According to a survey released by Xinhua, half of the presidents of the provincial supreme people’s courts lack training in the law. Many of them are leaders of local governments, the Party or the People’s Congress. This happens because the Communist Party controls the entire judicial system. Appointing Party officials to the position of president of the provincial supreme courts is a demonstration of the party’s leadership over the administration of justice. Wang Shengjun, President of the National Supreme Court, is also the Party secretary of the National Supreme Court. In that capacity, he doubles as the Chief Justice. Wang recently stated in his article in the Party’s Qiu Shi journal that Chinese courts must uphold the supremacy of the cause of the Party, the people’s interests and the Constitution.

Source: Voice of America, July 21, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/2009-07-21-voa42.cfm

Xinhua reported that Xi Jinping, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Vice President of China, implicitly criticized Xinjiang Party officials as being responsible for the unrest, especially the events of July 5. Xinhua linked the two studies that Xi Jinping conducted recently, one in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region from June 17 to 21, and the other in Liaoning Province from July 6 to 8.

The article states, “Xi Jinping repeatedly stated ‘The key to resolve the Xinjiang issue is the Communist Party’ (in Xinjiang). In fewer than 20 days he has repeatedly urged strengthening the Party (and stated) ‘the cadre team is the most important’ (in Liaoning this time). Especially since Xi conducted research in Liaoning after the Urumqi, Xinjiang riot on July 5, we can see the high expectations the Party’s Central Committee has for cadre teams to have a strong ideological grounding, good moral standards, good administrative ability and a solid work style.”

Source: Xinhua, July 9, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-07/09/content_11680693.htm

Study Times, a newspaper by the CCP Central Party School, recently published an article on food safety. The article mentioned frequent food safety accidents that have occurred in recent years, which became a problem of wide concern for the entire society.

The article concluded that the government lost control of the issue and that the loss of control had three aspects: supervisory organizations were behind the offending technologies; the government’s control was not effective and credible due to limited resources; usually the local government gave some level of protection to offenders.

Source: Study Times, July 6, 2009.
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/WebPage/ny1.aspx?act=1&id=2766&nid=10036&bid=4&page=1

Xinhua carried a commentary by the International Herald which reaffirmed the policy to maintain overall control of the Internet. It referred to the recent “July 5 Riot” as an example and attributed the cause of the riot to overseas separatists who used the Internet to stir up and control activities inside of China. It also suggested a need for domestic developed online communities such as “Google,” “Facebook,” and “Twitter,” so that the government (the party) can systematically and actively manage the Internet’s contents.

Source: Xinhua, July 17, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-07/17/content_11723116.htm