On June 14, China’s new Premier, Li Keqiang, hosted the State Council meeting where he introduced plans for ten air pollution prevention measures and promoted the development of the photovoltaic industry.

The ten measures for preventing air pollution included, but were not limited to: limiting air pollution emissions; limiting production and growth of industries that consume high energy and create pollution; actively promoting “clean” manufacturing while reducing pollution emissions for key industries by 30 percent or more; increasing the usage of natural gas and coal methanol in order to speed up adjustments in the energy structure; strictly enforcing clean energy guidelines; and promoting incentives on projects to save energy. … The Council also stated that the photovoltaic industry is an important field for new energy development, although it is suffering from weak demand in both the domestic and international markets. The council called for efforts to strengthen the photovoltaic industry and promote product innovation and development to regain the photovoltaic market.

Source: Xinhua, June 14, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/14/c_116152393.htm

Xinhua published an article about developing Party membership in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, where 98 percent of the economic production comes from private enterprises.

According to the article, in the mid 1980’s, as more and more foreign investments poured in from Europe, the U.S., Japan, and Korea, the municipal government of Kunshan formulated a clear direction: to treat the importance of appealing to foreign investments the same as when developing the Party structure in private enterprises. For every foreign investment plan that was to be developed, all levels of municipal departments were required to come up with a plan to develop the Party structure in order to ensure that the “Party’s development moved in parallel with the economic development for each investment opportunity.”

According to the article, the City of Kunshan sent 352 full time Party cadres to the private enterprises. Those cadres, together with 3,668 Party leaders selected from the employees of the private sectors, formed a Party development team in Kunshan. They received financial incentives, as well as retirement and pension plans from the city.

The article disclosed that, because of the consistent Party development efforts in Kunshan, Kunshan currently has achieved "total coverage of Party membership" in private enterprises. Over 2,700 Party organizations have formed in private enterprises. They include 20,000 Party members, which accounts for 35 percent of the total Party members in Kunshan City. Of those, 75 percent hold key positions in their company.

Source: Xinhua, June 16, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-06/16/c_124861568_3.htm

On June 12, 2013, Chengdu authorities in Sichuan Province announced that they will train 1,000 volunteers to “spread civilization on the Internet” in order to monitor and control Internet postings.

In an interview with Chengdu Daily, a city official stated, “This year, our city will re-enforce the development of volunteer teams to spread civilization on the Internet. Chengdu will rely on 1,000 people at all levels of civilized units as the basic team, and will develop another core backbone of about 100 volunteers and a civilization commentator team of 15.”

To be assigned to selected websites throughout the country, these monitors will “effectively guide netizens not to use curse words and not to believe or spread rumors.”

Source: Chengdu Daily, June 12, 2013
http://www.cdrb.com.cn/html/2013-06/12/content_1864790.htm