Social Stability - 5. page

The China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) website revealed that in 2016 it uncovered and foiled a plot by a retired school official in Yunnan province to “violently overthrow the government.” The official, surnamed Su, had posted anti-government rhetoric online for years before contacting members of a “foreign hostile organization” to purchase weapons and recruit “death squads” for what he called the “Benghazi Project of China.” Su planned to carry out violent operations to subvert state power. China’s state security organs reportedly identified and arrested all those involved while the plot was still in early stages of planning.

The MSS said this case reflects the threat of “color revolutions” (referring to revolutions in post-Soviet states attempting to establish Western-style liberal democracy) and other attempts by “hostile forces” to undermine China’s political system and Chinese Communist Party leadership. “Political security is the foundation of national security,” it emphasized.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), August 15, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202308150324.aspx

Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that fertility rates in China are now among the lowest in the world. According to projections, the country’s trend of negative population growth will continue until the 2070s or 2080s.

In 2015, Beijing announced the end of its one-child policy, which had been in place for decades. The two-child policy was enacted the following year, followed by a three-child policy in 2021. These attempts to mitigate the country’s low birth rates have met with little success.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China in January this year, China’s population in 2022 decreased by 850,000 from the end of 2021. This was the first negative population growth in China in 61 years.

According to the article, China’s low fertility rate is attributable to three major factors: some people can’t afford children, some don’t want to have children, and some are not able to have children. The financial factor is due to unsatisfactory material conditions, such as housing pressure and low disposable income. Reluctance to give birth, on the other hand, stems from psychological factors. The government does not have many options to change the situation.

The future of China’s demographic structure looks quite pessimistic.

Source: CNA, August 12, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202308120027.aspx

A report from Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that a crackdown on corruption in China’s medical industry is continuing, with at least 10 more people in the field investigated in the past week. The most recently investigated include hospital directors and CCP secretaries. This brings the total number of people investigated to at least 159 since the beginning of the crackdown.

The report cited a case in which a hospital director pocketed a 16 million yuan in kickbacks after importing a linear accelerator at an inflated price. It also described how pharmaceutical companies are trying to gain a higher market share by infiltrating hospitals through various channels, and how the expectation of large kickbacks is squeezing medical suppliers and sales agents. According to one industry insider, average kickbacks to hospital insiders is 20% to 30%, while sales staff have been squeezed, receiving only very small commissions. This situation comes about because there is typically more than one supplier to a given hospital department for the same product, and the department will choose to purchase the product from the company that offers the highest kickback.

Some pharmaceutical companies have used the pretext of sponsoring scientific research funds and academic conferences to transfer illegal benefits. The industry insider said that some high-level hospital officials drive luxury cars or fly business class when traveling. They are often invited to meetings and travel often “while ordinary people have to face the high cost of medical care.”

The report said that the current medical corruption crackdown is targeting the key links of production, supply, sales, use and reimbursement in the medical field, and pharmaceutical companies have also become a central focus of the campaign.

The National Health Commission of China and the country’s disciplinary inspection and supervision organs have held video conferences to mobilize and deploy efforts in addressing medical corruption nationwide. The meetings stressed the need to “increase the intensity of discipline and law enforcement, focus on leading cadres and key post personnel, persist in investigating bribery, concentrate forces to investigate and deal with corruption cases in the medical field, and form a ‘deterrent'”.

The crackdown on medical corruption is a major initiative by the Chinese government to improve the quality of healthcare and reduce the financial burden on patients. It is a sign that the government is serious about addressing the problem of corruption in the healthcare sector.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), August 8, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202308080307.aspx

The Beijing Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee has voted to pass implementation measures for the “People’s Republic of China Anti-Terrorism Law.” The measures will come into effect on January 1, 2024. The passed measures cover a wide range of activities in daily life, including renting a car, renting a homestay, buying gasoline, and sending a parcel.

For example, the passed measures require that people who rent a car must be identified and their information must be registered. Postal and express companies must also conduct security inspections of parcels and register parcels information. Gas stations must identify people who buy gasoline and record the amount of gasoline bought and the purpose for which it is used.

The measures also require that people who rent a homestay be identified and that people who take the Beijing subway must undergo security checks. Drone owners must register their drones with the government and must update their registration information if they sell, transfer, damage, scrap, or lose their drone or if it is stolen.

Under the new measures, Internet service providers must take measures to prevent the spread of information that contains terrorist or extremist content. If internet service providers find information that contains terrorist or extremist content, they must immediately stop transmitting it, save the relevant records, delete the relevant information from the web, and report the incident to the public security organs or relevant departments of the government. Internet service providers that provide information on the sale of goods or accommodation, instant delivery, or car rental must provide technical assistance to the public security organs and national security organs in accordance with the law to prevent and investigate terrorist activities.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), July 30, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202307300108.aspx

An imbalance in educational resources in the Chinese city of Xi’an sparked intense debate last week. Parents sought answers from the local education authorities, asking why so many students from other provinces took the high school entrance exam (zhongkao) in the city this year.

After the Xi’an government released the results of the zhongkao (senior high school entrance examination) results on July 14th, rumors circulated that 40,000 of the 100,000 exam takers were “returning students” – students who came to Xi’an just to take the exam, hoping to later take the Xi’an gaokao (college entrance exam) because Xi’an has a lower college admission cutoff than other areas. This would potentially enable test takers to get into better universities.

Experts believe that the trend of allowing outsiders to take exams locally is “irreversible” in most cities, saying that authorities should be rational about zhongkao and gaokao migration and be more transparent about “returning student” data.

Xi’an officials responded last week, claiming only 3,608 “returning students,” or 3.5% of exam takers, took the zhongkao in Xi’an. The parents of local students, who were not convinced by the official data, protested against unfair use of local resources by outsiders. After widespread pushback from parents, Xi’an authorities launched an investigation. By Monday, police had detained 40 people for providing false registration information to ineligible students.

The “returning students” benefited from Xi’an’s 2017 household registration (hukou) reforms, which allowed non-local children of Xi’an hukou holders working elsewhere to take exams in Xi’an. The reforms also granted Xi’an hukou to outsider talent, making their children eligible to take Xi’an school tests as “returning students.”

Experts say the core issue at play is unequal distribution of educational resources nationwide, with college admission cutoff lines being different from one province to another. This gives rise to the phenomenon of “zhongkao migration.”

Authorities have vowed to verify each “returning student’s” eligibility and cancel admissions obtained fraudulently. By Monday, police had cracked down on institutions providing false services to ineligible students.

Source: BBC, July 24, 2023
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-66291281

During the Dragon Boat Festival at Peking University in China, a protester displayed slogans opposing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) authoritarian regime. The individual, dressed in a tan robe, held up a sign near the cafeteria on campus calling for the abolition of the one-party dictatorship and the adoption of a multi-party system. The protester voluntarily included his social media account information on the sign, which pointed to YouTube and Twitter accounts registered in May 2023. The accounts identified the protester as Zhang Sheng, a self-described Chinese writer.

Pictures and posts on Twitter documented the incident, showing the protester being escorted away by the university’s security personnel. When questioned about the event, Peking University’s security department neither confirmed nor denied the incident.

This protest marked a resurgence of criticism against China’s political system and demands for multi-party rule at Peking University, where similar demonstrations had taken place during the 1989 Students Movement. Notably, this demonstration occurred in the same location where students had protested against the “zero COVID” policy in November of the previous year. It is important to highlight that the “zero COVID” policy was subsequently abolished ten days after university students, including those from Peking University and Tsinghua University, expressed their opposition to it by holding up white papers.

The recent protest at Peking University aimed to challenge the one-party rule and promote political reform through the establishment of a multi-party system. Despite attempts to ascertain the whereabouts of the detained student by contacting the university’s security department, that department neither confirmed nor denied the event. This incident serves as a reminder of the ongoing tensions between dissenting voices and the Chinese government’s control over political expression on university campuses.

Source: Radio Free Asia, June 22, 2023
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/gt-06222023233902.html