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

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

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Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

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The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.

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RSF: Hong Kong Epoch Times Printing Plant Ransacked again

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stated that Hong Kong Epoch Times printing plant was ransacked on April 12 for the second time in less than two years. It called on Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam to “put an end to the climate of suspicion surrounding independent media and that of impunity, which make such attacks possible.”

RSF issued a press release on April 14 stating that four armed masked individuals attacked the Hong Kong printing plant of the Epoch Times on April 12. The individuals not only threatened the employees of the printing plant, but also used a sledgehammer to damage the main printing presses and other equipment. Surveillance cameras recorded the whole incident. It was the second time that the Epoch Times printing plant in Hong Kong was attacked. Two years ago in 2019, the printing plant was set on fire.

Cédric Alviani, head of the RSF East Asia bureau, said, “By leaving previous attacks on journalists unpunished and creating a climate of suspicion against independent media outlets, the Hong Kong authorities are encouraging such violence.”

RSF stated that the Epoch Times is not the only media that has been violently attacked in Hong Kong in recent years. On July 1, 2019, several masked men vandalized Citizens’ Radio, an independent radio station. In 2015, two arson attacks targeted Pro-democratic Apple Daily. In 2014, an individual with a knife attacked and severely injured Kevin Lau, the former editor-in-chief of Ming Pao.

RSF pointed out that Hong Kong used to be a bastion of press freedom. At present, Hong Kong’s ranking in the RSF World Press Freedom Index has fallen from 18th in 2002 to 80th in 2020.

Source:

1. Central News Agency, April 15, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104150238.aspx
2. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rsf.org
https://rsf.org/en/news/hong-kong-daily-newspaper-epoch-times-ransacked-again

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Truck Drivers in China Face Risk of Excessive Traffic Violation Fines

Several excessive traffic violation fines given to truck drivers in China have caught the public’s attention.

On April 5, Jin Deqiang, a 51-year-old truck driver from Hebei province took his life because he received a 2,000 yuan (US$307) fine at a checkpoint because of a failed Beidou navigation connection inside his truck. The truck drivers in China usually make 200 to 400 yuan (US$31-$61) a day. In his suicidal note, he asked how a truck driver would know that the Beidou navigation was not working. He said in the past ten years of working as a truck driver, he didn’t make much money even though his health condition was deteriorating. He hopes his death will alert the officials to pay attention to the matter. He left behind his wife, three children and his mother.

Other truck drivers are experiencing similar issues with the Beidou navigation system. A Youtube video showed a driver sharing his experience. He said he was fined numbers of times for the bad connection. Even though he pays an annual maintenance fee for the system, he still wouldn’t know if the connection had been dropped as all the signals on the front panel appeared to be working. He said the authorities are using the navigation system as a tool to penalize the drivers while imposing the fine on the truck driver is not fair.

Another case happened in the northern mountainous region of China. A county was reported to have received 30 million yuan (US$4.6 million) or 1/3 of its annual revenue from traffic tickets. With no highway access, the county is the only path for local coal transportation. The area is very much underdeveloped so it looks to the law enforcement agencies for fiscal revenue. The county set up 10 traffic cameras on the main road within 40 mile stretch. The drivers are often tricked because of a sudden change in the speed limit and they have to pay 1,000 yuan (US$153) for each violation.

According to China’s National Business Daily, there are about 30 million truck drivers in China, and more than 90 percent are self-employed. These drivers not only have to deal with personal injury and accidents. They also have experienced excessive fines due to overloading, speeding and other violations.

Source:
1. Epoch Times, April 8, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/4/8/n12867732.htm
2. Sina, April 17, 2021
https://news.sina.com.tw/article/20210417/38256134.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China to Strengthen Military Training for High School Students

China’s Ministry of Education and the office of National Defense Mobilization under the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) released a “Syllabus for the Military Training of High School Students.” It will be implemented on August 1, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. The syllabus specifies that the military training curriculum for Chinese high school students should not be less than 56 class hours or 7 days in total.

According to the official website of the Ministry of Education, the preamble of the syllabus, which was released nationwide on March 26 and only announced on April 13, emphasizes that the syllabus was developed in order to implement fully “the Party’s education policy,” implement “the fundamental requirements of the goal of strengthening the military,” comprehensively regulate the organization and implementation of military training for high school students, and “strengthen the building of national defense reserve forces.”

The syllabus emphasizes that the organization of student military training is a “mandatory educational activity” in high schools, and is an important measure that will implement comprehensively the “Party’s education policy,” the “strategic military policy for the new era and the overall national security concept.” It will also strengthen national defense education, the building of the national defense reserve force and the quality of education for young students.

The syllabus specifies that the military training for Chinese high school students consists of two parts: “basic military knowledge” and “basic military skills.” The teaching time ranges from 7 to 14 days, with a total of no less than 7 days and 56 class hours (one “class hour” means one class period including the class break).

Among them, “basic military knowledge” includes 24 class hours, of which 12 hours are compulsory training and 12 are of optional training. “Basic military skills” has 88 class hours, including 44 hours of compulsory training and 44 of optional training.

This syllabus strictly orders that all types of high schools should not reduce the content of military training and the required hours. Schools are also encouraged to offer courses on military knowledge and skills training to broaden the content of military training.

Source: Central News Agency, April 13, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104130343.aspx

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

LTN: U.S. Lawmakers Called for Taiwan-Made Chinese Education to Replace Confucius Institutes

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, including Senator Marsha Blackburn and Congresswoman Michelle Steel, wrote to the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in March, calling for replacing the Confucius Institutes with Taiwan-based Chinese language education programs. The goal is to let U.S. students learn Chinese in an environment without censorship and threats. This new action is to build on the Taiwan-US Education Initiative created last December. The joint letter also copied Sung Kim, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacific Affairs. The U.S. lawmakers mentioned that there are still Confucius Institutes operating in 55 U.S. colleges today. On the surface, it appears to be an effort to teach Chinese language and the Chinese culture. In fact, the Confucius Institute is sponsored and monitored by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Many times, research has shown that its operations pressured the teachers to avoid anything that damages the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. However, we have to recognize that there is a global education need for the Chinese language, culture and history, which can be fulfilled by Taiwan-based education programs without any censorship.

Source: LTN, April 7, 2021
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3491720

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend US-China Relations

Shanghai Became the Most Expensive City in the World

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that, according to Swiss Julius Baer Group’s Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2021, Asia remains the most expensive region in the world and Shanghai, replacing Hong Kong, has become the world’s top city with the highest living cost. The report showed that Shanghai’s consumer prices increased by six percent last year, while the global average was only one percent. Shanghai’s business class airfare and hotel lodging price both increased rapidly. Hong Kong dropped its ranking from number one to number three. Tokyo now ranks number two. The Julius Baer Report covers 25 major cities in the world, mainly tracking the prices of 20 high-end products and services to compose high-end lifestyle indicators. This year’s focal point was on the impact of the pandemic and the findings showed a serious drop for travel related industries.

Source: Sina, April 9, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/china/dfjj/2021-04-09/doc-ikmyaawa8744146.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Global Times: Tencent Got Dragged into the MLB Debate

Global Times recently reported that U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred announced on April 2 that MLB will pull the MLB All Star game out of Georgia, citing disagreement over Georgia’s recent voting regulation changes. Fox News immediately jumped in on the same day saying MLB just signed a big broadcast contract a couple of days back with China’s Tencent, which had cut off its NBA broadcast in 2019 when Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey criticized China’s Hong Kong human rights matters. Fox appeared to try to prove that MLB’s voting rights position is hypocritical as if Hong Kong’s protests had anything to do with Tencent. In the meantime, Republican Senator Marco Rubio wasted no time to join the debate by suggesting that it’s ironic that MLB signed a new deal with a Chinese Communist Party supported company and boycotted an already-signed deal with the U.S. State of Georgia nearly at same time. Former U.S. President Trump also jumped in and called for a boycott of MLB, along with a few other companies. However, even former U.S. President Obama praised the MLB’s action. Current U.S. President Biden also “strongly” supported MLB. Out of blue, Tencent became the latest victim of U.S. politics.

Source: Global Times, April 4, 2021
https://bit.ly/2Qg6pL7

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China Launches Hotline for People to Report Unapproved Discussions of CCP History

China’s cyber regulator recently set up platforms for people to report “distortions of the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), attacks on CCP leaders and the denigration of heroes and martyrs.” It quotes the CCP’s General Secretary Xi Jinping who once emphasized the need to “clearly oppose historical nihilism.”

In the modern Chinese Communist’s discourse, “historical nihilism” is a term that refers to the criticism of the socialist system or the leadership of the CCP. Xi Jinping once said that the key of “historical nihilism” is to deny fundamentally the leading position of Marxism and the historical inevitability of China’s socialist path, and to deny the leadership of the CCP.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the nation’s top cyber regulator, recently circulated an article on its WeChat public account. “Some people with ulterior motives, under the banner of so-called ‘reflecting on history’ and ‘recovering the truth,’ have been spreading false remarks of historical nihilism by taking things out of context and making things up out of nothing.” The article said, “They maliciously distort, denigrate and deny the history of the party, the state and the military, in an attempt to confuse people.”

CAC’s report center opened a channel for reporting “harmful information related to historical nihilism” on its official website, its smartphone apps and its telephone hotline. Accepted contents include: distorting the history of the CCP and China, attacking the CCP leadership and its ideology and policies, denigrating heroes and martyrs, and denying the traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture.

Xi Jinping attaches much importance to the education of CCP history. In one meeting in 2013, he mentioned that one reason behind the collapse of the Soviet Union was the denial of the Soviet Union, the denial of the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the denial of Lenin and Stalin, and historical nihilism. In another meeting in February this year, he said, “One must clearly oppose historical nihilism, strengthen ideological guidance and theoretical analysis and clarify the ambiguous knowledge and one-sided understanding of some major issues of the party’s history.”

Source: Central News Agency, April 11, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104110163.aspx

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics