 7 minutes, 24 seconds with a brief caption on the narratives and background music. The video opens with the accusation that the ‘color revolution’ has successfully driven many countries into war and led to divisions; it warned that the devil’s claws have also stretched to China.

The video displayed footage of a series of demonstrations that rights activists from the Mainland held and showed multiple human rights lawyers being arrested and pleading guilty. The video criticized that some people try to stir up group events as a way to trigger a color revolution and they “use overseas NGOs to nurture ‘agents’ so as to create the social basis for a color revolution.”

A significant section in the video displays Hong Kong’s demonstrations over the past two years and claims that Hong Kong is a base for a “color revolution.”

At the ending, the video displays the captions that [China] should drive “color revolution out of China.” It also represents that this is a long-lasting war and that it is “everyone’s responsibility to resist the color revolution.”

The video was reposted on the official microblog sites of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, Qiushi magazine and other sites as well.

Source: Duowei, December 20, 2016
http://china.dwnews.com/news/2016-12-20/59789387.html

On December 16, [Hong Kong] Sing Pao Daily News published an article revealing that Zhang Xiaoming, the Director of the Liaison Office, had established a large number of associations in order to perform “united front work” and used them for the illegal accumulation of wealth.

The article said that the Hong Kong people were very happy when they learned that Leung Chun-ying will no longer be running for the office of Chief Executive and were particularly happy when they realized that Zhang Xiaoming had been absent from at least four public events. They hope that Beijing will not let Zhang come back to Hong Kong any more, which would be their best Christmas gift.

The article revealed that, during Zhang’s tenure, the number of Hong Kong-based associations has soared, with at least 10 newly established associations last year, compared to just four in 2013.The article explained that Zhang established these associations for the purpose of doing united front work and to control elections, using the votes and support activities [that Beijing desired]. However, these associations also became the source he used for corruption and to collect money.

Source: Sing Pao Daily News, December 16, 2016
http://www.singpao.com.hk/index.php?fi=hot&id=14149

Chen Baosheng, China’s Education Minister, wrote an article discussing the ideological control the Chinese Communist Party maintains in the school education system in order to guard against the penetration of “hostile forces.” Below are some of the statements from the article:

“Ideological work is extremely important work for the [Chinese Communist] Party. On the education front, the ideological work is the core to strengthen the Party’s leadership in education.” “From the social point of view, many mistakes on ideological issues originate on the education front. … The education system is the forefront of the Party’s ideological work. The hostile forces’ top choice for penetration is also our education system, the school campus. The general secretary said that winning young people will win the future. The same is also true: to sabotage your future, the first step is to mess up your schools. The struggle is very intense in the forefront battlefield.”

“The educational front is the unique front of our Party’s ideological work. The status and role of this unique front in the ideological work is irreplaceable.  … The reason why the education front has such a unique, irreplaceable role in ideological work is that if a problem occurs, it is system wide and fatal. Therefore, in the ideological work of the education front, disruptive problems are not allowed to occur. This place is also where disruptive problems have the highest possibility of occurring.”

Source: Sina, December 10, 2016
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/nd/2016-12-10/doc-ifxypipt0847554.shtml

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be held in Beijing in the autumn of next year. Some overseas media have reported that, recently, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Preparatory Group for the 19th National Congress issued a preliminary draft for the reform of the state, government, army, and judicial systems. In addition to serving in the deputy position in the high-level central government, the governor of a province, mayors, and also non-Party members, will also be able to serve as the president of the Supreme Court or the Supreme Procuratorate, as well as to hold positions of deputy army rank or above in the military.

Source: Duowei News, December 5, 2016
http://china.dwnews.com/news/2016-12-05/59786311.html