CHINA – POLITICS
Top officials keen to push cultural reform
From October 15th-18th, the Sixth Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. Cultural system reform was set as the theme topic at this year’s plenary session. Later, a blueprint was approved to give the people richer cultural lives and boost the country’s soft power overseas to match its economic progress. The statement noted that China’s cultural industry will play a critical role in the country’s economic and social development and the government will devote more resources to boost public cultural services and speed up cultural reform. But for now, private and foreign investment will be allowed to play a bigger and more active role in the industry.
The media noticed that last time cultural issues were talked about as the main topic at the party’s leadership meeting was in 1996 at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the party. According toCaijing, “to develop the cultural industry” and push the “cultural reform” was first brought up 10 years ago at the 16th National Congress in 2002. And “cultural development as a means of strengthening the nation and advancing China’s soft power internationally, has been a top CCP agenda since 2007”, said CMP.
Economic Information Daily reported that relative government departments will form a joint mechanism to make cultural reform policies. A national cultural fund may be set up to help to boost the industry, tax concessions may also be provided to entitled companies.
Liu Binjie (柳斌杰), the president of General Administration of Press and Publication of China, told the media that China’s cultural system needs a fundamental reform.2
As China has overtaken Japan as the world’s No.2 economy last year, the government sees an urgent need to enhance the global image of its culture. The central government has already thrown big money overseas to boost its cultural influence, including setting up hundreds of Confucius Institutes and spending billions on advertising campaigns in key countries. But the international environment for China is still tense as neighbours from all regions have been acting more defensively and aggressively in bilateral relations. This is a warning to Beijing to adjust its foreign policy or figure out a way the outside world can perceive China as it does itself, and this maybe through cultural channels.
Domestically, the decision will boost the cultural industry dramatically as it only counts for 2.75% of the GDP at the moment. It also seems necessary to reclaim a new sense of national morality through reforms in a country where domestic media report on people afraid to give a hand to fallen elderly or toddlers on the street.
But as the South China Morning Post pointed out, it is less clear how much this government-led cultural reform can achieve as the authorities are stepping up controls on political and academic freedoms – the very elements needed to foster a cultural renaissance marked by inclusiveness, creativity and diversity.
On October 25th, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television’s (SARFT) issued an “entertainment ban” to clean up the national airwaves. Following the plenary session, the government decided to limit the number of entertainment shows allowed on television from next year, replacing them with compulsory moral education programmes. “The public are unhappy with the trend of excessive entertainment,” said the SARFT spokesman.
Workers protest in Shenzhen against low wages
With high inflation and the continuing global economic recession, the tension between workers and factory owners has remained high since last year. The recent two big protests in Shenzhen signals the unrest is still rising.
In Citizen Watch Shenzhen factory, more than 1000 workers started a strike on October 17th after the factory announced on October 16th a change in the salary computation method from piece-rate to a time-based system. The local government tried to mediate between the factory management and workers’ representatives. But most of the workers only resumed working on 28th after an agreement was reached.
Small business owners launch riot in Huzhou, Zhejiang
In Huzhou, on October 26th, a vendor refused to pay the tax required by a local tax bureau employee and called neighbouring vendors to attack the government worker. The incident triggered a mass riot which got more than 100 small business owners and their workers and hundreds of local residents involved. Protesters and their followers went to the township government of Zhili, “hometown of Chinese children’s wear”, smashing public facilities and overturning and setting fire to vehicles.
Xinhua said several police officers and city management officers were injured during the protest. It’s reported that 28 people were detained.
The South China Morning Post quoted a children’s garment wholesaler saying, “Some say the tax officers imposed a double tax on the garment makers from Anhui, but refused to give receipts.”
Thousands donate online to pay Ai Weiwei’s 15 million fine
Two weeks ago Beijing ordered Fake Cultural Development, the company artist Ai Weiwei runs with his wife, to pay more than Rmb15 mln in back taxes, interest and penalties within 15 days. Netizens started a campaign on November 3rd donating money online to help him pay the fine. Some supporters say the donation can be regarded as their “votes” for the artist.
According to Ai’s Google+ page, the campaign ended on November 13th midnight and the artist received RMB8.69 million from 29434 donors via Alipay, Paypal, China Construction Bank and post office, and some donations were in cash. Photos and screenshots of some of the wire transfer receipts were posted on Ai Weiwei’s Weibo pages including @艾葵花籽, @艾虎子and @瓜子艾 But these page were all blacklisted by Weibo administrators. Ai said he’ll keep the money for now but will eventually give it back to the donators.
Global Times published a commentary on November 7th, saying Ai’s campaign is way too dramatic and even if he has several thousands of supporters, they are still a small group of radicals in China, they can’t represent the majority of Chinese people. It also said Ai was raising fund illegally.
Ai told the media that he decided to use the donation as cash deposit to appeal, while Xinhua on November 10thannounced authorities are launching a three-month crackdown on illegal fundraising activities.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Ai said, “They follow you around until you have no energy and break down. It’s very successful. It’s a hundred departments, you can’t fight them,…You should commit suicide before you have to go through this … the tax bureau and the court and the police are the same person with different faces. You know this from the beginning. If you play a chess game, and play two or three moves, they throw the board away.” He’s very touched by the recent campaign started by his supporters, said “It’s beautiful to know that people still have the desire to speak out,…This demonstrates how people support us. They have never had a channel to express themselves.”
Chen Guangcheng: supporters blocked from birthday visit
44 Beijing-based petitioners travelled to Linyi to visit blind rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng on his 40th birthday, November 12th. They were blocked by the police before they made to his village, 13 were detained briefly, according to AFP.
The U.S. ambassador Gary Locke recently wrote to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to ask about Chen. U.S. lawmaker Chris Smith told the media that he would ask China to let his visit Chen and hope he is “still alive”.
On Weibo, many netizens posted birthday greetings on Chen’s birthday. Famous writer Zhang Yihe wished him plenty of sunshine, earlier on her Weibo, Zhang Yihe called for the top leaders to look into Chen’s case and says as long as the authorities treat Chen as a human being, the supporters can stop visiting him.
CHINA – DIPLOMACY
APEC: Hu resists Yuan pressure from Obama
President Hu Jintao defended China’s stance on yuan policy when pressed by Obama during an APEC meeting in Hawaii over the weekend. Obama again called for yuan appreciation and said American people and business community are increasingly confused and impatient by China’s policy and want concrete results.
Hu said the trade deficit and job-market problems the U.S. faces aren’t caused by yuan exchange rates, and those structural problems in the U.S economy can’t be resolved even with a big rise in the Chinese currency.
G20: Hu rejects Yuan appreciation pressure
Chinese President Hu Jintao called the world leaders to stop pushing for appreciation of emerging market in the strongest language yet from China on the exchange rate issue. “To keep asking emerging markets to revalue their currencies and reduce exports will not lead to balanced growth. On the contrary, it would only plunge the global economy into a ‘balanced recession’ and make sustainable growth impossible,” Hu said in his G20 speech on November 3rd in Cannes, France. Hu added that maintaining strong economic growth must be the top priority for global leaders, and maintaining China’s domestic growth will be beneficial to the global economy.
According to Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, the Yuan has risen around 30% against the U.S. dollar since 2005, which is already a reasonable level.
21st Century Economic Herald said on its Weibo page that China used to say “the Yuan exchange rate is not the cause of trade imbalance”, not it changed from the previous defence position into a direct opposition, which sends out an important signal.
Zhang Tao, director general of the international department of the People’s Bank of China, said in Cannes that China remained open to increasing Yuan flexibility and would continue to “improve” its exchange-rate regime. Analysts say the Yuan issue may not be in the final statement as at the moment the spotlight is on the EU debt crisis.
Ahead of the G20 opening, Hu told the media that China is committed to expanding co-operation with Europe in all areas. China “sincerely hopes the euro zone economy and the euro will maintain stability,” said Hu said in an interview.
But Beijing has made no firm commitment about what help it could provide, saying the technicalities of the bailout plan needed to be clarified. Xinhua said on November 2nd that China deserved reciprocal treatment from Europe such as recognition of its status as a market economy, and called on European countries to make sacrifices of their own to ensure recovery.
Li Daokui, an academic member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, told the FT that it is in China’s long-term and intrinsic interest to help Europe but the chief concern of the Chinese government is how to explain this decision to the Chinese people as “the last thing China wants is to throw away the country’s wealth and be seen as just a source of dumb money.” According to Li, any Chinese support depended on contributions from other countries and Beijing must be given strong guarantees on the safety of its investment.
relative debates were held on the internet among the Chinese netizens and many say that China should help Wenzhou instead of Ouzhou (the Chinese word for Europe, 救欧洲不如救温州)
Before heading to the G20 summit, Hu visited Austria.
Li Keqiang visits North and South Korea
Chinese Vice Prime Minister Li Keqiang recently paid a three-day visit to North Korea and a two-day visit to South Korea afterwards.
According to China Daily, Li expressed support for Pyongyang amid renewed hopes of progress in restarting Six-Party Talks on the DPRK’s nuclear disarmament. Li said China wants the DPRK to deepen talks with the ROK and the US in the hope of restarting nuclear negotiations soon. DPRK and US negotiators held talks on October 24th in Geneva on how to revive the six-party talks.
China’s economic ties with the DPRK have shifted from providing aid to promoting the opening-up of its market, said CASS researcher Wang Junsheng. “The DPRK is willing to follow China’s model of economic zones, which cover not only mineral products but also other sectors like financing.”
While in South Korea, the president Lee Myung Bak called on China to play a key role on the Peninsula issues and to push the denuclearization process forward.
Liu Jiangyong, professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, said resuming the talks relys on efforts by all relative parties, China itself can’t make it happen. Cai Jian, an expert on peninsula issues at Fudan University, said China can work as a mediator and will not easily approve economic sanctions or military support, therefore, what China can do is very limited.
China to send troops to safeguard Mekong River with neighbouring countries
China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand held a meeting in Beijing on October 31st to discuss establishing a joint law enforcement and security mechanism between the four countries, in a bid to maintain order on the Mekong River.
Fang Youguo, secretary-general of the Lancang River Shipping Association in Xishuangbanna, told the media that China will send about 1000 troops in late November to safeguard Mekong River with troops from the other three countries.
CHINA – ECONOMY
Property prices drop for real
According to Beijing Time’s report on November 4th, starting from May, more and more leading real estate developers have chosen to further cut prices to boost the sales. The trend started from major cities like Shenzhen and Beijing and now it has gone national. The newspaper said we are getting closer and closer to the turning point and the most severe time for the market will come early next year.
China’s largest real estate developer Vanke told the FT that the property market has already turned and expects conditions to worsen in the coming months as sales prices and volumes decline further. Vanke said government efforts during the past year to control prices were having a severe impact and developers were being squeezed after sales volumes in 14 of the largest cities halved in September from a year earlier.
Analysts are keeping a close eye on the sector as real estate is a key drive for China’s economy and absorbs nearly 30% of final products in the economy. A property crash will affect the global economy like the steel market as well as the domestic stability as it will hit the property-owning middle class, the most important constituents for the party.
China’s bankers echoed the industry insiders’ estimation. A recent report by China’s Banking Industry Association shows 54.9% of the respondents think the sales will decline, nearly 70% believe the prices will stop rising.
On October 29th, Wen Jiabao urged all levels of government to continue strictly implementing Beijing’s tightening measures.
An article on Shanghai Securities News says the decline of the real estate industry can be a great chance for the restructure of the growth pattern of China’s economy.
CHINA – CULTURE
Zhang Musheng & “New Democracy”
Southern People Weekly recently did an article about Zhang Musheng (张木生) and the “new democracy” he is promoting. This is not the first time the Chinese media paid attention on Zhang. In April when Zhang’s new bookChanging Our View of Culture and History launched, a forum in Beijing was under the spotlight because of the powerful guests attending, including Major General Liu Yuan and five other top People’s Liberation Army generals, former Freezing Point deputy editor Lu Yuegang (卢跃刚), Caixin Media editor-in-chief Hu Shuli (胡舒立), and Yanhuang Chunqiu editor-in-chief Wu Si (吴思).
Writer and thinker Zhang Musheng is closely linked China’s key prince-ling politicians, his father Li Yingji served as secretary to premier Zhou Enlai. As a prince-ling himself and a victim of Mao’s Down to the Countryside Movement, he now firmly believes that “Only the Chinese Communist Party can save China; only new democracy can save the Chinese Communist Party.”
Zhang refers to “New Democracy” as Mao’s Yan’an version: the communist party represents the proletarians, basing on the worker-peasant alliance, allow but keep under control the development of capitalism for another 100 years.
According to Qian Gang, director of China Media Project at Hong Kong University, ‘New Democracy’ preserves aspects of capitalism, including the protection of individual economic activity in the countryside. Mao did not favour new democracy as he hoped to move quickly to socialism. But Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇), Liu Yuan’s father, was much more in favour of the theory and encouraged capitalists to develop the economy in 1950s.
Zhang is a former protege of Chen Yizi, a reformer and a key advisor to Zhao Ziyang in the 80s. He used to work under Du Runsheng, a former CCP central official who helped frame China’s rural policies in the 1950s-1970s. Du wrote an article on Yanhuang Chunqiu in 2007 promoting the “road of new democracy”, saying all the major mistakes China made after the founding of the republic were because it left the track of new democracy and rushed into socialism.
Southern People’s Weekly said Wu Si wrote in an article that the mission of the new democracy revolution is to realize real democracy. As for the leadership issue, whoever that’s able to lead the people to that goal and win their respect is the leading force.
On the contrary, Zhang Musheng thinks as long as it’s under the leadership of the communist party and based on the worker-peasant alliance, any good experience or practice abroad can be borrowed. China cannot practice the western universal values or go the former Soviet Union’s road.
Book: Studies on Contemporary History of China (《中国当代史研究》)
Three-volumed Studies on Contemporary History of China was recently published by Jiuzhou Publishing House. The book is a collection of the academic works by scholars of the Center for Research on Contemporary China, East China Normal University.
A book review on China News Weekly said the book is full of “new knowledge” and the content is also what the public is concerned, like the transformation of the Hukou policy, the form of the socialist entertainment and the propaganda films. Such a reading “should spread beyond the academic circle”.
The center was founded in 2007. It has earned a good reputation as it has attracted some leading scholars in the field including the former PKU professor Yang Kuisong (杨奎松) and professor Mao Haijian (茅海建), the former Central Party School professor Han Gang (韩钢) and the former Renmin University professor Xiao Yanzhong (萧延中).
HONG KONG – POLITICS
Pro-Beijing scores landslide victory in district council elections
The most hotly contested district council elections in Hong Kong history were held on Sunday with 839 candidates contest 336 constituencies. The pro-Beijing camp scored a landslide victory in November 6th ’s district council elections, winning 146 of 412 seats. While the pan-democratic camp suffered a worse defeat than it had in 2007 with the Democratic Party winning only 47 seats and the Civic Party winning seven. Pan-democratic star candidates including “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, Lee Cheuk-yan, Tanya Chan, Ronny Tong Ka-wah, Lee Wing-tat and Wong Sing-chi were all defeated by their competitors.
Radical pan-democratic group People Power was the biggest loser with only one victory. The New People’s Party – which contested the elections for the first time – secured four seats. Its chairwoman Regina Ip said she’s happy with the result and the victory shows they have won middle-class support.
A record turnout of 1.2 million people voted yesterday. Of the 2.9 million eligible voters, 41.4% cast their ballots, 2.6% higher than 2007.
Analysts say the defeat of the pan-democratic camp shows the public are not willing to back radical politicians and are annoyed by the Civic Party’s stance on the Philippine maids’ residency case, the case regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment reports of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as well as the culture of violence some pan-Democratic radicals have brought into politics. The defeat will also affect the pan-democrats in contesting the five new district council functional constituency seats in next year’s Legislative Council election. And as Civic Party leader Alan Leong Ka-kit told the South China Morning Post, the goal of achieving full universal suffrage would be more difficult.
The latest reports say that the moderate pan-Democrats will consider cutting links with the radicals in the camp to regain lost ground ahead of next year’s Legislative Council election. Confederation of Trade Unions lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said the election results showed voters wanted the pan-democrats to fight for democracy by peaceful and rational means. While radical pan-democrat lawmaker Wong Yuk-man of People Power likened the moderates’ move to “digging their own graves” on the road to democracy. He said the moderates were shirking responsibility for their defeats.
Ming Pao said in an editorial that now the pro-Beijing Camp will be held responsibility for local district issues and it’s a chance to test the camp and see if they will use their power properly or abuse it.
HKU president’s departure to be investigated
The abrupt departure of University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor Tsui Lap-chee caused suspicion in the city. Ming Pao said as a well-respected university, HKU’s management doesn’t meet the public’s expectation as its image was further damaged after the incident.
At a meeting on October 25th, HKU Council chairman Leong Che Hung said he received a letter from Tsui saying he would not seek renewal of his contract when it expires in August. According to a member attended to the meeting, Tsui’s succession had never been discussed in the council officially and the decision was announced without advance warning.
According to Ming Pao, Leong had told Tsui in a private meeting that the council would not support the renewal of his contract and if he agreed to quit, he’d better provide a written letter for Leong to report to the council.
Legislator James To Kun-sun, a member of the HKU Court, said on November 3rd that he would write to fellow court members calling for an investigation committee to be set up. His move was backed by several HKU alumni but questioned by a few court members because it is “inappropriate” for the advisory body to discuss Tsui’s departure.
Tsui’s departure was suspected to be related to the 818 incident during Vice Premier’s visit to HKU, where was locked down and taken over by the police.
TAIWAN – POLITICS
Peace talk referendum
President Ma Ying-jeou said on October 17th that a peace deal with Beijing should be signed within 10 years. This is the first time a timetable had been given.
Ma’s remarks raised fear on the island that Ma might lead to real reunification with China and also put him under huge pressure. His main competitor in next year’s presidential election Tsai Ying-wen, DPP’s chairwoman, said Taiwan’s future must be determined by its people and not the island’s cross-strait neighbour.
On October 20th, Ma told the press that without the people’s approval in a referendum, he will not sign such a deal.
When being asked about the recent referendum remarks, Yang Yi, the spokesman with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told the press that reaching a peace deal is the common wish of the people on both sides of the strait, but the political consultation should be a natural result of the development of cross-strait relations instead of a tool of political struggles.
