Government/Politics - 58. page

In the past decade or so, red tourism has become a unique phenomenon in China. Red tourism refers to the general public visiting the locations and landmarks that have historical significance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The number of participants has increased from 140 million at the beginning to 1.41 billion in 2019. Jing Gangshan is known as the revolutionary base of the CCP. It has a population of 170,000. More than 19 million tourists visited it in 2019 and it had tourism revenue of 16 billion yuan (US$2.49 billion). In Shanghai, there are more than 610 red (CCP) historical sites and memorial facilities. As local officials describe it, the red culture has been integrated into the city’s genes.

In March of 2021, months before the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China launched the “100 Excellent Routes for Red Tourism.” During the recent May 1 Labor Day holiday break, travel agencies have also actively promoted “Red Tourism” as part of their “patriotic education campaign.”

Beijing officially proposed the plan of red tourism in 2004 and finalized the implementation at the end of 2005. It hoped that the development of red tourism could strengthen the education about the CCP’s history and tradition and reinforce patriotism among the general public, especially the youth.

According to Zhang Yu, Secretary General of the independent Chinese PEN society, more than 10 years ago, when Red Tourism first started, many participants were supporters of Mao Zedong who was the first-generation leader. Those people were unhappy with the regime at the time and used the trip to visit the CCP’s historic sites just to vent their dissatisfaction. Zhang said that the red tourism can gradually change people. Many believed that following the cultural revolution, no one would believe in the CCP anymore. Now the fact is that a significant percentage of people believe in the CCP. The most important goal for the red tourism is to (make people believe) that China would not have continued to exist if it were not for the communist party.

Source: Central News Agency, May 8, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202105080122.aspx

On May 1, the “Administrative Measures of Religious Clergy” promulgated by China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) came into effect. The Administrative Measures, published on February 9 of this year, are composed of seven chapters and 52 articles, that define the “rights and obligations” of China’s religious clergy and regulate their behavior. Among them, Article 3 states that religious clergy should “love the motherland, support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and support the socialist system.” They should also “practice the core socialist values,” and adhere to the principle of “independence and self-management of religion” and the “direction of the localization of religions.”

On May 2, almost immediately after the implementation of these “Administrative Measures,” a video and several photos taken in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, went viral on the Internet. The video and photos show a local Christian clergyman preaching in a church, using a local dialect, and quoting the Bible to explain Xi Jinping’s political propaganda slogan, which includes “the main mission during the era of Xi Jinping.”

Pastor Liu Yi, now living in California who is also the founder of the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness, commented, “Under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, many so-called pastors and preachers in Christianity have taken it upon themselves to take the party’s position. They have used the pulpit of the church to become the mouthpiece for propagating the policies of the Chinese Communist Party. For example, the ‘sermons’ from a church in Zhejiang circulating online are very telling. They are not preaching the Bible, but rather, the propaganda of the Communist Party.”

Pastor Liu Yi explains that there are seven “national religious groups” in China, “namely, the Chinese Buddhist Association, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Chinese Islamic Association, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee and the Chinese Christian Association. These national religious organizations are all under the direct leadership of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, May 4, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shehui/sc-05042021141937.html

On April 23, the Chinese high court affirmed the verdict of the lower court and sentence 22-year-old Niu Tengyu to a 14-year prison term. The verdict was issued in the absence of the defendant, the lawyers and the defendant’s family members. Niu and 23 other young people were accused of leaking the personal information of the daughter of Xi Jinping on the Internet.

In May 2019, the personal information of Xi Jinping’s daughter Xi Mingze and Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui appeared on two overseas websites called, “The Hong An Foundation” and “Shina.” China’s Ministry of Public Security formed a task force. Cyber police from Maoming city in Guangdong province arrested the members of “Esu wiki,” a website on the mainland. It was said to have connections with the two overseas websites because they were unable to catch the leakers overseas.

On December 30, 2020, the Maonan District Court in Maoming City, Guangdong Province issued a verdict that all 24 people who were arrested were found guilty. Niu, the primary suspect, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, and the rest of the people were sentenced to 1 to 4 years in prison. Niu was only 20 year old, and he is considered a computer genius.

Hong Kong Apple Daily reported that the Niu’s family accused the Maoming police of torturing and forcing Niu to “confess” that he was the primary lead in the case because they were unable to arrest the owners of the foreign websites. Niu’s mom has met with foreign diplomats from countries such as the U.S., the U.K and France to appeal her son’s arrest. She told Voice of America that she wishes that the diplomats would convey the truth to their country’s leaders because the arrested kids are being used as scapegoats and were wrongfully charged. She said that the authorities knew that the owners of the foreign websites admitted that they leaked the information and it has nothing to do with the members of Esu wiki. However, the authorities still told the parents to cooperate with the investigation and even closed the online chat groups that the parents had set up. They told the parents not to speak with any foreign media and threatened the defense lawyers, telling them that they cannot file a not guilty plea for the kids. Niu’s current lawyer is the fifth one. The police from Tianjingy took them away on April 23. Niu’s mom said Xi Jinping promoted the rule by law but the local officials have been covering up their mistakes and they have been “juggling” with the law. She assured those that she communicated with that the case is a wrongful conviction and she is going to fight for her rights all the way to the end.

Source: Central News Agency, April 23, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202104230291.aspx

Last November, Hebei police took away Sun Dawu, the founder of the Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group in Hebei Province who is known as an “outspoken entrepreneur. They also took “his wife Liu Huiru and a few others for investigation and accused them of “slandering and disturbing the social order. At the same time, officials from Hubei province dispatched 29 teams to the Dawu Group and took over the management of the company. The Dawu Group Legal Director Yang Bin revealed on Weibo on April 22 that the authorities have issued an official arrest notice to Sun Dawu, who by that time, had been in custody for more than five months. Six other senior officials of the company also received arrest notices. Sun was charged with crimes including illegally misleading the public to collect deposits, slandering and disturbing the social order, illegal mining, illegal occupation of farmland and more. Sun is currently being detained at the Hebei Gaobeidian Detention Center. Yang wrote that a number of signs indicate that the investigative agency is speeding up the pace of the case.

Netizens posted comments calling the charges ridiculous and said that the officials can always come up with charges if they want to. [Editor’s note: The Chinese idiom 欲加之罪何患無辭 is applicable. It means, “He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick.”]

Sun is another outspoken person who was imprisoned for speaking up against the current regime. For more information, please see the previous published briefing on Sun’s arrest: Four Reasons Why the CCP Arrested Farmer Businessman Sun Dawu, http://chinascope.org/?s=sun+dawu

Source: Apple Daily, April 23, 2021
https://tw.appledaily.com/international/20210423/7S7BDLX6Z5HLZIUYDLZHGTRC5Y/

The Hong Kong government’s Education Bureau recently submitted a written response to the city legislature’s Legislative Council, disclosing the number of students in each district and each grade of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong in the 2020/2021 school year. The statistics showed a loss of more than 14,000 enrolled students in government subsidized schools as compared to the previous school year, a record high for the past five years.

In primary schools, there was a loss of 4,900 students, a 22-fold increase over the 200-odd dropouts in the 2019/2020 school year. In secondary schools, there were usually a few thousand dropouts every year, but the number of students enrolled this year saw a loss of nearly 9,200 students, more serious than last year.

According to Cheung Yung Pong, the honorary chairman of the Aided Primary School Heads Association in Hong Kong, parents, regardless of their political background, are concerned about the changes in the social and political environment and in the education reform in Hong Kong over the past two years. They have lost confidence in the future of Hong Kong. “Those who can afford to leave will do so and those who do not leave for the time being will also transfer their children to international schools to prepare for emigration.” Cheung believes that the government and the Legislative Council are about to change, setting off waves of repercussions. This year’s dropouts have not topped off, and the situation may be worse next year.

Source: Sing Tao Daily, April 15, 2021
https://std.stheadline.com/daily/article/2349887

Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently published a long article in the Macao Herald to commemorate his mother. The article mentioned that, for him, to work inside the Zhongnanhai leadership compound was like walking on thin ice. At the end of the article, he wrote, “In my mind, China should be a country that has complete fairness and justice,” but the article was banned from being shared on WeChat citing violations of WeChat policy. The contents shared on Phoenix.com and other media were also deleted.

Many people are shocked that Wen’s article was blocked from being shared and wondered why. Cai Xia, a CCP party school professor currently living in the U.S. said that Wen did some self-reflection in the article. There was no mention of democracy or the rule of law but it was still banned from being shared. This suggests that the ruling party fears the rights of the people. @LifetimeUSCN commented on its twitter account that Wen’s mentioning the danger and risk that he faced while working inside the Zhongnanhai CCP leadership compound might have upset Xi Jinping.

When Wen Jiabao was the prime minister and Hu Jintao was the general secretary of the CCP, people referred to them as the “Hu-Wen Administration.” It was considered by many to have been a stable period. Wen Jiabao was regarded as a moderate and open-minded leader because of his advocacy of universal values in party newspapers. He also repeatedly expressed the hope of promoting political system reform.

Some netizens believe that there is another important reason why Wen Jiabao still got attention in China. The Hu-Wen administration is considered to be much better than the current “new era.” Although it was also a one-party communist dictatorship, at least it was not like the current stage where everything is determined by the “Supreme One” [Xi Jinping] who amended the constitution and became a self-proclaimed emperor. SARS didn’t spread to the world and became a worldwide epidemic. Hong Kong was not like what it is now, and there was no trade war between China and the U.S.

Source: Radio France Internationale, April 19, 2021
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20210418-%E6%B8%A9%E5%AE%B6%E5%AE%9D%E5%BF%86%E6%AF%8D%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0%E5%BE%AE%E4%BF%A1%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2%E5%88%86%E4%BA%AB