Government/Politics - 274. page

Xu Xuejiang, the deputy chief editor of Xinhua News Agency, wrote a commentary calling for beefing up the Chinese Communist Party’s loyalty education, in the run up to its 90th anniversary. 

According to the official China Central Television, by the end of 2012, 2 millions seats in the grassroots versions of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber stamp legislature, will be chosen by 900 million voters in more than 2,000 counties and over 30,000 villages. 

On June 8, 2011, more than 40 Chinese online media’s senior executives participated in a “Beijing Online Media Tour of the Red Homeland.” They visited the historic places where the Chinese Communist Party grew and where it rioted against the ruling Kuomintang government in the 1920’s. One stop was the conference site of the CCP’s first National Congress in 1921 in Shanghai; another stop was the South Lake in Jiaxing City of Zhejiang Province, where the conference transferred into a boat to avoid arrests. The tour was organized by the Beijing city government’s Internet Propaganda Management Office (BIPMO) and the Beijing Association of Online Media, a self-claimed nonprofit organization headed by BIPMO’s deputy chief. 

In an article originally appearing in Chinese Social Science Today, a publication of the state think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the author, a former National People’s Congress standing committee member, proposed “cultural exportation" as a means to ensure cultural security. “In the past, people often paid attention to the influence that foreign cultures had on our cultural security in the process of ‘cultural importation,’ while overlooking the effect of ‘cultural exportation.’ Actually, the strategy of international promotion of our culture is not only a cultural strategy, but also a political strategy and an important initiative for China to vie for its voice in an era of globalization.” “It … also includes intangible culture values. The latter is … how to spread and unfold the mainstream culture values of today’s China, namely our socialist core value system and corresponding cultural, artistic, and social science products.” 

A government sponsored lawyer’s group has been established to “assist” lawyers without licenses in counties and cities. The Party’s United Front Work Department and the Ministry of Justice are sponsoring the "One Heart Legal Services Group,” which consists of 48 lawyers who are not Party members. According to Chen Xiqing, Deputy Chief of the United Front Work Department, establishing of the group is “an important measure to effectuate the rule of law, protect the less developed regions, and share the results of civilized society under the rule of law; to better "work the masses" under the new situation and maintain social harmony and stability; to build up the brand name of ‘one heart’ for the Party’s United Front Work Department and strengthen its political foundation; and to deepen the United Front Work on persons who have newly joined China’s social elite, and strengthen the importance of training and educating non-Party representatives.” 

On May 30, the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, a group of 25 of the most senior cadres, held a study session on “strengthening and innovating social management.” The meeting, over which Hu Jintao presided, emphasized that “strengthening and innovating social management matters for consolidating the ruling status of the Party and is important for the nation’s long term stability and for people’s livelihoods.” “China is now in an important period of strategic opportunities, and also in a period with prominent social conflicts. The task of social management is heavier and more arduous.” “(We need) to firmly grasp the general requirements of maximally stimulating social vitality, maximally increasing harmonious factors, and maximally reducing disharmonious factors.” 

In an unusual, harsh tone, People’s Daily published an editorial warning that “The Party’s discipline does not allow Party members to spread political rumors.” The editorial states that safeguarding the Party’s political discipline is a serious political struggle. It further alleges that a very small group of Party members and officials make irresponsible remarks on major political issues and act on their own, that some overtly agree but covertly oppose the Party’s decisions, and that others make up stories and tarnish the image of the Party leadership. The editorial said that the Party’s disciplinary authorities have “seriously punished a number of CCP members and cadres who disobeyed the political discipline.”

Source: People’s Daily, May 25, 2011
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2011-05/25/nw.D110000renmrb_20110525_2-04.htm

On May 13, 2011, Meng Jianzhu, the Public Security Minister and Chief Political Commissar of China’s People’s Armed Police, addressed China’s riot police in Beijing when they conducted a demonstration exercise. Meng urged the riot police to be mindful of potential dangers and increase their ability to safeguard Beijing’s security. “[The People’s Armed Police] must further strengthen their ideological and political development and lay a solid ideological foundation by holding high the [ideological] banners, following the Party’s commands, and fulfilling their mission, and must resolutely follow the directions of the Party’s Central Committee, the State Council, the Party’s Central Military Commission, and President Hu Jintao.” Over 5,000 riot police participated in the exercise.

Source: Xinhua, May 13, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2011-05/13/c_13873741.htm