Government/Politics - 232. page

On May 17, Wang Qishan, Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, spoke at the training held at the “Clean Government Inspection Tour” meeting. Wang provided guidance on the upcoming clean government inspection tour and summarized the following four purposes: 1) identify illegal embezzlement and corruption cases; 2) identify violations in carrying out the eight-point regulation which is focused on rejecting extravagance and reducing bureaucratic visits, meetings, and empty talk; 3) identify issues that are in violation of the Party’s regulations; 4) identify improper and corrupt measures used when handling personnel issues.

It was reported that for the first half of year 2013, the central inspection team will start the tour with inspections in Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi Province, Hubei Province, Chongqing City, and Guizhou Province, and will also inspect the Ministry of Water Resources, China Grain Reserve Corporation, the Export and Import Bank of China, China Publishing Group, Inc., and Renmin University.

Source: Xinhua, May 17, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-05/17/c_115813442.htm

According to the Supreme Court, Chinese citizens will now be entitled to 182.35 yuan (US$29.69) per day, the new daily compensation rate, if an entity infringes on their lawful rights and interests. The new standard was set to be effective on May 17, 2013. The rate was based the Bureau of Statistics annual report on the average annual income, which was reported for 2012 as being 47,593 yuan (US$7,749.81) with the daily rate at 182.35. It is up 19.7 yuan (US$3.21) from the rate in 2011.

According to the State Compensation Law, "If a state organ or a member of its personnel, when exercising functions and powers in violation of the law, infringes upon the lawful rights and interests of a citizen, legal person, or other organization and causes damage, the aggrieved person shall have the right to recover damages from the state in accordance with this Law."

Source: Xinhua, May 17, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2013-05/17/c_115813372.htm

According to Hong Kong based Wen Wei Po, on May 8, 2013, the Chinese Communist Party Committee of Chongqing City’s Urban and Rural Construction Committee held a meeting to study the Notice on the Current Situation in the Field of Ideology, which the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee had issued.

It was mentioned at the study session that "the Party’s Central Committee has a profound analysis and firm attitude toward seven prominent issues in the field of ideology. The Party has more clarity and understanding of the acuteness and complexity of the struggles in the field of ideology."

The report believes that it is the first time that the Party has issued official documents of this kind since the 18th National Congress. It was found by searching online that the "notice" has been issued at the grassroots level of the hierarchy across the nation. At present, government authorities and Party committees at all levels have been organized to study the “notice.”

Source: Wen Wei Po, May 14, 2013
http://trans.wenweipo.com/gb/news.wenweipo.com/2013/05/14/IN1305140064.htm

On May 7, 2013, Guangming Daily published an article explaining the political significance of the speech Xi Jinping gave on January 5, 2013. When discussing the relationship between Mao’s class struggle period (1949 to 1978) and the economic reform and opening period (1978 to the present), Xi Jinping said, “We cannot use the historical period after the reform and opening to negate the historical period before the economic reform and opening; we cannot use the historical period before the reform and opening to negate the historical period after the economic reform and opening.”

According to the article, the whole history before the reform and opening is closely related to Mao Zedong. The Chinese regime must maintain the historical status of Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong thought. If the Chinese regime negates Mao Zedong, it is negating the history of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Republic of China, and also the Party’s leadership and China’s socialist system, since Mao Zedong was the creator of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Republic of China, and China’s socialist system.

Source: Guangming Daily, May 7, 2013
http://politics.gmw.cn/2013-05/07/content_7538912.htm

BBC Chinese carried an analysis of the recent media reports about the disclosure of the incidents of torture at Masajia Labor Camp. The article suggested that there was an internal split among the party leadership about the labor camp system and about Falun Gong issues and that the differences among the leadership will cause this forbidden topic to become known to the outside world.

According to the analysis, after Len’s Magazine‘s breakthrough in reporting on this sensitive subject, a few media and reporters openly challenged the notice banning the topic. The analysis stated, “All of those facts suggest that the views among the party’s senior leadership are split about both the labor camp system and about Falun Gong issues.” “Even though the article did not mention Falun Gong, a sensitive topic in China, many media, including Associated Press and the South China Morning Post, have noticed that the details about the torture revealed in the article were identical to the claims that Falun Gong adherents made 10 years ago.” The article concluded that torture cases have existed in China for at least a dozen years, but China’s media system has covered them up.

Len’s Magazine published the article “Stepping Out of Masanjia” on April 6. On April 9, the Central Propaganda Department issued a notice to quash the article. However China Woman Daily and Legal Daily continued to cover the topic including interviews of the main characters. On April 19, Liaoning Province made an official statement claiming that “distorted facts were found in ‘Stepping Out of Masanjia.’" Xinhua and Legal Daily followed up with the same type of articles. Yuan Ling, the author of “Stepping Out of Masanjia” issued a statement on his micro blog in Sina stating the article was written on a factual basis and requested an apology. Guangming Daily published a commentary calling for the application of legal measures to dig out the truth. It also noted that the article by Xinhua did not have an author. In Hong Kong on April 27, Du Bing, an independent filmmaker released a documentary movie called, Above the Ghosts’ Heads: The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp. Du told Apple Daily that the truth of the torture should be made known to people around the world.

Source: BBC Chinese, May 2, 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/china/2013/05/130502_ana_liaoning_masanjia.shtml

According to Xinhua, the top two State-owned petroleum companies, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), received a total of 12.2 billion yuan (US$1.98 billion) in government subsidies in 2012. Sinopec alone received 9.4 billion yuan (US$1.53 billion). The Chinese government subsidized CNPC and Sinopec 1 billion and 462 million respectively in 2009, 1.599 billion and 1.0 billion in 2010, and 6.734 billion and close to 1.5 billion in 2011.

In 2008, due to the high cost of crude oil and the low prices paid for finished oil products, both companies incurred astronomical losses. For that year, CNPC and Sinopec received 15.7 billion yuan (US$2.57 billion) and 50.3 billion yuan (US$8.7 billion) in government subsidies, respectively.

Source: Xinhua, May 2, 2013
http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/www.cs.com.cn/xwzx/cj/201305/t20130502_3966487.html

On April 28, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a reception forum and met the representatives of the national model workers. In his speech, Xi re-emphasized the role that the working class played as the main force [of society] and called for creating a prosperous future through hard work, an old Chinese Communist tradition that the first generation of Communist leaders in Mao Zedong’s era had started. It is worth noting that Hu Zhiqiang, the Captain of the Daqing Oilfield 1205 Drilling Team, and Guo Fenglian, former Party Branch Secretary of Dazhai Village in Xiyang County of Shanxi Province were among the model workers invited to the reception forum. In Mao’s era, the Daqing Oilfield 1205 Drilling Team and Dazhai Village were the two most famous models representing the working class and the peasant class, respectively. In Mao’s era, Guo Fenglian herself [the most famous "iron maiden" in post-revolutionary Chinese history], was the model promoted to the whole country. The old adage was “Learn from Daqing in industry; learn from Dazhi in agriculture.”