Shanghai Cracks Down on Relatives of Party Officials Who Conduct Personal Businesses
Duowei News published an article stating that, on March 1, People’s Daily published a front page article on how Shanghai is cracking down on the relatives of government officials because they run businesses and have launched enterprises. The People’s Daily article stated that, among 2,133 municipal level officials, relatives of 229 officials received the actions: the rules do not apply to 17 of them; 137 dropped out of the company business; 11 had their job transferred; 10 retired; 1 left the company; 3 were subject to serious disciplinary actions; and 50 signed written acknowledgements. The Duowei article noted that it is rare for a party official media to post local news on the front page. This could indicate that the issue of relatives of public officials conducting businesses has become a serious phenomenon, especially in Shanghai.
According to the People’s Daily article, In May of 2015, the Shanghai Municipal government introduced a regulation about the spouse of a public official or the children of public officials and their spouses conducting business. It specified that the spouses of the officials are not allowed to conduct business, while their children and the spouses of the children can’t have their own business dealings in Shanghai. Meanwhile, 20 percent of the officials who claim that their relatives have no business dealings can be sampled each year and subject to investigation. In 2016, it was reported that 182 out of 1802 provincial and department level officials in Shanghai received disciplinary actions. According to the Duowei article, the number went up in 2017, compared to 2016, which means that the scope of the investigation has expanded.
{Editor’s note: It is known that former President Jiang Zemin’s sons and grandsons are running businesses in Shanghai and have built a big commercial empire there.}
Source:
Duowei News, March 2, 2017
http://china.dwnews.com/news/2017-03-02/59803234.html
People’s Daily, March 1, 2017
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2017-03/01/nw.D110000renmrb_20170301_1-01.htm
Weibo Posting Exposed Chinese Youth League’s Involvement in Boycott Lotte Group
The Epoch Times, an overseas Chinese newspaper, carried an article that contained a screenshot of a posting taken from Weibo. The author of the posting stated that the Youth League of Hunan Province just issued a notice asking its Youth League members to “actively participate in the public opinion warfare against the Lotte Group in South Korea for its support of the anti-missile system (the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or THAAD). The posting stated that each youth league branch must submit no less than five commentaries or screenshots showing the forwarding of a specific Weibo posting to a given email address. Their participation in this warfare will be used towards their annual performance evaluation at the end of the year. According to the article, the official Weibo account of the Youth League of Hunan Province has issued a number of postings encouraging people to “boycott Lotte” and favor the Weibo postings that the Central Committee of the Youth League made. The article also quoted a couple of online comments. One questioned why the youth league uses taxpayer’s money to commit itself to something that brings no benefit to society; another comment stated that, “This is how the official public opinion is created.”
The tension between China and the South Korean government has been escalating over the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system that the U.S. is assisting South Korea to build. Although the project is reportedly aimed at assisting South Korea to defend itself from the North Korean missile threat, China claims that it will be a threat to China. On February 26, after the Lotte Group agreed to provide land to host the anti-missile system, over 20 Chinese citizens gathered in front of the Lotte Mart in Jilin Province holding banners to protest Lotte’s support for the anti-missile project. Soon after that, online postings asked people to boycott Lotte or any Korean made product. On March 1, the Lotte Group reported that its official site was hit by a cyber-attack.
{Editor’s note: Currently the screenshot of the posting can no longer be found online.}
Source: The Epoch Times, March 2, 2017
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/17/3/2/n8867475.htm
Liberty Times: Universities in Taiwan Must Sign “One China” Agreement to Get Exchange Students from the Mainland
Liberty Times published an article which expressed concern about the fact that universities in Taiwan are required to sign an agreement if they want to get exchange students from the mainland. In the agreement they have to promise that the university’s teaching materials will not involve politics or contain information opposing the “One China” policy. According to the article, even though the requirement violates the freedom of academic exchange, some universities in Taiwan still went ahead and signed the agreement. The article expressed the concern that, “The mainland may use the opportunity to enroll exchange students in order to exercise its control over freedom of speech and over the academic environment in Taiwan.” Shih Hsin University is one of the universities that was mentioned in the article. It has academic exchanges with over 50 universities and colleges in the mainland. However, since February 2015, three (mainland) colleges initiated the requirement for Shih Hsin University to sign the agreement. Shih Hsin didn’t disclose which those were but noted that there are 30 to 45 exchange students who come from these three universities each year. In addition the Liberty Times mentioned that St. Johns University also signed a similar agreement.
Source: Liberty Times, March 2, 2017
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/paper/1082360
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/1991258
Will Chinese Veteran’s Petition to Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Weaken their Loyalty to the Regime?
Hundreds of Chinese veterans broke through the government’s containment at all levels on Wednesday and held demonstrations in front of the Beijing Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. They demanded a better solution to their resettlement problems. How can these soldiers be able to organize protest demonstrations of considerable size at the sensitive time before the 19th Congress when Chinese society is so tightly controlled? Will the difficulties that these Chinese veterans have weaken the army’s loyalty to the regime? What will be the impact on the turbulent Chinese society? To answer these questions, VOA invited a group of Chinese scholars to participate in a live discussion.
Yang Jianli, founder of the Human rights organization “Citizen Power” said that for veterans to safeguard their rights is not a new phenomenon. Over the past 20 years, veterans have gone to Beijing to petition three times a year on average. Petitions in the provinces and cities are countless. The Chinese Communist Party at the highest level has always taken military stability as the last guarantee of power. To this end, Xi Jinping has taken great efforts to clean up military corruption. Even so, the army is not necessarily stable.
Gao Wenqian, author of the book The Chronicle of Zhou Enlai, said that many veterans can successfully go to Beijing to petition. In China’s extremely tight stability-maintenance system, it is impossible not to keep the petition plan a secret without leakage. One cannot rule out the possibility that someone will deliberately leak the information and bring the veterans “troubles” to Beijing (in order to) vent their dissatisfaction with the military reform.
Famous political commentator and writer Chen PuoKong said that there is a possibility that, behind the scenes, Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption, military reform, and the disarmament of 300,000 military personnel caused dissatisfaction among the entire military. One cannot rule out that Xi Jinping’s enemies within the Party and the military intended to attack him by encouraging veterans to make trouble, to create difficulties for Xi, and to cause problems for this year’s Two Conferences or the 19th Congress.
Source: VOA, February 24, 2017
http://www.voachinese.com/a/ProandCon-20170224-Chinese-military-veterans-stage-protests-in-Beijing-over-pensions/3738523.html
Duowei: Why The World Looks to China Now?
A Duowei commentary stated that, as the Western countries are getting into more trouble, the world is looking to China for its leadership.
The article gave several reasons. First, China has become the second largest economy in the world. Second, China has made progress in improving its discourse power in the world economy. “It seems that China has sent a positive message to the world: ‘When the Western world, led by the U.S., no longer wants to uphold the banner of free trade, China will take over the banner.’” Third, China’s plans for world and regional economic development, such as its proposal of “one belt, one road” and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, are attractive.
“To China, the world has placed a huge responsibility and pressure on it; but it also gives (China) a historical opportunity. When the Western world started to have a management crisis and lost its ability to circumvent China and when globalization ran into problems and needed some big countries to provide global offerings, China got the opportunity to expedite its peaceful rise.”
Source: Duowei, February 25, 2017
http://opinion.dwnews.com/news/2017-02-25/59802160.html
Xinhua: China Does Not Welcome Lotte Which Acts As the Paws of a Tiger
On February 27, Xinhua News Agency dispatched a commentary with a metaphor indicating that the Lotte Group’s approval of a land swap deal to enable South Korean authorities to deploy the controversial U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system was tantamount to “stabbing China in the back.” Continue reading