“Tang Ping” has become a social buzzword in China. It refers mainly to the younger generation, to those who choose to take a passive attitude toward life and to stay away from the fierce competition in China. This vast form of passive civil disobedience came at a time when the communist regime was promoting “working and consuming” to keep the economy running, as it faces international isolation. At the beginning of this year, the CCP’s mouthpiece People’s Daily issued number of articles urging young people to abandon this idea.

Recently, however, it appears that CCP party officials have taken on the “Tang Ping” attitude at work. On September 27, People’s Daily published an article that the CCP organization department in Longwan district, Wenzhou city of Zhejiang province wrote. The article highlighted a phenomenon that some party officials are holding a “Tang Ping” mentality because of re-election. It cited that some officials have stopped doing their jobs or taking any responsibilities because they feel they have reached their retirement age or they have little chance of being elected or promoted. The article appealed to the officials to change their attitude and not to “Tang Ping.” It asked them to change their mentality for the sake of the party and the nation and to put self-interest behind the bigger goal (of the party).

Source: People’s Daily, September 27, 2021
http://m.people.cn/n4/0/2021/0927/c4304-15218152_2.html

China’s Central Talent Work Conference was held in Beijing last week. At the meeting, Xi Jinping proposed that China should thoroughly implement the strategy of strengthening the country with talent in the new era. China should “train, introduce, and make good use of” talent in an all-round way, and accelerate the construction of an important talent center and innovation highland in the world. In addition, he also encouraged talent to be patriotic and expressed the need to insist on the (Communist) Party” managing the talent.”

Xi Jinping also mentioned that, by 2025, the construction of the main force of technological innovation will make important progress, the level of gathering of top scientists will be significantly improved, and there will be many with strategic scientific and technological talent in key core technology fields. By 2030, he hopes that there will be a group of leaders and pioneers in major technological fields and emerging frontiers. By 2035, he hopes that China’s strategic scientific and technological strength and high-level talent team will be among the best in the world.

In March this year, China issued the “Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and Long-Term Goals for 2035.” The outline mentions the need to promote the optimization and upgrading of manufacturing industries and the strengthening of the country’s strategic scientific and technological capabilities. The outline reads: “Develop and implement strategic scientific plans and scientific engineering in basic core areas related to national security and overall development. Aiming at artificial intelligence, quantum information, integrated circuits, life and health, brain science, biological breeding, and aerospace technology, deep earth and deep ocean, and other frontier fields, implement a series of forward-looking and strategic national major scientific and technological projects.”

After the U.S. government’s review, the term “Thousand Talents Program” has now disappeared from the Chinese Internet, but the recruitment of talent continues to exist in many different forms. In 2019, the long-term innovative talent projects, short-term innovative talent projects, entrepreneurial talent projects, young talent projects, and overseas high-level talent projects under the “Thousand Talents Plan” were unified into the high-end foreign expert introduction program that the Ministry of Science and Technology of China initiated. This year, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China launched the 2021 national foreign expert project application work  and the China University of Mining and Technology and other institutions of higher learning have also issued notices that they will start the application of the 2021 national foreign expert project.

Source: Voice of America, October 6, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Xi-calls-for-building-worlds-talent-center-for-future-development-20211006/6257788.html

Fu Zhenghua is a key official in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) law enforcement system. From 2013 to 2018, he served as the Deputy Minister of Public Security . In 2015. He became the head of the “610 Office” (an organization that the CCP set up to persecute Falun Gong) He was the Minister of Justice from 2018 to 2020. Afterward, he was moved to a semi-retired post in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

On October 2, 2021, the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that it was investigating Fu for “serious violations of discipline and national laws.”

Epoch Times reported two cases in which Fu was against Xi:

The first case was the handling of the death of Lei Yang. Lei Yang was a Chinese environmentalist who died while in police custody in Changping District, Beijing. An independent autopsy confirmed that his death resulted from police brutality. The police said Lei was soliciting a prostitute in a convenience store and thus they arrested him. Lei’s family rejected the accusation.

When the case was reported, the general public overwhelmingly demanded that the police officers who abused their power be punished. Xi Jinping even gave an order, requesting to “address the case fairly and with justice.” However, over 4,000 Beijing police officers wrote a joint letter to Xi, to protest the arrest of their “comrades” and threatened to quit. Xi was furious for the threat and ordered an investigation. It turned out that Fu was behind the letter. Xi was afraid that if those police officers quit, the gangsters in Beijing might then be out of control, so, in the end, he yielded. The government let those police officers go.

The second case was reported by a wealthy businessman, Xu Chongyang from Wuhan, Hubei Province. He wrote an 18,000-word letter on how the officials stole his assets worth over 100 million yuan (US $16 million). His letter also revealed that Fu was involved in Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai’s anti-Xi work.

In Xu’s account, the Beijing police officers said to him during an interrogation, “You mailed a letter to Xi Jinping’s cousin, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Hu Jintao, and to Xi Jinping. Do you know, Hu Jintao is just a fool? If our boss Fu gave us an order, we could kill him right away. Xi Jinping’s cousin was also under our monitoring.” (Editor’s Note: Hu Jintao was the General Secretary of the CCP at that time, but he did not have full power. Former CCP head Jiang Zemin, though retired, held more power via his followers including Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai.)

During the same interrogation, a staff member pointed to another person, “See him? He is the younger brother of Fu Zhenghua. Don’t say we monitor you, we even dare to monitor Wang Qishan and Xi Jinping. We asked you to stop (Xi’s) car but you didn’t do it. We want to announce to the outside world that it was Xi who ordered us to arrest you and to kill you. (We will) ruin him!”

Source: Epoch Times, October 2, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/2/n13276888.htm

At the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Talent Work Conference held in Beijing on September 27 and 28, 2021, Xi Jinping said that China’s competition for national power is a competition for talent. The top echelons of the CCP leadership attended the conference.

Xi said that China is currently embarking on a new journey to a modern socialist country in which high-level technological self-reliance is the key. “Competition for comprehensive national power is, in the final analysis, a competition for talent.”  Xi laid out a timetable for China to become a leading world power in science and technology within two decades, with world-class talent.

By 2025, China’s investment in research and development should have increased substantially, with major progress made in building up top-notch scientists for scientific and technological innovation. 

By 2030, China should have established a talent system that can adapt to the needs of high-quality development. The system should have significantly improved the ability to train and attract innovative world-class talent.

By 2035, China should have attained a competitive advantage in the competition for talent in various fields and should rank among the leading countries in the world for its strategic and technological strength, with an army of top-notch talent.

On October 2, 2021, People’s Daily issued an editorial promoting Xi’s remarks on the importance of recruiting, training, and using talent to build up national power. 

Sources:

1. The People’s Government of China, September 28, 2021 

http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-09/28/content_5639868.htm

2. People’s Daily, October 2, 2021

http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-10/02/content_5640810.htm