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Leadership: CCDI Criticized Several Prime Ministers in Chinese History

Recently, Chinese-language media outside China reported heavily on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) in-fighting between Xi Jinping and an anti-Xi group. Chinascope is unable to verify some of the claims but will report on these happenings.

The CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) recently published two articles mentioning some prime ministers in China’s history. The CCP has a tradition of hinting about today’s politics using historic stories.

On June 1, The China Discipline Inspection and Monitoring Magazine, a semi-monthly publication by the CCDI, published an article titled “Abandoning Exquisite Egoism.” It criticized two prime ministers: Li Si (李斯) of the Qin Dynasty and Li Linfu (李林甫) of the Tang Dynasty, calling them out for using their skillful acting and carefully created justifications cleverly to conceal their selfish and greedy nature.

On June 7, the CCDI official website published an article titled, “Knowing How To Stop In Front of Your Own Desires.” It asked officials “always to cultivate the virtue of governance, always to think about the harm of greed, always to be disciplined, and always to give up improper ambitions.” It praised two prime ministers Xiao He (萧何) of Han Dynasty and Li Hang (李沆) of Song Dynasty and criticized two prime ministers Yan Song (严嵩) of Ming Dynasty and He Shen (和珅) of Qing Dynasty.

Related postings on Chinascope:

Sources:
1. The China Discipline Inspection and Monitoring Magazine, June 1, 2022
http://zgjjjc.ccdi.gov.cn/bqml/bqxx/202206/t20220601_196499.html
2. CCDI official website, June 7, 2022
https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/pln/202206/t20220607_197538.html

Hot Topics | | |   Government/Politics

Communist China’s Propaganda Messages Lead the Search Engines’ Results

Brookings Institution and the Alliance for Securing Democracy reported in May that many of Beijing’s propaganda messages have shown up often at the top of search engine results. A report can be found: https://www.brookings.edu/research/winning-the-web-how-beijing-exploits-search-results-to-shape-views-of-xinjiang-and-covid-19/

The researchers collected search results on two topics that are critical to Beijing’s agenda: Xinjiang and the COVID-19 pandemic. They were collected from five different search engines, Google Search, Google News, Microsoft’s Bing Search, Bing News, and YouTube. The data was collected daily from Nov. 1, 2021, until Feb. 28, 2022.

Chinese state media sends a consistent stream of narratives to the web. They are free of charge and easily available to search. Beijing-backed narratives also take advantage of the algorithms in most search engines that prioritize “freshness.” These contents are also amplified by a huge number of Chinese state actors on social media. For example, they use hashtags like #covid19 and #Xinjiang.

As a result, Chinese state media content frequently appeared in top search results. If one searches for the keywords “Xinjiang,” “terrorism,” or “Xinjiang debunked” on the above platforms, Chinese state media contents appear every day on the first-page of the search results, with the exception of YouTube search, where two days out of the 120 days, it appeared on the second page of the search results.

For neutral terms, such as “kashgar,” “Urumqi,” or “Xinjiang,” ( Kashgar and Urumqi are cities in Xinjiang) Chinese state media content still appeared almost every day on news searches and YouTube searches..

The communist regime also uses influential Westerners  who have lived in China and claim themselves to be “China experts,” to defend Beijing and criticize “Western injustices and biases.”

The report also found a surprisingly large number of seemingly independent news outlets that routinely reposted CCP media reports. The top ten sources that often repost Beijing’s contents are Finland’s helsinkitimes.fi, the UAE’s bignewsnetwork.com, the USA’s msn.com, Pakistan’s dailytimes.com.pk and bolnews.com, Chad’s alwihdainfo.com, India’s indianexpress.com, Ukraine’s ukranews.com, Bangladesh’s tbsnews.net, and Zambia’s iol.co.za.

The report said that, in the early months of 2022, search engines enacted measures to limit the reach of the Russian state media. However, little has been done regarding the Chinese state media.

Source: Epoch Times, May 31, 2022
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/beijing-remarkably-effective-at-exploiting-search-engine-results-report_4501074.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics Information/Technology

Global Times: It Is Not Russia Who ‘Weaponizes’ Food

China’s state media Global Times published an opinion article by Zheng Fengtian, the director of the Rural Development Institute of Renmin University of China, stating that it is not Russia who weaponizes food.

The article said, “Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the media that the West is trying to ‘shift’ the responsibility for problems in the world’s grain market to Russia. Ukraine, however, has multiple food transportation channels to choose from. Also, Russia will not stop Ukraine’s grain shipments from being shipped out. At the same time, he also announced that Russia’s wheat exports in the next agricultural year will increase to 50 million tons.”

The article continued, “Following its strategic needs, the United States and the West put the responsibility for this global food crisis on Russia and use a number of means to put pressure on Russia to release food. Putin, however, retorted when he had a phone conversation with Italian Prime Minister Draghi. He said, ‘It is groundless for the West to blame Russia for the supply of agricultural products in the international market.’ Putin attributed the current crisis to the sanctions that the United States and the West imposed on Russia. It is the anti-Russian restrictions imposed by the US and the EU that make the situation worse. Indeed, it is precisely because of these economic sanctions that the global food supply chain has been disrupted and food prices have soared. Instead of providing a viable solution, the United States and its allies are currently escalating conflicts by increasingly providing  new weapons and equipment, which will only increase future global food security risks.

“When the Russian side expressed its willingness to provide 50 million tons of grain to ‘help overcome the food crisis,’ the United States and the West accused it of ‘blackmail’ because the Russian side proposed that ‘sanctions against Moscow should be lifted.’ A U.S. Pentagon spokesman said Russia weaponized food. In fact, ‘weaponizing food’ is a common practice of the United States. It is precisely because the United States has used grain as a “weapon” many times that grain has become a main source of the problem in the current global trade. Even the developed countries dare not freely hand over grains to the international market.

“On the one hand, the United States continues to add fuel to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and intensifies sanctions against Russia. On the other hand, the United States has made arrangements in its own country ahead of schedule to grab Russia’s share of the world’s food market. According to reports, U.S. President Biden has increased the number of counties eligible for “double crop insurance” nationwide by 681 to 1,935, and the federal government’s investment in domestic fertilizer production has increased from $250 million to $500 million, to stimulate fully the export of American agricultural products and increase the external dependence on American food. It seems that the real intention of the United States is to expand its hegemonic advantages to the field of food security.”

Source: Global Times, June 6, 2022
https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/48J1rhGFuKN

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics US-China Relations

Ministry of State Security Offers Rewards (Up to $15,000) for Reporting National Security Cases:

China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) recently promulgated new rules to encourage citizens to report acts that “endanger national security.” It offered  different amounts as rewards, depending on the level of contribution, with the highest reward being 100,000 yuan ($15,000) or more.

On June 6, MSS, a CIA type agency, issued the “Rules for Rewarding Citizens for Reporting Acts that Endanger National Security.” The rules went into effect on the same day.

The MSS official said in a press session that China’s national security is facing a serious and complex situation, “especially as the infiltration and theft activities of foreign espionage and intelligence agencies and various hostile forces against us have significantly intensified.” The purpose for the new regulation is to mobilize public support for national security work.

The public is encouraged to report through a phone number, website, letter and in person. The national security authorities will issue spiritual (award certificates) or material awards (bonuses) depending on the situation. The bonus is divided into four levels according to the degree of contribution, with the lowest being less than 10,000 yuan ($1,500) and the highest more than 100,000 yuan ($15,000).

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), June 7, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206070222.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Hong Kong Government: School Libraries Can’t Have Books that Violate National Security Laws

Hong Kong’s Education Secretary Kevin Yeung said that local school libraries cannot have books that violate the National Security Laws.

At an event, a reporter asked about some local secondary schools that used “self-censorship” and removed some books from the library. He wondered whether the authorities have a regulation for providing library collections to secondary schools and how the terms of the national security law apply. Yeung said that as part of the implementation of the National Security Law, schools have the responsibility to ensure that their libraries do not contain books that are harmful to national security. Yeung added, “Books, like textbooks, can influence the ideas or thoughts of young students.”

He said that after the implementation of the National Security Law, schools cannot allow any incident that endangers national security, and that the National Security Law also mentions the responsibility of schools to promote national security education.

Source: Central News Agency, June 6, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202206060176.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Government: Shanghai Authorities – It Is All the Residential Committee’s Fault

During Shanghai’s COVID Control and Prevention news press conference on May 29, authorities said the city has never announced a “lockdown” and therefore does not need to “remove the lockdown and (reopen)” the city.

They also blamed the residential committees (居委会) for locking down the residential buildings and forcing people to stay at home. They said the two months of the Shanghai lockdown was not a government action but rather the result of the residents’ self-management .

The authorities then pointed out:

  1. The residential committee is a self-management organization for the city residents and the residential committee’s actions are based on the residents self-management, not the government’s orders.
  2. Any official order and regulation must be published by the municipal party committee or the municipal government. The residential committee’s announcement only represents the view and action of that residential committee and residents of the neighborhood. The government is not responsible for these actions.
  3. If any residential committee mentions “according to the authorities’ requirements,” if it is not based on an officially issued document with a government seal on it, it is a verbal order and the government does not recognize the claim.

People ridiculed the Shanghai authorities. According to the authorities’ logic, the government didn’t lock down Shanghai, but Shanghai residents voluntarily locked themselves down, stopped their own economy and created all their humanitarian problems for themselves.

Source: China Digital Times, June 1, 2022

民国地平线｜蔡慎坤：谁把上海人当傻瓜？

Hot Topics | | |   Government/Politics Social Stability

The Connection between the LA Shooter and the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification

In a planned shooting, David Wenwei Chou (周文伟), 68, of Las Vegas, killed one person and injured five at a Taiwanese church in Los Angeles. The Orange County police called it a politically driven hate crime against Taiwanese. Chou strongly opposed Taiwan independence.

There are a few connections between the killer and the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (中国和平统一促进会). That  was a semi-official organization under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) control. It served as a vehicle for the CCP’s united front work. Wang Yang (汪洋), a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee (the highest CCP decision making organ) and the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, serves as the Chairman of that organization.

In 2019, Chou attended the opening ceremony of the Las Vegas Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful National Reunification. He was a board member and spoke at the ceremony.

Before the killing, Chao mailed out a set of audio/image packages, titled, “The Diary of the Angle to Eradicate (Taiwan) Independence.” The recipients of his packages include Wang Yang, Qin Gang (China’s Ambassador to the United States), Hu Xijin (former Chief Editor of Global Times (Huanqiu)) and Wang Feng, the publisher of China Times (a Taiwan media which switched to a pro-CCP position after being bought by Want Wang Holdings which had a big business investment in mainland China), and some Chinese media in the United States.

Source: NTDTV, May 19, 2022
https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2022/05/19/a103433096.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Government/Politics

The U.S. Government Should Bear Considerable Responsibility for the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

China’s state media Global Times published a commentary article stating that the U.S. should bear the responsibility for the Russia-Ukraine war. Below are the major points in the article:

“The Ukraine crisis has been going on for more than two months. According to the U.S. State Department, the U.S. has pledged about $3.7 billion in security aid to Ukraine since February 24. A growing number of international sources point out that the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is largely the result of the arrogance and successive mistakes of the US-led Western bloc over the past 30 years. The U.S. government should bear considerable responsibility. The current actions of the United States will not help end the crisis, but will continue to play up confrontation.”

“The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is, in a sense, a proxy war waged by the United States in Europe. However, the cost of the war is mainly borne by European countries.”

“The U.S. divides the world into different camps according to its own standards, which itself violates the spirit of democracy and will only bring more chaos to the world and more disasters to the people of all countries.”

“International public opinion generally believes that the Biden administration has continuously promoted ‘returning to multilateralism’ since taking office, but in fact, it is using ideological boundaries to form factions and force the selection of sides to divide the world. The United States continues to strengthen small circles and small groups such as the ‘Quadrilateral Mechanism,’ the ‘Five Eyes Alliance’ and the ‘G7.’ The fundamental purpose is to maintain the hegemony of the United States.“

“The Ukrainian crisis is yet another example of America’s push for hegemony. One of the root causes of this war is America’s opposition to European countries developing closer economic ties with Russia.”

“Analysts pointed out that the Ukrainian crisis reflects the unilateral definition of a ‘rules-based international order’ by the United States for a long time based on its own standards. Its essence is to maintain the rule order of the HEGEMONIC power of the United States.”

Source: Global Times, May 12, 2022
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/47yThzp10yU

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics