On March 29, the Chinese Football Association announced the “Interim Provisions on the Management of Naturalized Players.” The provisions clarified the regulations covering the transfer, registration, participation in games, follow-up services, and management of the naturalized foreign players. The regulations require that naturalized players should accept, “traditional culture education,” understand Chinese history and national conditions, learn Chinese, recognize the national flag and the national emblem, and sing the national anthem. The party organization of the club must also conduct party history and basic education for the players. The club shall appoint a person to be responsible to monitor the players on their opinions, life, training, and playing condition, and submit a written report to the Chinese Football Association every month.

Many Chinese fans have reacted strongly to these regulations. Some have lodged the criticism that the purpose is not to find a player with good technique, but to find player who is obedient. There are also fans who sarcastically said that in order to play football, they must first learn to be a patriotic person who loves the party and they must study politics before they can be naturalized. Some people said that imposing the party organization’s education is indeed a bit overdone.

Source: Voice of America, March 30, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Foreign-Soccer-Players-In-China-Are-Required-To-Be-Taught-CCP-History-20190330/4854898.html

Xu Zhangrun, a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, published a number of articles last year criticizing Xi Jinping’s totalitarian political control and asked the authorities to re-construct the constitution, restore the president’s term limit, and “vindicate the June 4th incident.” Radio Free Asia (RFA) has learned that Professor Xu was recently stripped off all duties, prohibited from teaching and counseling students, and stopped from conducting scientific research activities. The relevant department of Tsinghua University may investigate his visits to Japan and the UK last year.

Xu Zhangrun, 57, is a professor at Tsinghua University Law School, serves as the director of the Center for the Rule of Law and Human Rights at Tsinghua University, and is a special researcher at the Tianze Economic Research Institute. Last year, he criticized Xi Jinping for unconstitutional abolition of the term limit for the presidency. Bao Tong, a Chinese dissident, called on the authorities not to silence Xu Zhangrun.

Currently news of Xu Zhangrun’s dismissal and suspension has been spreading continuously on the Internet. Chinese writer Zhang Yihe is calling for the solidarity of the intellectual community to step up and show support for Professor Xu. RFA stated that due to this sensitive timing before the “June 4th Anniversary,” it can’t be ruled out that the intellectuals in China could take joint action on the incident.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 25, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/scholar-03252019090019.html?encoding=simplified

Recently, the Communist Youth League Central Committee (CYLCC) launched a big-data credit app in partnership with the State-owned Tsinghua Unigroup. People with good scores can enjoy preferential treatment in education and employment. Analysts believe this is another attempt to control young people’s behavior.

The app is called Unictown. It is available for free download at the Apple Store. Each user of the app receives a credit score between 350 and 800. The user may be entitled to tuition discounts or preferential treatment in job hunting.

Citing the South China Morning Post, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that, unlike the three credit rating companies in the United States, Unictown gathers and analyses a huge amount of non-economic and non-financial data. Academic publications, inventions, and volunteer activities may increase the user’s rating, while cheating on exams and plagiarism may lower his rating.

Analysts believe that this is nothing but the digitalized version of the personnel files that the Chinese Government has on everyone in China which follow a citizen all of his life. Online postings critical of the Chinese Government will likely lead Unictown users to have lower credit scores.

Unictown is said to be one of the products in the China Youth Credit Management (CY Credit) system that CYLCC and Tsinghua Unigroup have established. CY Credit is expected to cover all Chinese between the ages of 18 and 45, estimated at around 460 million.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 25, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/xql-03252019104215.html