Government/Politics - 146. page

Guangming Daily published a report and quoted statistics which indicated that the Sky Net campaign, which was launched to combat corrupt officials, has been working effectively this year. According to the statistics, by mid-August 409 fugitives from 61 countries had been brought in. Among those 272 were arrested and 137 were persuaded to return, while 15 of them are on the top 100 fugitive list. The article stated that, in 2016, the public security bureau dispatched 33 teams overseas to carry out the mission.

Source: Guangming Daily, October 24, 2016
http://legal.gmw.cn/2016-10/24/content_22618033.htm

On October 21, in the Heilongjiang Province Intermediate People’s Court, Yu Tieyi, former Deputy General Manager for the Material Supply Subsidiary of Heilongjiang Long Coal Mining Holding Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as Long Coal Group) was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension and life-term imprisonment for accepting bribes in the amount of 300 million yuan (~US$45 million).

This is by far the largest amount that the courts have ever found in any bribery case. Yu Tieyi, the recipient of 300 million yuan in bribes, has become the third government official to be imprisoned for a lifetime term, followed by Bai Enpei, former Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress Environmental and Resources Protection Committee, (246.8 million yuan in bribes), and Wei Pengyuan, former Deputy Director of Coal Division of the National Energy Board (211.7 million yuan).

Yu Tieyi is a deputy department level official.

Source: Beijing News, October 22, 2016
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2016/10/22/420744.html

Singapore’s primary Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that, according to the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) of the Chinese Communist Party, the Party’s Central Inspection Team concluded that the Ministry of Public Safety demonstrated weaknesses in the anti-corruption movement. The Ministry is required to adjust and to fix the issues. The Ministry is in charge of all of China’s police departments and was a key branch under the control of Zhou Yongkang, who was a former Party Politburo Standing Committee member and was imprisoned for bribery, abuse of power, and the intentional disclosure of state secrets. The CDIC Inspection Team also found the Ministry did not “strictly enforce the law in a fair and civilized manner.” In addition, the Team also discovered irregularities in human resource management and a “lack of political sensitivity” that led to further investigations. The Minister of Public Safety, Guo Shengkun, said he’ll take this opportunity to reform the Ministry.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, October 18, 2016
http://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20161018-679299

In a recent article, Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao cited a dispatch from Xinhua, dated October 20, 2016, that the police still have a warrant out to arrest Gu Zhuoheng, the chief of Sing Pao Daily News. In the past several weeks, Hong Kong-based Sing Pao has been carrying front page commentaries harshly criticizing Beijing’s No. 3 leader, Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress.

Sing Pao, which is also known for its ties to Beijing, denied that Gu was a wanted man. It dismissed the attacks as being “some power’s” attempt at political revenge. Since late August, Sing Pao, with help from the central government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, has been criticizing Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for escalating the confrontation. In early October, Sing Pao editorials named Jiang Zemin, former secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as Zhang Dejiang’s backer.

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Guangming Daily published an article reporting that the Publicity Department and the Organization Department held a forum on the quality of the study sessions that a number of Party committee groups held and required that all levels of Party organizations are to host Party committee group studies that are more intense in order to improve the “personal quality and individual skill” of Party members when dealing with the new environment and with challenges. According to the article, an emphasis on the importance of group study has been lacking among a number of Party committee centers at different group levels. Some of them have followed a rigid formality but lack focus, which has severely impaired the quality of the group study. The article required that Party committee groups should elevate group study and make it a serious “political task” so they can adapt to change and advance forward.

Source: Guangming Daily, October 16, 2016                                                                                                                                     http://theory.gmw.cn/2016-10/16/content_22492343.htm

On October 13, 2016, one day after Huanqiu (Global Times) published its editorial against Hong Kong Sing Pao Daily, Sing Pao published an article listing its records of Huanqiu’s notorious actions. According to Sing Pao, Huanqiu is a newspaper of a Chinese Communist Party Central Committee organ. It seems that Huanqiu is an official media, but it is actually a political tool of Jiang Zemin’s faction.

“Zhang Dejiang (Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress), Liu Yunshan (China’s propaganda chief) and their faction always ‘politically discredit’ others and subject them to ‘personality murder.’” It is laughable that Huanqiu asserted that the boss and staff members of Sing Pao are close to Falun Gong (against whom Jiang Zemin initiated a brutal persecution in July 1999) just because Falun Gong applauded Sing Pao’s commentaries.

Huanqiu has a notorious record of publishing extreme left-wing articles, such as releasing the poll on “Using Military Force to Unite Taiwan” and “The Best Time to Occupy Taiwan with Military Force.” “The Internet Security and Information Leading Group Office of the CCP Central Committee announced that the Huanqiu Website (under Huanqiu) has seriously violated reporting discipline by repeatedly heightening sensitive incidents in the United States, North Korea, the South China Sea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Source: Hong Kong Sing Pao Daily, October 13, 2016
http://www.singpao.com.hk/index.php?fi=news1&id=6203

On October 12, 2016, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported  that an order has been issued to ban Chinese media from republishing Caixin‘s original content. The order, given on October 11,  was from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s central Internet censorship, oversight, and control agency and is to remain in effect for 60 days. Caixin is a leading Chinese media for publishing original content on finance, the economy, and social governances.

RFA cited reports indicating that the immediate trigger for the ban may have been Caixin‘s recent coverage, now deleted, of 168 lawyers’ signing an appeal to oppose new regulations from the State Council. The rules reinforce the Chinese Communist Party’s control over law firms, requiring them not to “indulge or condone” their staff in conducting a wide range of specified activities.

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On October 12, 2016, following Hong Kong Sing Pao Daily‘s publication of a series of articles criticizing Chinese politburo member Zhang Dejiang, Huanqiu (Global Times), a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece under the control of Liu Yunshan [both Zhang and Liu are close allies of former Communist Party head Jiang Zemin], published an editorial attacking Sing Pao Daily News for its sudden change in political stance. Sing Pao had previously been pro-China [favorable to Jiang’s faction] but published articles critical of two members of Jiang’s faction: Zhang Dejiang, who is the top official responsible for Hong Kong and Macau affairs, and Liung Chun-ying, who is Hong Kong’s Chief Executive.

Huanqiu asserted that Sing Pao Daily News is now more like the Falun Gong media Epoch Times, [in attacking the CCP]. [Editor’s note: The Epoch Times is a private independent American media group founded in 2000. The CCP regards Epoch Times as an overseas anti-China (CCP) media.] The Huanqiu editorial claimed that for Sing Pao to dare to do so [attack prominent Chinese leaders on its front page] is very unusual and it cannot be out of ordinary political reasons. The article zoomed its focus to the newspaper’s President of the Board, Gu Zuoheng, a mainland businessman. The article stated that Gu was involved in a “Crime of illegally absorbing deposits from the public” and is now wanted by the police. The article speculated that because Gu cannot convince the justice department to let him go, he used the paper to vent his anger and attacked the leaders in charge of Hong Kong affairs, or maybe Gu is trying to accumulate chips for seeking asylum in the U.S. or another Western country.

Source: Huanqiu (Global Times Chinese), October 12, 2016
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2016-10/9537676.html