Di Dongsheng is a professor and vice dean of the School of International Studies (SIS) at Renmin University and deputy director and secretary-general of the China Center for Foreign Strategic Studies. Di is known for a public speech he made last November in which he boasted that China has influence in the U.S. political circles. [Editor’s note: That article “CCP Scholar: CCP Can Use Wall Street to Influence the U.S. Political Circle, December 6, 2020, can be seen at http://chinascope.org/archives/25265]

In a video published in February this year, Di gave another talk titled, “Belt and Road 2.0 in the Post COVID 19 Era: Exporting China’s Governance Experience and Capability.” In this talk, Di stated, “The goal of the Belt and Road initiative is to internationalize the Renminbi (Chinese Yuan) and replace the U.S. dollar.”

Di said that the Belt and Road initiative is not about (controlling) resources, in fact it is about defining the value of the RMB: “We go after the younger generations in the belt and road countries. They don’t have money but they want to buy things. We loan money to them. We invest in them. We hire them. Once they have income and money, they will buy products made in China. We will continue to use the money and loan it to them and eventually we will let the people in those countries be part of the Renminbi currency cycle.” Di proposed a model in which Beijing would build special zones (like the Shenzhen special economic zone) in the belt and road countries and then the Chinese people would migrate there. Beijing would still hold the governing power over the Chinese migrants and the local ethnic population in the zone. He also claimed that, “China’s national debt will become the global value-based benchmark. The Chinese people’s consumption power will give birth to the world’s largest market and the Renminbi will become the future world’s currency.

Gong Shengli, a Chinese economist, slammed Di’s statements saying it was merely empty talk because there is lack of trust in the Renminbi in the world and in China’s one-party political system. Gong questioned how many countries have purchased Chinese bonds and where  the economic return is from the Belt and Road Initiative. A Taiwanese economist Wu Jialong said that Di’s statements were simply to please Beijing which is in line with China’s rising power narrative.

Sources:

1. NTDTV, April 2, 2021
https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/04/02/a103087367.html
2. Guan Video, February 3, 2021

According to a recent report in Chinese media, Alibaba has recently established a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee at its headquarters in Beijing. Previously, the company only had a CCP committee at its Hangzhou headquarters. After the implementation of the “dual headquarters” in Beijing and Hangzhou in 2016, the company only had a CCP branch, instead of a CCP committee in Beijing, where CCP members accounted for more than 30 percent of its employees. The establishment of the CCP committee at its Beijing Headquarters has elevated the CCP’s organizational footprint in China’s largest e-commerce company.

1.585 million, or more than 40 percent of private enterprises in China have internal CCP organizations.

Hu Jia, a Chinese social activist, told Voice of America that, since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has built up CCP organizations within the state sector. Against the current backdrop of the severe international situation, the CCP wishes to extend its tight grip over private enterprises. “The most valuable ones are those of the unicorn type, which have new technologies and the capacity to innovate in the Internet economy. Such enterprises are capably of wealth creation and societal control, and can also participate in the international economic and technological competition and even confrontation. The CCP would like to have more power over these entities.”

The expansion of CCP committees in Alibaba is also seen by public opinion as a sign that the CCP is short of money and technology and wants to use private enterprises to “feed” state-owned enterprises. Sang Pu, a commentator, told the American media Sound of Hope that the party actually controls and manipulates private enterprises in mainland China. The reason why the CCP is strengthening the Party’s leadership is that it is short of money and needs to take further action against these tech giants.

The Constitution of the CCP and China’s Corporate Law allow the establishment of CCP organizations in private enterprises. As part of its United Front Work, the CCP proposed to “establish a modern private enterprise system with Chinese characteristics” and emphasized that the party should have three privileges in private enterprises: human resources, surveillance and audit, and the leadership over trade unions.

“To be successful under the CCP’s rule, private companies must have official support and maintain some kind of intimacy with the government. From the perspective of private enterprises, they have their own considerations. If you don’t have a CCP committee, and if you don’t give sufficient convenience for CCP members to conduct party activities, you will always have the feeling that big brother is watching you, and that your wealth and business are often in an unstable and insecure state. That is because officials can control you by any means, such as tax inspections, firefighting, public health and other channels.” Hu Jia said that Chinese private enterprises somehow have to show loyalty in order to have the opportunity to survive and thrive.

Source: Voice of America, April 2, 2021
https://www.voachinese.com/a/CCP-within-Alibaba-20210402/5838104.html