On March 27, 2019, China’s Ministry of Justice announced that, by the end of August 2019, it will implement a professional evaluation system and assessment mechanism for lawyers throughout the country in furtherance of the reform in managing lawyers. The review criteria include the political performance of lawyers. In other words, it assesses whether they support the leadership of the Communist Party.

The professional evaluation system and assessment mechanism first began in March 2017 as a pilot program in Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, Anhui Province, and Shaanxi Province. The Ministry of Justice said that the rating process is conducive to distinguishing good lawyers from bad ones.

According to the website of China’s Ministry of Justice, four criteria must be met: political performance, integrity, years of practice, and the ability to practice.

The focus will be on the first two criteria. The first criterion “political performance” requires that lawyers participating in the rating process must support the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist rule of law. Under the second criterion “integrity,” if the Communist Party disciplined a lawyer or if he received administrative punishment within the past five years, he will not be eligible to participate in the rating process. Big data will be used to gather information about lawyers’ political performance and integrity.

Source: China’s Ministry of Justice, March 27, 2019
http://www.chinalaw.gov.cn/government_public/content/2019-03/27/tzwj_231623.html

Recently in China, multiple incidents have occurred in which students reported on university and college faculty members after which these faculty members were dismissed. The students who report on their teachers are called “academic informants.” In Chinese universities, an institution exists in which some students are designated to serve as informants. They report to the school authorities on a regular basis. Student informants are the eyes and ears of the school’s party and political authorities and are also a part of the ideological and political work team.

According to the Wuhan University of Science and Technology’s (WUST), “Administrative Measures for Student Academic Informants at Wuhan University of Science and Technology” were published on its official website in October 2018. Student informants are generally students with an excellent academic performance. Their duties include: “to collect and organize a wide range of teaching and management related information”; “to report promptly on the students’ opinions and suggestions about the teachers’ teaching attitude, content, methods, and quality of teaching, homework grading, and extracurricular tutoring.” The student informants fill out the teaching information feedback form once every two weeks. The Administrative Measures also require that the school be responsible for the confidentiality of students who report teaching information. In addition, the school will issue a certain amount of remuneration each semester based on the informant’s performance.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Song Yongyi, a scholar living in exile in the United States and a staff member at California State University, Los Angeles, said that the student informant has always been a tool for controlling colleges and universities.

“That is the spy culture of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In order to control colleges and universities, the CCP often directly develops spies among students. There is now a large-scale use of student informants because in the past, the party organizations in universities and schools were very obedient. If they hear some remarks, they will report immediately. Today, the party organizations in colleges and universities are not so obedient, so the CCP trains agents to be informants.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, April 5, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/kejiaowen/nu-04052019105014.html

On March 20, 2019, the Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of Guangzhou, a city of 14 million people, which is adjacent to Hong Kong, announced that members of the public could earn up to 10,000 yuan (US$1,500) for providing tip-offs about “illegal religious activities.”

The announcement prohibits anyone from using “religions to carry out activities that undermine the social order, harm the health of citizens, or impede the State’s educational system.”

According to the announcement, the “illegal religious activities” that were targeted include the construction of temples and statues of Buddha, organizing pilgrimages, private Christian gatherings, spreading religion on the Internet, religious training, and the printing of religious publications that the authorities did not approve.

The department’s website said the new reward scheme also has the purpose of “resisting penetration” by foreign countries that use religion to Westernize or divide the Chinese people. “At present, the use of religion for infiltration activities abroad is pervasive and this trend is increasing.”

Further, according to the announcement, “at present, hostile forces and lawless elements carry our many illegal and criminal activities under the banner of religion. These activities undermine the unity of the country and national unity, violate the rights of citizens, and seriously endanger society.”

Sources:
Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of Guangzhou, March 20, 2019
http://www.gzmzzj.gov.cn/mzzjswj/gfxwj/201903/353dee928bb14ee1a76a86c07845c14e.shtml
http://www.gzmzzj.gov.cn/mzzjswj/zcjd/201903/8a55bc87d88b40e7892770575a0f927f.shtml

China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRFT) recently issued the “Regulations on Programs for Minors.” The regulations emphasized that the state supports and encourages the production of programs that “promote socialist core values” and “revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture.”

The “Regulations” then also included a universal term that minors’ programs must not contain “contents that display violence, blood, terror, and abetting crimes or imparting criminal methods; nor should they contain sexual topics and graphical pictures other than health education.”

NRFT, the state censor, also emphasized that minors’ programs must not contain contents that “distort national history or national historical figures, or that distort, vilify, defame, or deny the deeds and spirit of heroic martyrs.” Nor should they “proclaim, beautify, or worship the countries, events, and characters that launched the war of aggression against China or carried out colonial rule.”

China’s leader Xi Jinping said at a “School Ideological and Political Theory Class Teacher Symposium” on March 18th that, in order to train the next generation that loves the party and loves socialist ideology, one must “start with the schools and start with babies.”

Radio Free Asia quoted from a Chinese student who is pursuing a doctor’s degree in the United States, “In fact, the trend began a long time ago. Kindergarten kids in China have to learn from Xi Jinping’s theory of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’ The Chinese government is comprehensively revising the Chinese language and history textbooks so that they conform to the Communist Party’s political ideology. In the future, the nationwide language and history textbooks will be under the unified control of the government.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, April 3, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/nu-04032017101958.html

On April 1, Qiushi, the official theoretical journal of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, published Xi Jinping’s speech from 2013 given to the new members of the Central Committee, the most powerful 200 some communists in China. Other mouthpiece media such as People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency also carried the speech in high profile.

In the speech, Xi emphasized what the so-called Socialism with Chinese characteristics is. “It is socialism and not other kinds (of “isms”). The basic principles of scientific socialism cannot be lost. If they are lost, it is not socialism.”

Xi also mentioned two historical periods. The first period usually refers to 1949 to 1978, when China was, for the most part, under Mao Zedong’ reign. The second period, 1979 through the present, refers to the post-Mao era of China. “It is necessary to evaluate the historical period before the reform and opening up correctly. (We should) not deny the historical period before the reform and opening up using the historical period afterwards, nor should we use the historical period after the reform and opening up to deny the historical period before the reform and opening up.”

The last section of the speech was on the two ideologies: socialism versus capitalism. “Facts have repeatedly told us that Marx and Engels’ analysis of the basic contradictions in the capitalist society is not outdated. The historical materialistic view that capitalism is inevitably dying and socialism is inevitably winning is not outdated. This is an irreversible general trend in the development of history, but the path is tortuous. The eventual demise of capitalism and the ultimate victory of socialism must be a long historical process. We must profoundly understand the self-adjusting ability of capitalist society, fully estimate the reality of the long-term advantage of Western developed countries in the economy, science, and military, and conscientiously prepare for all aspects of long-term cooperation and battles between the two social systems.”

Source: Qiushi, April 1, 2019
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2019-04/01/c_1124307480.htm

Taiwan Central News Agency (CNA) reported that Jiang Yanyong, a retired PLA physician, recently sent a letter to Xi Jinping requesting Xi to vindicate the June 4th student movement. In 1989, Jiang participated in the rescue of the victims of the Tiananmen incident and has been supporting the cause since then. During the SARS period in 2003, he was the first one to disclose the serious epidemic in mainland China.

On March 25, Hong Kong Cable i-CABLE News Channel broadcast an exclusive interview with Jiang Yanyong. Jiang called for the Chinese authorities to take the initiative to resolve the June 4th issue, give an accurate assessment of the incident, and minimize the social impact.

Jiang Yanyong is 87-years-old. He was the dean of the General Hospital of the PLA 301. He was forced to retire in 1993 because he refused to support the crackdown involving the Tiananmen incident. Jiang retired as a major general. Along with Bao Tong, the secretary for Zhao Ziyang, Jiang is considered a party liberal. For many years, Jiang Yanyong has written to the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party in a number of different forms, asking to vindicate June 4th. The suspicion is that, as a result, he was barred from leaving the country. However, he still believes that his advocacy is based on respect for human life. In addition to his support for the June 4th movement, Jiang is known for the disclosure of the truth about SARS in Beijing in 2003. It was Jiang’s interview with Time Magazine that forced the Chinese officials to disclose the situation of SARS prevention and control work in China. Jiang told the media that he must speak the truth. Although it is hard to do, after having been through so many political movements in the past fifty years, he must insist on telling the truth.

Source: China News Agency, March 26, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201903260118.aspx