Government/Politics - 49. page

The All-China Lawyers Association (ACLA) issued new regulations for lawyers and law firms banning them from discussing cases in public in the latest move to tighten control over lawyers.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the ACLA in July 1986 and placed it under China’s Ministry of Justice.  under the ACLA Charter Article 3. The ACLA follows Xi Jinping and the CCP’s leadership and practices law according to China’s socialist rule of law. All lawyers in China are members of the ACLA.

On October 20, 2021, the ACLA issued the “Rules on Prohibiting Violations and Speculation on Cases.” The Rules require that lawyers and law firms shall not “spread violations of the [CCP’s] party line, principles, and policies,” “oppose the leadership of the Communist Party of China,” or “incite complaints against the Party and the government.”

The new ACLA regulations also require that lawyers and law firms not hype up cases through joint signatures, open letters, and online gatherings to show solidarity. They also ban posting comments on cases on social media.

In addition, the ACLA stipulates that, for publicly heard cases, the undertaking lawyers shall not disclose or disseminate important information and evidence materials obtained through client interviews, file reviews, investigations, and evidence collection “that may affect the handling of the case.” For cases that are not heard publicly, lawyers cannot disclose or disseminate case information and materials.

However, some of these bans are causing grave concerns among rights lawyers in China.

Since July 9, 2015 (7-09), the police in over 20 provinces and cities throughout China have conducted a crackdown. They have arrested, summoned, criminally detained, taken away, disappeared, or interrogated hundreds of Chinese human rights lawyers, civil rights activists, petitioners, and their relatives. The charges against them have included: “inciting subversion,” “disturbing a court order,” “picking quarrels, provoking troubles,” and many other examples. At least 280 people were detained during the crackdown.  The authorities banned them from the practice of law and continued to monitor and harass them after their release.

The CCP touted the 7-09 crackdown on lawyers as its significant achievement in 2015. During the following year’s 3rd Plenary Session of the 5th Session of the 12th National People’s Congress on March 12, 2016. Zhou Qiang, President of the Supreme Court, and Cao Jianming, President of the Supreme Procuratorate, made special mention of the crackdown.

Sources:

1. The All China Lawyer Association, October 20, 2021
http://www.acla.org.cn/article/page/detailById/32079

2. U.S. Department of State, July 8, 2021
https://www.state.gov/on-the-6th-anniversary-of-the-709-crackdown-in-china/

China’s Nanjing University (NJU) had previously made an agreement with Zizek, a well-known Slovenian left-wing scholar, to hold a “Colloquium on Zizek’s Philosophical Thought” from October 29 to 31, 2021. At the event, Zizek himself was scheduled to deliver a lecture online and conduct a dialogue with Chinese scholars. However, at the last minute, news came out from the NJU Department of Philosophy that Zizek would not be allowed to speak at the conference to discuss his philosophical ideas. The conference was later cancelled with the excuse of “epidemic prevention and control” and “adjustment of schedules of participating experts.” The incident sparked widespread concern and discussion among netizens in mainland China.

An anonymous source at NJU told a reporter that Zizek, a famous Marxist scholar, was “silenced” and the event was even cancelled because his speech involved politically sensitive contents and even “made presumptuous remarks about the leaders of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

“The simple fact is that what he said in his speech was all about political issues, criticizing many social phenomena that do not fit the CCP’s intention of ‘positive energy’ and its ‘main theme.’” The source said, “What frightened the NJU leaders even more was that he actually made direct comments about the central leadership, mentioning Xi Jinping without naming him, saying that he was engaging in capitalism by cracking down on big companies and opening the Beijing Stock Exchange. He also directly named Wang Huning as a neoconservative. The event, if it were held, would have violated a political taboo. That’s why he was not allowed to speak. The fact that Zizek’s own seminar did not allow Zizek to speak would become a laughingstock. As the university leadership could not afford to lose face, they simply found an excuse to cancel the event.”

Wang Huning, who ranks no. 5 on the 7-member Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision making body, is in charge of the CCP’s propaganda.

Source: Boxun, October 30, 2021

左翼学者齐泽克发言稿妄议中共领导人，南大“齐泽克哲学思想研讨会”将其“禁言”后取消

A song, “It might Break Your Pinky Heart” by Malaysian songwriter Namewee and Australian singer Kimberley Chen reached 16 million views on YouTube in 10 days. The music video uses pink as the theme color. The footage and lyrics contain underlying sarcasm about communist China which is “too fragile” to allow any criticism. The song was taken off the shelves in China immediately after it went live. Both singers’ Weibo accounts were suspended. On Youtube, there were hundreds of thousands of comments. One viewer from mainland China wrote: “Thank you for singing loud for us because We don’t dare to speak out ourselves. Yet this is the reality in China.” Namewee wrote on his Facebook page on October 25 that the song was not that powerful. It was famous because people have awakened.

Source:

1. Epoch Times, October 27, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/27/n13334369.htm
2. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rp7UPbhErE

Beijing continues to crack down on the entertainment industry and the star-chasing culture. The latest target is the top four TV stations in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Hunan. These stations produce popular entertainment programs and bring in 25 percent of China’s national advertising revenue.

On October 29, Xinhua News reported that the Central Propaganda Department and the General Administration of Radio and Television recently told these four stations that they can’t have too many entertainment and star-chasing programs. Instead, they need to “operate by following the political principles and promote the core values of socialism.”

On the same day, the General Administration of Radio and Television also announced that from October this year until the end of 2022, the National Radio and Television and Internet Audiovisual Program Service will launch an “Our New Era” theme campaign to “display fully the great achievements and historical experiences of the Chinese Communist Party’s century-old struggle and display fully the new era of Xi Jinping’s socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics.”

The recent events are the continuation of Beijing’s three-month crackdown on the entertainment industry. Back on August 27, the Cyberspace Administration and the General Administration of Radio and Television issued a notice to ban star-chasing behavior and celebrities who have scandalous records. In September, the General Administration of Radio and Television issued another notice to ban cyber-celebrity programs. It also required that the celebrities who are invited to join the programs must be politically aligned with the party.

Source: Epoch Times, October 29, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/29/n13338288.htm

On October 23, Li Zhanshu, who is a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee and Chairman of the National People’s Congress gave a speech at the closing ceremony of the 31^st meeting of the People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Li stressed, “First, we must adhere to the Party’s overall leadership as the highest political principle, resolutely uphold the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized and unified leadership … . Second, we must unswervingly follow the path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. … We must not give up the fundamental nature of China’s political system and (must) resolutely oppose, resist, and prevent the erosive influence of the ‘constitutionalism,’ multi-party elections, separation of powers, the bicameral system, and the independence of the judiciary that exists in the West …”

Source: People’s Daily, October 24, 2021
http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1024/c1024-32262271.html

Like Hong Kong, Macau is one of China’s other so-called special administrative regions that was supposed to enjoy a high degree of autonomy under the framework of “one country, two systems.” Now Beijing set up a special economic zone that encompasses Macau and the nearby Hengqin Island, which is in Zhuhapart of the neighboring Guangdong Province. It is a prefecture-level city as well as a Special Economic Zone. It is said to implement preferential taxation and other policies. The purpose is to diversify Macau’s economy which primarily centers around the gambling industry, to include finance, high technology, traditional Chinese medicine, tourism, exhibitions and trade.

China has recently exerted control over the casino business in the world’s largest gambling city. The Macau government announced a new measure that strengthens the government’s intervention in the casinos. In response, in mid-September this year, the stock shares of the casinos fell by nearly a third. The new regulation will also limit the number of casino licenses and install government personnel in casino operations.

For the first time, Macau has disqualified opposition candidates in this year’s Legislative Assembly election. In July of this year, Macau authorities disqualified 21 pan-democrats from candidacy on the grounds that they did not uphold Macau’s Basic Law and failed to meet the requirements of allegiance to the city. The turnout in this year’s mid-September legislative elections was only 42 percent, the lowest since the handover of the former Portuguese colony to China in 1999.

Although both the United States and the European Union condemned the Macau authorities’ disqualification of candidates for the Legislative Assembly as being contrary to the rights and interests enshrined in the Macau Basic Law, the Macau government said that the election is entirely an internal matter of Macau and that foreign forces have no right to interfere.

Source: Voice of America, October 18, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/macao-china-control-20211018/6274834.html

On October 20, 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) published an updated list of approved news sources. The list contains Internet news providers from which other sites can reprint contents.

Compared to the 2016 list, the updated list of 1,358 news sources includes more public and social media accounts based on how they followed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) directions in the past. According to the CAC, the update also eliminated media from the previous 2016 list because those media “no longer meet the requirements, have a poor daily performance, and lack influence.”

Caixin, one of China’s best-known outspoken business publications, was eliminated from the 2021 list.

Despite increasingly tight control under China’s Xi Jinping, the privately funded Caixin has published many articles that the CCP does not like and has become influential as a result. That influence is a challenge for the CCP.

People currently subscribe to Caixin reports because Caixin has a strong team of investigative reporters known for their exclusive reports. The extent to which the removal from the 2021 news source list may impact Caixin’s business remains to be seen.

CCP controlled media must publish in accordance with CCP’s agenda. Everyone is a reporter or photographer in the Internet age, a reality that the CCP cannot change. It is questionable whether the CCP’s updated approval of the media list will effectively shut down different voices.

Source: Cyberspace Administration of China, October 20, 2021
http://www.cac.gov.cn/2021-10/20/c_1636326280912456.htm?showOutlinkMenu=1&hgWebShareTitle=