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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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Over 130,000 Legal Complaints Filed against Former Chinese Leader Jiang Zemin

According to Minghui.org, between May 27 and August 6, 2015, the Minghui website editors received copies of criminal complaints that had been filed by 134,386 Falun Gong practitioners in China and other countries against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin. The complaints urged the procuratorial organs [in China] to conduct criminal investigations into Jiang for his role in launching the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. The report said that, due to the Internet blockade, the actual numbers of complaints are far more than what is being reported.

Hebei, Liaoning, Shandong, Heilongjiang, and Jilin provinces are the top five regions where the practitioners have filed their complaints. The website said that, based on the receipt confirmations that the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Supreme Court have issued, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee received over 59,380 of the complaints, accounting for 53 percent of the total number of copies that the Minghui website received. 
Source: Minghui.org, August 8, 2015
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2015/8/8/%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%87%E5%9B%9B%E5%
8D%83%E4%BA%BA%E6%8E%A7%E5%91%8A%E6%B1%9F%E6%B3%BD%E6%B0%91-313827p.html
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Huanqiu: Foxconn Shifts Its Investments to India

According to a report by Huanqiu, Foxconn, the supplier for Apple, Blackberry, Xiaomi, and Amazon, has signed a US$5 billion contract with India to build an electronic manufacturing plant. The article said that, as one of the fastest growing markets for smart phones, India is a country that smart phone manufacturers, including the ones from China, wish to tap into. In addition to Xiaomi, the TCL Corporation, another Chinese multinational electronics company, is planning to build its plants in Brazil and India. As the manufacturing costs continue to grow in China, driven up by the increase in labor, currency, and energy costs, the price of China made products is close to the U.S. The article said that having investments in countries like India will not only consume the excess production capacity that China has but will also assist Chinese enterprises to “step out” and gain added value for China made products.

Source: Huanqiu, August 7, 2015
http://finance.huanqiu.com/ppgc/2015-08/7232641.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Disciplinary Committee to Inspect State Owned Enterprises

Guangming Daily published an article reporting that State Owned Enterprises will be required to impose strict party disciplinary policies on their Party members. The article stated that the Central Politburo will soon issue a guideline on the Party’s Inspection Work, which the Central Inspection Group will implement. The plan is to conduct inspections that will cover all State Owned Enterprises. The article said that the guidelines should mainly focus on detecting the existence of formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, and extravagance. For any identified issues, the guidelines require that they to be elevated to the Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Ministry of Organization, or Party organizations within the State Owned Enterprises. Meanwhile necessary actions should take place immediately. The article said that if the issues are being held up without being addressed, the punishment could be severe.

Source: Guangming Daily, August 10, 2015
http://politics.gmw.cn/2015-08/10/content_16604699.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Global Times: U.S. Cyber Retaliation Would Trigger a Tit-for-Tat Conflict

The Global Times published an editorial in response to a New York Times report that the Obama administration is planning to "retaliate against China for the theft of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans from the database of the Office of Personal Management." 

In the editorial, the Global Times highlighted one of the most innovative responses, per the New York Times, which is to find a way to breach China’s Great Firewall. It also quoted an anonymous White House official who said that Washington needs "a full range of tools to tailor a response." 
Global Times argued that hacking attacks are usually elusive and hard to trace. Those which were seemingly launched in China might actually have come from another country. Therefore, the White House must take full responsibility if it takes so-called countermeasures against China based on ill-considered and ill-founded assumptions. 
The Great Firewall is a State-sponsored Internet management system. If U.S. cyber forces launch blatant attacks against it, the consequences will be serious. Unlike sneaky hacking, these attacks will be treated as a U.S. invasion of China. 
The editorial gave further warnings that, without question, if U.S. cyber forces took the first step, their Chinese counterpart would not stand aside and do nothing. There would be a tit-for-tat cyber conflict. 
Citing the New York Times article, Global Times was quick to point out U.S. "hypocrisy": U.S. intelligence officials say that the U.S. has placed "thousands of implants in Chinese computer networks to warn of impending attacks." Thus, it seems that it is the U.S. that keeps posing threats to Chinese cyberspace. 
Sources: Global Times, August 3, 2015 
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/935302.shtml 
NY Times, August 1, 2015 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/world/asia/us-decides-to-retaliate-against-chinas-hacking.html?_r=0
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Competition Might Save the Chinese Stock Market

On August 3, 2015, Chen Peixiong, a researcher at the Guangdong Industry Development Institute, published a commentary in Hexun stating that few understood the reason for the failure of the Chinese stock market. He proposed that competition among multiple stock markets might save the Chinese stock market. 

In the commentary, Chen held that the Chinese stock market is not a stock market. Therefore, any attempts to analyze, administer, and rescue the Chinese stock market by applying economics and stock market theories would be doomed. 
Chen said that one should go beyond the stock trades and should see whether the stock market moves with the economic trends. A stock market serves as an economic barometer of a country and its existence is conditioned upon whether it is consistent with the economic trends. It is totally nonsensical to say the Chinese style stock market is irrelevant to the Chinese economic trends. The problem with the Chinese stock market lies in the design of the rules or mechanisms. As a planned economy, China can regulate and monitor the stock market to the maximum extent, but it will have no effect. 
Chen recommended either allowing multiple stock markets to compete or to design a stock market outside the constraints of the current system. 
Source: Hexun, August 3, 2015 
http://opinion.hexun.com/2015-08-03/178026529.html
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Xi Jinping Is Determined to Put an End to the Dominance of Jiang Zemin

China Gate and several other overseas Chinese websites translated an article from the Diplomat on Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign in the Chinese military. According to the Diplomat‘s article, Xi Jinping’s decision to expel both Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong from the Party for corruption "reflects his determination to put an end to the dominance of Jiang Zemin," who was the former chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Jiang Zemin promoted Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong to the positions of vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission and Politburo members. "Guo and Xu continued to pay allegiance to Jiang Zemin even after he retired as CMC chairman."

Source: The Diplomat, July 31, 2015 & China Gate, August 3, 2015
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/guo-boxiong-jiang-zemin-and-the-corruption-of-the-chinese-military/
http://www.wenxuecity.com/news/2015/08/03/4459009.html

 

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Indications of No Summer Leadership Meeting in Baidaihe

On August 5, 2015, Xinhua News Agency published a news article titled, “Do Not Wait Anymore; No Meetings in Baidaihe.” According to the article, almost every year since Mao Zedong era until 2003, top current and retired Chinese Communist Party leaders met at the Beidaihe summer resort in July or August. The annual Beidaihe retreat meeting is one of the CCP’s most mysterious meetings. Many major decisions or policies have been made there. 

Recently, different sources have speculated on the themes of the coming Baidaihe meeting this August and whether or not one will be held. The Xinhua article recalled briefly the history of the Beidaihe meetings and concluded, “Not long ago, the CCP Central Politburo met twice, on July 20 and on July 30, which was unusual. They have already discussed "the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan," the CCP Fifth Plenary Session, economic strategies, the "anti-tiger campaign," and other important issues. The article questioned, "Is it meaningful, necessary, or possible to talk about these issues again in Baidaihe several days or ten days later?” 

[Editor’s note: In 2003, the New York Times commented that Hu Jintao’s decision to cancel the Beidaihe meeting was likely an attempt to limit Jiang Zemin’s influence.]

Source: Xinhua News Agency, August 5, 2015
http://www.ennweekly.com/2015/0805/16012.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-08/05/c_128096703.htm
New York Times, August 4, 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/world/chinese-leader-cancels-communists-seaside-retreat.html
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Chinese Communist Party Officials Required to Lecture University Students

According to the Ministry of Education, three central agencies, including the Central Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are requiring that leading cadres – top provincial officials – offer ideological and political education for college and university students. Each official should give a lecture at least once every semester, so as to ensure that all the college students in every university and college across the nation will have at least one opportunity to listen to a lecture on government policies given by a leading official.
"Recently, the CCP’s Central Organization Department, the Central Propaganda Department, and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the Opinion on Leading Officials to Carry Out Ideological and Political Education." The "Opinion" requires that the main task include promotion of the in-depth studies on the series of important speeches that General Secretary Xi Jinping has given, on socialism with Chinese characteristics, and on the Chinese dream. The lecture should include giving answers on major theoretical and practical issues that concern university teachers and students and helping young students to make a conscious decision when drawing theoretical boundaries between right and wrong. 
Source: China News Service, August 5, 2015
http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2015/08-05/7449845.shtml
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics