Outlook Weekly: How to Reform China’s Financial Safety System
CRN: China’s Manufacturing Industry Is Actually Weak
People’s Daily: A Summary of Party Development Work at Universities and Colleges
In August 2004, Hu Jintao led the central administration in issuing the “Opinion on Further Strengthening and Developing Political Education for College Students.” Since then, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education, and the Central Commission of the Chinese Communist Youth League have developed a total of 17 guidelines and plans. On July 20, 2012, People’s Daily published an article that summarized the systematic effort the central administration has carried out over the past eight years to strengthen the political ideology education work throughout the university system.
According to the article, since 2004, the Organization Department, the Central Propaganda Department, and the Ministry of Education have conducted six meetings on college campuses on the subject of Party development work. By June 30, 2011, 81,311 Party branches had been established on 2,383 colleges and universities. The end result is that there are Party members in each freshman class, Party groups in each sophomore class, and Party branches established in the junior and senior classes.
The Department of Education also established an Ideological and Political Theory Course as a college requirement for students. For example, Nankai University invested at least 500,000 yuan in annual funding in this area.
In addition, an effort has been made to develop Party assistants on each campus so they can play significant roles in Party development. The media and the Internet have also played key roles in Party development work.
Source: People’s Daily, June 20, 2012
http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1026/18239464.html
Chongqing New Leadership Vows to Maintain a Clean Government to Gain the People’s Trust
On June 22, 2012, the 4th Municipal Committee of the City of Chongqing held its first plenary session. Zhang Dejiang was elected secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee. In a speech that Zhang gave, he promised, on behalf of the new committee, to run a “clean government.” Zhang requested that each committee member should exercise self restraint in his personal behavior and should manage himself, his spouse, his children and his assistants in order to establish a reputation for clean governance and to gain the people’s trust.
Source: Xinhua, June 23, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-06/23/c_123320299.htm
Xinhua Commentary Calls for Counter Measures against the Law on the Sea of Vietnam
On June 21, 2012, the Vietnamese National Assembly passed the "Law on the Sea of Vietnam." The law proclaimed Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. However, China claims the islands are the “indisputable” territory of China. Jia Xiudong, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, wrote a commentary on Vietnam’s action, originally from People’s Daily’s overseas edition, which Xinhua published on June 23.
In the commentary Jia called the "Law on the Sea of Vietnam" viciously provocative, saying it openly intensified the dispute between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea. The commentary claimed that the law is illegitimate because it seriously violates the basic principles of international law, including the "Declaration on the Code of Conduct on the South Sea," an agreement that both parties reached last October. The article called Vietnam’s government “too selfish” and “lacking sincerity.” In the end, Jia called for counter measures against Vietnam until it backs off on this issue.
Source: Xinhua, June 23, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2012-06/23/c_112273765.htm
Dai Xu on Establishing the South China Sea Construction Corps
Huanqiu Editorial Comments on U.S. Congress’s Regret for Passing the Chinese Exclusion Act
After the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on June 18, 2012, expressing regret for having adopted the Chinese Exclusion Act 130 years ago, China’s state-run media, Huanqiu, published an editorial commenting on its passage. Huanqiu said, “China should probably not place a whole lot of hope on the American’s ‘new awakening.’ The U.S. Congress’s awakening has already sent us enough messages. The U.S. is a country that can also make mistakes. Its attitude toward other countries may well be out of whack, or even too extreme. When it involves China, we should particularly pay attention to the truth.” “Today, the U.S. attitude toward China is far from being based on any system of objective evaluation. A vast majority of the American elite are full of prejudice toward China, which is very similar to the situation over 100 years ago when Americans discriminated against the Chinese. American media usually use such labels as ‘tyranny’ or even ‘totalitarian’ to describe China. They are not willing to carefully study the internal force behind China’s rapid development.”
Source: Huanqiu, June 20, 2012
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/1152/2012-06/2836326.html