Government/Politics - 222. page

On June 18, 2013, Xi Jinping, the CCP Central Committee General Secretary and State Chairman, delivered a speech at the working meeting on the Party’s Mass Line Educational Practice. Xi said, “The CCP’s survival or death depends on the Public’s Attitude for or against the Party.”

To secure the Chinese Communist Party’s power, the Party must solve serious problems that the people report and let them feel satisfied. As many Party officials are separated from the masses, the CCP Central Committee will launch a large number of investigations, corrections, and cleaning within the Party. Called “Educational Practice Activities,” these activities will focus on self-cleaning, self-improvement, and self-innovation. It will be just like “looking into the mirror, straightening up one’s hat and clothing, taking a bath, and treating ones illness.” Those who have serious problems will be specially investigated and punished.  

Source: Xinhua, June 18, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/18/c_116194026.htm

Xinhua published an article about developing Party membership in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, where 98 percent of the economic production comes from private enterprises.

According to the article, in the mid 1980’s, as more and more foreign investments poured in from Europe, the U.S., Japan, and Korea, the municipal government of Kunshan formulated a clear direction: to treat the importance of appealing to foreign investments the same as when developing the Party structure in private enterprises. For every foreign investment plan that was to be developed, all levels of municipal departments were required to come up with a plan to develop the Party structure in order to ensure that the “Party’s development moved in parallel with the economic development for each investment opportunity.”

According to the article, the City of Kunshan sent 352 full time Party cadres to the private enterprises. Those cadres, together with 3,668 Party leaders selected from the employees of the private sectors, formed a Party development team in Kunshan. They received financial incentives, as well as retirement and pension plans from the city.

The article disclosed that, because of the consistent Party development efforts in Kunshan, Kunshan currently has achieved "total coverage of Party membership" in private enterprises. Over 2,700 Party organizations have formed in private enterprises. They include 20,000 Party members, which accounts for 35 percent of the total Party members in Kunshan City. Of those, 75 percent hold key positions in their company.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/16/c_124861568_3.htm

On June 14, China’s new Premier, Li Keqiang, hosted the State Council meeting where he introduced plans for ten air pollution prevention measures and promoted the development of the photovoltaic industry.

The ten measures for preventing air pollution included, but were not limited to: limiting air pollution emissions; limiting production and growth of industries that consume high energy and create pollution; actively promoting “clean” manufacturing while reducing pollution emissions for key industries by 30 percent or more; increasing the usage of natural gas and coal methanol in order to speed up adjustments in the energy structure; strictly enforcing clean energy guidelines; and promoting incentives on projects to save energy. … The Council also stated that the photovoltaic industry is an important field for new energy development, although it is suffering from weak demand in both the domestic and international markets. The council called for efforts to strengthen the photovoltaic industry and promote product innovation and development to regain the photovoltaic market.

Source: Xinhua, June 14, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/14/c_116152393.htm

On June 12, 2013, Chengdu authorities in Sichuan Province announced that they will train 1,000 volunteers to “spread civilization on the Internet” in order to monitor and control Internet postings.

In an interview with Chengdu Daily, a city official stated, “This year, our city will re-enforce the development of volunteer teams to spread civilization on the Internet. Chengdu will rely on 1,000 people at all levels of civilized units as the basic team, and will develop another core backbone of about 100 volunteers and a civilization commentator team of 15.”

To be assigned to selected websites throughout the country, these monitors will “effectively guide netizens not to use curse words and not to believe or spread rumors.”

Source: Chengdu Daily, June 12, 2013
http://www.cdrb.com.cn/html/2013-06/12/content_1864790.htm

Study Times published a commentary that criticized the princelings (the offspring of former high-ranking Party officials) who succeeded their parents when they took over key government and Party positions. The article considered this to be a major form of corruption.The Chinese people have given it the most criticism because it serves to “severely destroy the legitimacy of our Party’s rule."

“Legitimacy stems from a set of widely accepted principles, which could be democracy or non-democracy, but at least it must mean what it stands for. If you emphasize that people are the masters of the power, you must truly let the people feel they can choose who is in power, makes decisions, and expresses their opinion on major issues.”
 
“We used guns to taker power. This is the origin of the legitimacy of our ruling power. While the people in China may think it makes sense for whoever used guns to take power to rule the country, we must not forget that … we obtained legitimacy by upholding the banner of democracy."

Source: Study Times, June 10, 2013
http://www.studytimes.com.cn:9999/epaper/xxsb/html/2013/06/10/03/03_34.htm

Qiushi Theory recently published a commentary intended to counter the opinions that “China’s one party rule is the root cause of the corruption problem” and that “Only a multi-party system can make clean governance a possibility.” The commentary stated that these opinions lack the support of historical evidence and theory. It listed a number of arguments and examples to support this claim. One was that the role of the party system represents the interests of various political groups and the system itself does not contain the ability to curb corruption. A multi-party system will not prevent corruption and the corruption in that system could be worse at times. Corruption exists in countries that have a multi-party system, while, at the same time, a country with one party rule can also bring clean governance. the commentary held that China’s system of one party rule offers the best advantage to solve the corruption issues.

Source: Qiushi Theory, June 8, 2013
http://www.qstheory.cn/dj/ffcl/201306/t20130608_238501.htm

On June 8, Liu Yunshan, first Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the Party, visited several cultural renovation bases in Beijing, including the Design Resource Cooperative, which hosts over 30 cultural entities, Zhongguancun Science Park, and the Beijing Gehua CATV Network Company. Liu praised the cultural renovation work that the the municipality of Beijing had accomplished and stressed that a new mission and requirements have been laid out for cultural entities. He also stated that the reform of the cultural system is urgently needed in order to accomplish the goal of the “China Dream” ideology that Xi Jinping raised.

Source: People’s Daily, June 9, 2013
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/0609/c1024-21796196.html