In its relatively short existence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has shown a remarkable resiliency. It has managed to survive one major crisis after another, evolving and emerging largely unscathed from each, a phenomenon that has baffled many China analysts. To name a few examples, CCP has withstood the economic fallout from the Cultural Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the fiasco of the SARS cover-up.
News Briefs
An overview of what’s happening in China.
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About Arafat
[Editor’note: After the death of Arafat — the Palestinian President, major Chinese newspapers widely reported the news with lengthy feature articles. Xinhuanet, the official website of xinhua news agency, the Chinese government news agency, published on November 12, 2004, a report that quoted Chinese President Hu Jintao in his condolence letter. Hu said that president Arafat made great contributions to consolidating and developing the friendship between the two nations. Arafat’s passing away is not only a great loss for Palestinians, but Chinese people also lost a great friend. The following contains excerpts from this and other feature articles related to this topic.]
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Reports on the Presidential Inauguration
[Editor’s note: During the U.S. 2005 presidential election, China’s state media reported the whole process very extensively. Those reports reflect, to certain degree, the attitude of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the election and how CCP would like to influence the Chinese people. Below is a commentary article published on Xinhuanet on Bush’s inauguration speech. The titles of related articles are also listed.]
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Oriental Pearl or Oriental Hoax?
Lured by a seemingly attractive investment opportunity, Ying Jiuqing, a wealthy individual from Suzhou, a charming ancient city 50 miles away from Shanghai, China, spent close to 5 million yuan (US$570,000) to purchase 190,000 admission cards issued by the Oriental Pearl’s “Space City,” an entertainment outlet that claimed Joan Chen, a Hollywood actress whose stardom budded in Shanghai, as one of its investors. What he did not expect was that, instead of raking in millions of dollars as he had dreamed, he woke up to a six-year-long nightmare with no positive end in sight. These little plastic cards with a magnetic stripe would wipe out all his savings, suck up his business, and drag him into a government sanctioned fleecing of consumers.
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Product Piracy and Fraud in China
On January 12, 2004, the outgoing secretary of commerce Don Evans made a visit to China. Among other things, one of his major issues was asking China to stop product piracy, which is estimated to cost U.S. companies 3 billion dollars a year.
The number sounds alarmingly serious, but the reality is even far crueler. Product piracy and fraud in China is so widespread that it can be found almost everywhere, and in nearly all categories. As a popular saying describes, “everything is fake in China, only swindlers are true.”
The poster is meant as a joke, but sadly it also happens in real life. On January 15, China’s Quality News Network (http://www.cqn.com.cn) exposed the “Big Ten product quality frauds in 2004 (in China).” Below are some highlights:
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Within the Context of the CCP, the Term Public Servant Takes on a New and Sinister Meaning
In China, people often refer to the Chinese National Congress as a rubber stamp. People regard the Congress as no more than an official title, a body with no real legislative power. But the lameness of the Congress does not carry over to its delegates, who are treated as privileged authority figures. Even powerful officials of the public security system sometimes have to defer to C.N.C. delegates.
The social status of a Congressional delegate is illustrated by this story that was published in a Chinese newspaper and is often cited on Chinese websites:
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Selected Speeches by Jiang Zemin
[Editor’s Note: Former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong, a mind-body spiritual exercise in China, in July 1999. The following are the original documents of Jiang Zemin’s order to crack down on Falun Gong.]
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