Chinascope – Page 198

CCP’s Meeting with European and American Marxist Parties

On December 15, the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held a meeting with European and American Marxist parties through a video conference. Representatives of more than 20 European and American Marxist political parties and left-wing political organizations from Spain, Britain, the United States and other countries attended the meeting.

Song Tao, head of CCP’s International Liaison Department, said, “The CCP is willing to strengthen exchanges with Marxist parties around the world and promote the continuous development of the world socialist cause.” Song also relayed the remarks of Xi Jinping on the CCP’s concept of democracy.

According to the official People’s Daily, leaders of European and American Marxist parties spoke highly of the great developmental achievements that China has made under the leadership of Xi Jinping’s CCP Central Committee, and they endorsed Xi’s idea of democracy. They also expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation with the CCP, uphold multilateralism, and jointly promote the cause of world socialism.

Source: People’s Daily, December 17, 2021
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2021-12/17/nw.D110000renmrb_20211217_7-03.htm

Briefings | | December 21, 2021 | Geo-Strategic Trend

COVID Diary Writer Removed from Presidium of the Chinese Writers’ Association

Fang Fang, the author of the “Fang Fang’s Diary” that recorded the epidemic during the outbreak in Wuhan City, has been missing from the list of the presidium of a recent nationwide congress of the Chinese Writers’ Association (CWA).

Fang, born in Wuhan, is a member of CWA and was once on its national committee, the association’s governing body. CWA is a government affiliated organization that the Chinese Communist Party uses to control Chinese writers.

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan from late 2019 to early 2020, Fang wrote daily from January 25 to March 25, 2020, detailing her observations and personal reflections during the city’s closure. The diary was once an important source of information about the development of the epidemic in Wuhan, as it was closer to the truth than the official media reports.

During the publication of her diary, public and private pressure were already mounting against her. In April of 2020, after the announcement that her diary would be published overseas, she immediately became the target of nationwide criticism from pro-Beijing forces.

In an interview with foreign media, Fang did not back down in the face of pressure. She said that she had been ostracized by the Chinese authorities and the literary community, and that her literary career had changed forever. This was the first time she had encountered such a situation since she started her literary career in 1982. Fang believed that this shows that “far-left nationalism” is deeply rooted in China, especially in the minds of government officials.

In addition to Fang Fang, another famous Chinese writer Zhang Kangkang, who once supported Fang during the incident, was also excluded from the list of the presidium of CWA.

Source: Central News Agency, December 16, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202112160295.aspx

Briefings | | December 21, 2021 | Government/Politics

RFI Chinese: Chinese Company Will Build a Thousand Schools in Iraq

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that, according to officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Construction and Housing, Iraq needs to build a total of 8,000 schools “to fill the gap in the education field.” Iraq’s payment method will be petroleum products. Not long ago, with the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kazimi as a witness, Iraq signed 15 agreements with two Chinese companies. China Power Construction Group will build 679 schools, and Sinotech will build 321 schools. These school construction projects are part of the cooperation framework agreement between the governments of China and Iraq. The first batch of school buildings will start soon and will be delivered in one year. It will take two years to complete the construction of all 1,000 schools. This is the number of schools built in the first stage. Around 3,000 schools are expected to be built in the second stage, and 4,000 schools will be built in the final stage. There are 40 million people in Iraq. Of those, nearly 3.2 million school-age children are out of school. Iraq is a country with extremely rich energy reserves, but after decades of the war and corruption that has plagued the country, its infrastructure is declining.

Source: RFI Chinese, December 19, 2021
https://rfi.my/80uM

Briefings | | December 21, 2021 | Geo-Strategic Trend

People’s Daily: The Central Economic Work Conference Took Place in Beijing

People’s Daily recently reported that The Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing from December 8th to 10th. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the rest of the members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, attended the conference. The conference focused on summarizing the economic work in 2021, analyzing the current economic situation, and planning the economic work for 2022. The conference identified that the Chinese economy is facing the triple pressures of shrinking demand, supply shocks, and weakening expectations. The conference also recognized that, with the impact of the pandemic, the external environment has become more complex, severe and uncertain. The Party leadership asked for the people to adhere to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability. The conference demanded that next year’s economic work should be steady and focus on stability. All regions should take responsibility for stabilizing the macro economy, and all branches of the government should actively introduce policies conducive to economic stability. The official report of the conference used the word “stability” 25 times. The conference also laid out seven key policies: First, macroeconomic policies must be stable and effective; second, micro-economic policies must continue to stimulate the vitality of the market; third, structural policy should focus on smoothing the national economic cycle; fourth, science and technology policies must be firmly implemented; fifth, the reform and open-up policy must activate the growth momentum; sixth, regional policies should enhance the balance and coordination of development plans; lastly, social policies must hold the bottom line of people’s livelihood.

Source: People’s Daily, December 11, 2021
http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1211/c64094-32305295.html

Briefings | | December 21, 2021 | Economy/Resources Government/Politics

Hong Kong Democracy Movement Leaders Were Sentenced to Jail

China News recently reported that eight people, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of the newspaper Apple Daily, and former members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council Li Cheuk-yan and Wu Chi-wai, were sentenced to from four to fourteen months of jail time. They were sentenced because, last year, they participated in and incited others to participate in an illegal assembly. According to BBC Chinese, the judge stated that last year’s June 4th rally had not been approved due to Covid-19, but the defendants ignored the risk of virus transmission and called on citizens to gather in Victoria Park. Ultimately, there was no large-scale transmission resulting from that gathering. Jimmy Lai submitted a personal letter of explanation. He reiterated that he did not participate in the June 4th Victoria Park rally last year. He only held a candle in front of reporters to remind everyone to remember that there was a group of young men and women in Tiananmen Square 31 years ago who sacrificed their lives for truth and justice. He also said that if he had been guilty of mourning the June Fourth Movement, he would be happy to be punished and share the responsibility of seeking truth and justice for the souls of the dead.

Sources:
(1) China News, December 13, 2021
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/ga/2021/12-13/9628861.shtml
(2) BBC Chinese, December 13, 2021
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-59635861

Briefings | | December 20, 2021 | Geo-Strategic Trend

State Media Urges Communist Party Members to Have Three Children

The state media, China Report, published an editorial on November 23, 2021, urging Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members to have three children. The original article was removed the next day, and major Chinese media followed suit. Screenshots, however, have gone viral on social media.

According to the China Report editorial, CCP members have a personal obligation to help tackle the country’s plunging fertility rate by having three children.

Each CCP member is required to “align his thoughts and actions and those of his family with the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, and proactively and consciously take action to implement the three-child policy.”

“No Party member should use any excuse, objective or personal, not to marry or have children, nor can they use any excuse to have only one or two children,” said China Report. “Every Party member must bear the responsibility to implement the three-child policy for China’s population growth. Every Party member must also fulfill his obligation to grow China’s population.”

To the extent that some Party members can no longer have children due to age, health, and other reasons, the editorial urges them to “actively educate, guide, and encourage their family members or those around them to implement, actively and consciously, the three-child policy.” “You must never ignore or allow your family or people around you not to marry or have children, and you must never ignore or allow your family or people around you to give birth to only one or two children using this or that excuse.”

China Report is a state-owned media under the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, also known as the China International Publishing Group (CIPG).

Source: China Report, November 23, 2021
Screenshot at https://news.creaders.net/china/2021/12/10/2428749.html
Full text at http://huaitu.cn/news/68886.html

Briefings | | December 19, 2021 | Government/Politics

Taiwan: The CCP Interfered with a Taiwan Referendum

On December 18, Taiwan held four referendums. The Kuomintang, the opposition party, proposed all four of them to challenge the current administration’s decision. The voting result, though close between yes and no, rejected all proposals.

The Information Operations Research Group (IORG), a Taipei-based research group focusing on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) information manipulation and influence over Taiwan, found that the CCP conducted a heavy information war on one of the referendum topics: whether to ban imports of pork containing the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine.

Researchers pointed out that the CCP took on the ractopamine pork issue to ruin the Taiwan-U.S. relationship. The Taiwan government approved the pork imports last year, to remove a block for a free trade deal with the U.S. where ractopamine is widely used.

The IORG report found that from April to November this year, there were eight main hot discussions on the referendums and all of them could be traced back to the CCP. Among them, seven were about the ractopamine pork. On April 10, Beijing’s media started spreading a rumor that “the U.S. gets money from Taiwan by selling ractopamine pork and weapons.” In May, when COVID cases increased in Taiwan, the CCP’s media said, “Even after buying the U.S. ractopamine pork and weapons, Taiwan still cannot get COVID vaccine from the U.S.” After the U.S. announced that it would donate 750,000 doses of vaccine to Taiwan, the CCP changed its story line to, “Because Taiwan bought the American ractopamine pork and weapons, it should get the American vaccines.”

Other CCP information manipulation on ractopamine pork included spreading incorrect or fake news without scientific backing. Some examples follow: “Hong Kong detected Taiwan pork with ractopamine severely exceeding the standard.” “Taiwan soldiers ate the American ractopamine pork,” “Over 160 countries banned ractopamine pork,” “Following netizen’s words, China’s media called the ractopamine pork ‘drugs.’”

China’s Reaction to Trump’s Election Win

Xinhua Commentary Series: Spotlight on the U.S. Presidential Election

Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized