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Swedish Student Expelled for Attempting to Organize a Public Rally

On July 9, Chinese authorities deported a Swedish student Sven Englund, who was studying at Fudan University in Shanghai, for attempting to organize a public rally on July 1, 2011, the 90th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party. On his microblogging page, Englund invited Chinese president Hu Jintao to come to the Bund to attend a really that called for freedom. Before the deportation, Fudan University had invited him for a “coffee talk.” Shanghai’s police also followed, monitored, and interrogated him. The authorities charged him with “involvement in jeopardizing social management." The 24-year-old student is now back in Sweden.

Source: Voice of America, July 10, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/20110710-SWEDISH-STUDENT-125286958.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Zhou Yongkang Reemphasizes the Party’s Control over Judicial System

In a speech recently delivered by Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and head of the CCP’s Committee of Political And Legislative Affairs, Zhou repeated the importance of Hu Jintao’s speech given at the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party and emphasized that the Party must maintain “absolute control” over the judicial systems, which includes the police, the armed police, the procurator system, and the court system. Zhou called for “political firmness, purity and strong fighting strength.”

Source: Xinhua, July 2, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2011-07/02/c_121614063.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

BBC Chinese: China’s Internet Blocks Rumors of Jiang Zemin’s Death

An article in BBC Chinese reported that, “China’s Internet police have apparently blocked discussions about Jiang Zemin, the formal Party Secretary.” The BBC Chinese said, “On July 1, while many formal top party leaders including the formal Prime Minister Li Peng and Zhu Rongji appeared at the celebration ceremony of the Party’s 90th anniversary, Jiang, who is 84, was not present. This led to the rumor that Jiang was seriously ill or has passed away.”

According to BBC, on July 6, a BBC reporter logged on to the Sina website and typed “Jiang Zemin.” A message came back stating, “According to the related legal rules and policy, your search results cannot be displayed.” A list of Chinese words including “heart attack,” and “Party Secretary” were also blocked. Even the word “Yangtze” and other river related words were blocked because the Chinese characters contains the characters for “Jiang,”  the same name as the former Party Secretary. BBC said that several Hong Kong media sources from Beijing disclosed that Jiang suffered a massive heart attack and was hospitalized at the PLA 301 hospital where many top party leaders have paid visits.

Source: BBC Chinese, July 6, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2011/07/110706_jiang_censor.shtml

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Tsinghua Students Called on to Study Socialist Core Values & Political Ideology

On June 30, Li Changchun, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, visited Tsinghua University. Li called on the university to “improve the quality of education and persistently strengthen and renew political ideology education so as to speed up Tsinghua’s progress in advancing toward being a world first class university.”

Li said that universities should launch education programs for students to learn about contemporary history so they can understand "how history and people chose Marxism, the Communist Party, the socialist path, and the open and reform policy. … Therefore, they will be able to form a firm belief in walking the socialist path with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Communist Party."

Source: Xinhua, July 1, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011-07/01/c_121608015.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Study Times: How to Increase Cultural Power

Study Times, a publication of the Central Party School, published an article on the importance of cultural power. The article suggested that (China) should increase cultural power in six different ways. 1) Enhance the cultural education of children and adolescents, using culture to shape their value system. 2) Integrate and consolidate cultures of different ethnic groups and establish a core national value system. 3) Learn from the West’s creativity. 4) Advance the study of philosophy and other branches of the social sciences. 5) Increase investment in cultural industries. 6) Strengthen cultural exportation. 

To back up the last point, the article explained that “military and economic power will no longer be the major parameters to evaluate national strength. In the 21st century, the control of culture will be the focus of power struggles. If a country’s cultural and value systems are attractive, other countries will move towards it. If a country takes the lead in global cultural development, it will occupy an advantageous position in future development. If a country’s values (ideologies) can dictate the international political order, it will inevitably be the leader of international society.”
Source: Study Times, July 4, 2011
http://www.studytimes.com.cn:9999/epaper/xxsb/html/2011/07/04/06/06_52.htm
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Study Times: Universities Should Give a High Priority to Party Build-up

Liu Xiping, Director and Party Chief of the Education Department of Zhejiang Province, wrote on Study Times, the official publication of the Central Party School, about the need to beef up the Party organizations at the grass roots level in universities. 
“In China, the Chinese Communist Party is the ruling Party. As an integral part of the ruling Party, Party Committees at universities should use the ruling power well and play a core role in leadership so as to fully implement the Party’s education policies. There is no doubt about it. We must unswervingly adhere to it. At the same time, we should also strengthen the Party’s grassroots organizations. By playing the role of the Party’s grass-roots organizations, we should consolidate and strengthen the Party’s leadership in colleges and universities to promote the implementation of the Party’s principles and policies in colleges and universities. There is also no doubt about this. We must unswervingly adhere to this.” 
Liu believes that the fall of the former Soviet Union was due, in part, to the fact that the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU)’s grassroots organizations existed in name only and had no cohesion to attract new members. “A large amount of data indicates that most CPSU members calmly identified themselves with the disintegration of the CPSU.”

Source: Study Times, July 4, 2011
http://www.studytimes.com.cn:9999/epaper/xxsb/html/2011/07/04/10/10_26.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Ex-Party Chief Rumored Dead, Web Search Censored

On July 6, 2011, rumors about the death of Jiang Zemin, the ex chief of the Chinese Communist Party, became popular in China’s local searches, but within half an hour, the country stretched out the heavy hand of China’s censors to block Chinese language searches about Jiang’s death. If people search for words related to Jiang’s death, the search pages return a message saying: "According to relevant policies and laws, the search results are not shown below." A posting on Weibo stated, "About the news that Jiang Zemin has passed away, news organizations can’t do reports on their own, all news reports should be in accordance with news releases from Xinhua [the official state news agency]."
On July 7, the official Xinhua quoted "authoritative sources" in its report denying the rumor. 

Source: AFP, July 8, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iIlw8Muhmt8qfu3Znm9HQQxV0HBg?docId=CNG.9df3894d3c61df966b0d7c129418e270.5a1

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Kissinger Attends Chongqing Red Song Gala

On June 29, 2011, the Chongqing Municipal government held a giant “Red Song Gala” at the Olympic Sports Center in celebration of the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary. It is claimed that 100,000 people at the stadium sang simultaneously along with the main singers, turning the sports center into a sea of song. Chongqing’s CCP chief Bo Xilai, along with former U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger and other senior Party and military officials, attended the gala. The gala started by singing the song “Follow the Communist Party” and reciting “The Communist Manifesto,” followed by other “classic red songs.”

Source: Xinhua, June 30, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2011-06/30/c_121602838.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics