Government/Politics - 51. page

Deutsche Welle’s Chinese website published an interview with Alicia Hennig, a scholar at the Dresden University of Technology. Hennig explained why she no longer wants to teach in China after she was in the country for 15 years.

She started teaching when she worked at a Chinese university in 2015. At the time, China had already begun to restrict the use of Western textbooks. She had to order her Philosophy of Economics textbooks from overseas, but the books were held up in customs.

When she was at Southeast University in Nanjing in October 2018, classrooms were already equipped with surveillance cameras. This was one reason that she did not want to continue teaching business ethics in China. Human rights is also a topic in the curriculum. She said, “I don’t want to teach in China anymore because I’m worried that I won’t be able to have a real discussion in the classroom.”

Hennig also found that organizing conferences with foreigners (non-Chinese) became extremely difficult because of the review process and the need to ensure that ideological red-lines were not crossed. She added that there is a lot of ideological oversight and censorship in Chinese universities. The school dean once asked her to remove certain comments from social media.

Regarding the issue of some German schools wanting to collaborate with Chinese universities, Hennig cautioned that, in addition to the possibility that the bureaucrats used corruption in dealing with academic funds, it is also important to pay attention to the fields of collaborative research. “The field of humanities is very much restricted in terms of ideology; (cooperation in) natural sciences and also technology cannot exclude (Chinese) military applications.”

Source: Deutsche Welle, October 12, 2021
https://p.dw.com/p/41XWc

“Tang Ping” has become a social buzzword in China. It refers mainly to the younger generation, to those who choose to take a passive attitude toward life and to stay away from the fierce competition in China. This vast form of passive civil disobedience came at a time when the communist regime was promoting “working and consuming” to keep the economy running, as it faces international isolation. At the beginning of this year, the CCP’s mouthpiece People’s Daily issued number of articles urging young people to abandon this idea.

Recently, however, it appears that CCP party officials have taken on the “Tang Ping” attitude at work. On September 27, People’s Daily published an article that the CCP organization department in Longwan district, Wenzhou city of Zhejiang province wrote. The article highlighted a phenomenon that some party officials are holding a “Tang Ping” mentality because of re-election. It cited that some officials have stopped doing their jobs or taking any responsibilities because they feel they have reached their retirement age or they have little chance of being elected or promoted. The article appealed to the officials to change their attitude and not to “Tang Ping.” It asked them to change their mentality for the sake of the party and the nation and to put self-interest behind the bigger goal (of the party).

Source: People’s Daily, September 27, 2021
http://m.people.cn/n4/0/2021/0927/c4304-15218152_2.html

China’s Central Talent Work Conference was held in Beijing last week. At the meeting, Xi Jinping proposed that China should thoroughly implement the strategy of strengthening the country with talent in the new era. China should “train, introduce, and make good use of” talent in an all-round way, and accelerate the construction of an important talent center and innovation highland in the world. In addition, he also encouraged talent to be patriotic and expressed the need to insist on the (Communist) Party” managing the talent.”

Xi Jinping also mentioned that, by 2025, the construction of the main force of technological innovation will make important progress, the level of gathering of top scientists will be significantly improved, and there will be many with strategic scientific and technological talent in key core technology fields. By 2030, he hopes that there will be a group of leaders and pioneers in major technological fields and emerging frontiers. By 2035, he hopes that China’s strategic scientific and technological strength and high-level talent team will be among the best in the world.

In March this year, China issued the “Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and Long-Term Goals for 2035.” The outline mentions the need to promote the optimization and upgrading of manufacturing industries and the strengthening of the country’s strategic scientific and technological capabilities. The outline reads: “Develop and implement strategic scientific plans and scientific engineering in basic core areas related to national security and overall development. Aiming at artificial intelligence, quantum information, integrated circuits, life and health, brain science, biological breeding, and aerospace technology, deep earth and deep ocean, and other frontier fields, implement a series of forward-looking and strategic national major scientific and technological projects.”

After the U.S. government’s review, the term “Thousand Talents Program” has now disappeared from the Chinese Internet, but the recruitment of talent continues to exist in many different forms. In 2019, the long-term innovative talent projects, short-term innovative talent projects, entrepreneurial talent projects, young talent projects, and overseas high-level talent projects under the “Thousand Talents Plan” were unified into the high-end foreign expert introduction program that the Ministry of Science and Technology of China initiated. This year, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China launched the 2021 national foreign expert project application work  and the China University of Mining and Technology and other institutions of higher learning have also issued notices that they will start the application of the 2021 national foreign expert project.

Source: Voice of America, October 6, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Xi-calls-for-building-worlds-talent-center-for-future-development-20211006/6257788.html

Fu Zhenghua is a key official in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) law enforcement system. From 2013 to 2018, he served as the Deputy Minister of Public Security . In 2015. He became the head of the “610 Office” (an organization that the CCP set up to persecute Falun Gong) He was the Minister of Justice from 2018 to 2020. Afterward, he was moved to a semi-retired post in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

On October 2, 2021, the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that it was investigating Fu for “serious violations of discipline and national laws.”

Epoch Times reported two cases in which Fu was against Xi:

The first case was the handling of the death of Lei Yang. Lei Yang was a Chinese environmentalist who died while in police custody in Changping District, Beijing. An independent autopsy confirmed that his death resulted from police brutality. The police said Lei was soliciting a prostitute in a convenience store and thus they arrested him. Lei’s family rejected the accusation.

When the case was reported, the general public overwhelmingly demanded that the police officers who abused their power be punished. Xi Jinping even gave an order, requesting to “address the case fairly and with justice.” However, over 4,000 Beijing police officers wrote a joint letter to Xi, to protest the arrest of their “comrades” and threatened to quit. Xi was furious for the threat and ordered an investigation. It turned out that Fu was behind the letter. Xi was afraid that if those police officers quit, the gangsters in Beijing might then be out of control, so, in the end, he yielded. The government let those police officers go.

The second case was reported by a wealthy businessman, Xu Chongyang from Wuhan, Hubei Province. He wrote an 18,000-word letter on how the officials stole his assets worth over 100 million yuan (US $16 million). His letter also revealed that Fu was involved in Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai’s anti-Xi work.

In Xu’s account, the Beijing police officers said to him during an interrogation, “You mailed a letter to Xi Jinping’s cousin, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Hu Jintao, and to Xi Jinping. Do you know, Hu Jintao is just a fool? If our boss Fu gave us an order, we could kill him right away. Xi Jinping’s cousin was also under our monitoring.” (Editor’s Note: Hu Jintao was the General Secretary of the CCP at that time, but he did not have full power. Former CCP head Jiang Zemin, though retired, held more power via his followers including Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai.)

During the same interrogation, a staff member pointed to another person, “See him? He is the younger brother of Fu Zhenghua. Don’t say we monitor you, we even dare to monitor Wang Qishan and Xi Jinping. We asked you to stop (Xi’s) car but you didn’t do it. We want to announce to the outside world that it was Xi who ordered us to arrest you and to kill you. (We will) ruin him!”

Source: Epoch Times, October 2, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/2/n13276888.htm

At the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Talent Work Conference held in Beijing on September 27 and 28, 2021, Xi Jinping said that China’s competition for national power is a competition for talent. The top echelons of the CCP leadership attended the conference.

Xi said that China is currently embarking on a new journey to a modern socialist country in which high-level technological self-reliance is the key. “Competition for comprehensive national power is, in the final analysis, a competition for talent.”  Xi laid out a timetable for China to become a leading world power in science and technology within two decades, with world-class talent.

By 2025, China’s investment in research and development should have increased substantially, with major progress made in building up top-notch scientists for scientific and technological innovation. 

By 2030, China should have established a talent system that can adapt to the needs of high-quality development. The system should have significantly improved the ability to train and attract innovative world-class talent.

By 2035, China should have attained a competitive advantage in the competition for talent in various fields and should rank among the leading countries in the world for its strategic and technological strength, with an army of top-notch talent.

On October 2, 2021, People’s Daily issued an editorial promoting Xi’s remarks on the importance of recruiting, training, and using talent to build up national power. 

Sources:

1. The People’s Government of China, September 28, 2021 

http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-09/28/content_5639868.htm

2. People’s Daily, October 2, 2021

http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-10/02/content_5640810.htm

The Chinese melodrama Chosin Reservoir, which is based on a battle during the Korean War, hit the box office bringing in revenue of over 2 billion yuan (US$0.3 billion) within five days of its release amid the Chinese government’s propaganda and heightened anti-American sentiment.

It has been a tradition of the Chinese film industry to release “patriotic” blockbusters during the National Day holiday period. Since 2019, the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, it has become standard to release three films at once for the holiday. Chosin Reservoir was the most eye-catching of the three this year. It depicts the battle in November of 1950 during the Korean War, where the Chinese army suffered heavy casualties due to the assault of the U.S.-led United Nations forces and the cold weather.

The three-hour war drama, costing up to 1.3 billion yuan (US$0.2 billion), with a total staff of over 12,000 people, was shot over a period of 180 days. Schools and workplaces organized students and employees to see the movie. Stories of emotional viewers have flooded China’s social media. Many audience members said they walked out of the theater with tears in their eyes.

There were critical reviews of the film, but they were soon taken down from the Internet.

Source: Central News Agency, October 5, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202110050150.aspx

On September 26, 2021, the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will conduct political inspections of 25 financial institutions.

Zhao Leji, a CCP politburo standing committee member and head of the CCDI, stressed, during a conference ahead of the inspections, that it will be a thorough disciplinary inspection of the 25 financial institutions. He said that the inspections are to ensure political supervision and serve as a means of “tightening the rule of the Party.” The inspections will be conducted from a political perspective. He called for in-depth reviews to uncover any political deviations by CCP organizations at these financial institutions.

The 25 financial institutions include state-owned banks, stock exchanges, regulatory commissions, insurance companies, asset management companies, and other financial institutions that invest in private companies. The complete list follows: People’s Bank of China, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Administration of Foreign Exchange, China Investment Corporation, China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, the Agricultural Development Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, China Construction Bank, the Bank of Communications, CITIC Group, the Everbright Group, the People’s Insurance Group of China, China Life Insurance, China Taiping Insurance Group, China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China Huarong, China Great Wall Asset Management, China Orient Asset Management, and China Cinda Asset Management.

Last month, on August 17, 2021, Xi Jinping presided over the tenth meeting of the CCP Central Finance and Economics Committee and emphasized that it is necessary to coordinate the prevention and resolution of significant financial risks, punish financial corruption, and prevent and control financial risks.

Recently, the CCP investigated and disciplined several CCP officials from financial institutions at the central level, including the China Development Bank, the Agricultural Development Bank of China, and the Bank of Communications.

It is noted that China’s financial system has traditionally been controlled by the CCP “princelings,” the second generation of the CCP’s top families. This includes former president Jiang Zemin and his faction.

This inspection is the eighth round of inspections and the largest financial inspection since Xi Jinping took office as the CCP General Secretary of the 18th National Congress. The previous seven rounds of inspections occurred in February 2018, October 2018, April 2019, September 2019, May 2020, October 2020, and May 2021.

Sources:

CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, September 26, 2021

https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/toutiao/202109/t20210926_251273.html,
https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/toutiao/202109/t20210926_251271.html

Within a two day period, two high ranking officials in the public security sector in China were ousted. This move indicates Xi Jinping is continuing to purge his political opponents prior to the Chinese communist party’s 20th Congress in 2022. Xi has determined that, by 2022, he must completely secure the power of his leadership.

On October 2, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a short statement that Fu Zhenghua, the former Minister of Justice, is being investigated. The Commission didn’t provide further details. Just two days earlier, on September 30, the Commission issued a separate notice announcing Sun Lijun, the former vice-minister of Public Security, would be prosecuted for fraud, being too politically ambitious, and damaging the party’s unity.

Between 2013 and 2018, both Fu and Sun held several official positions. One was the head of the 610 Office—an extralegal secret police force akin to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, which has been implementing Beijing’s persecution policies against Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that involves meditation exercises and moral teachings.

In 2012, Xi Jinping began a relentless “anti-corruption campaign” to eliminate his political opponents. Since then, more than 100 “tigers and flies”— high- and low-ranking officials — have been purged for crimes of corruption such as bribery and embezzlement. There has been some speculation that, following the removal of Fu and Sun, another bigger “tiger” could be ousted next.

Source: Epoch Times, October 2, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/2/n13277204.htm