Information Warfare, High Standard Market System & National Security
Below are the stories that I found noteworthy from the People’s Daily’s February 08, 2021, edition.
Page 1: First, there’s a long report about the importance of mentorship in Zhejiang Province, which clearly the Party sees as a model that’s been useful from a grassroots governance point of view. So you have stories of different people in different villages, essentially outlining the need for mentorship of young cadre. Next, a report following-up on Xi’s inspection of an aviation division of the Air Force stationed in Guizhou Province on Thursday. Xi’s visit was the big story on the front page yesterday. I am going to break down yesterday’s story first before coming to today’s report.
So Xi visited wishing everyone for the New Year. He went to an army hospital to learn about the troops' COVID-19 response as well as their support to local epidemic control. He praised the army’s work in this context and added that challenges remain, particularly with Spring Festival around the corner. Then, Xinhua English’s report says that Xi inspected “a special aircraft designed for information warfare.” But the PD report says that “Xi Jinping boarded the aircraft, entered the mission cabin to inspect the mission system, to understand the workflow of special aircraft and the implementation of the task.” Global Times says that the “special mission aircraft developed on the basis of Y-8 and Y-9, including reconnaissance aircraft, electronic countermeasures aircraft and anti-submarine warfare aircraft, can enable the PLA to gain informational advantage in future warfare.”
Moving on, Xi spoke about the importance of information to modern warfare. “It is necessary to accelerate the development of advanced equipment, intensify the training of professional talents, strengthen targeted confrontation training, and promote the accelerated improvement of new quality combat effectiveness.” He then spoke about improving “combat-oriented military training” and the “level of training and the ability to win.”
Now, today, we have a report that tells us about how people reacted to Xi’s visit. This is useful because it tells you what they took away as key focus areas. It quotes Guo Shubing, a commander, saying: “it is necessary to keep in mind Chairman Xi’s instructions, continue to strengthen information operations, joint operations, and all-area combat capabilities, accelerate the generation of new quality combat capabilities of the troops, and strive to forge the troops into a special warfare force that can reassure the party and people.” There is also a reference to an exercise by the first battalion of a brigade of the 80th Army that sought to address “17 potential problems in six areas that restrict information operations” but there’s no further detail on them.
Finally, Wang Yang met with heads of national religious organisations for a pre-New Year event. Here’s what he wants from them: “We must adhere to the direction of the sinicization of religion in our country, strengthen the research and interpretation of religious classics, and gradually build a religious ideology system with Chinese characteristics, so that religion can better adapt to the socialist society.”
Page 2: A report on the new Action Plan for Building a High Standard Market System (full plan here), which was issued by the General office of the Central Committee and the State Council. The plan was issued on January 31. It outlines 51 measures in order to establish a high-standard market system over the next five years. There are a bunch of areas that the plan talks about. These include:
judicial protection for property rights, including intellectual property.
harmonising negative lists.
pilot projects to relax market access in specific areas.
Improving fair competition, which entails improving anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition law enforcement.
There’s an entire section on factor market reforms, i.e., land, labour and capital. The plan outlines broad directions for these.
There’s also focus on breaking down local barriers that enterprises encounter. So the plan says: “Encourage all regions to build a unified cross-regional market access service system...Except as clearly provided by laws and regulations, enterprises must not be required to register in a certain place, and they must not set up obstacles to the cross-regional migration of enterprises.”
There’s an entire section on opening up the service industry. This covers financial and social services. The plan says:
“It is allowed to set up foreign-controlled joint-venture banks, securities companies and wholly foreign-owned or joint-venture asset management companies in China. Make overall plans for the opening of the inter-bank and exchange bond markets, optimize access standards and issuance management, clarify the overall institutional framework for the opening of China's bond market to the outside world, and study and formulate management measures for the issuance of bonds by foreign institutions in the exchange bond market.”
In addition, “expand the opening up of the social service industry market. Focus on medical, education, sports, childcare, environmental protection, municipal administration and other fields, reduce market access restrictions, and remove unreasonable restrictions on for-profit medical and educational institutions in terms of license processing and equipment purchase.”
Today’s PD report essentially quotes experts to basically say why the plan is a good plan.
Page 3: A couple of reports to note. First, the PLA delivered COVID-19 vaccines to the Pakistani military, in the first such exchange between two militaries. Following this, the PLA also sent vaccines to the Cambodian military after receiving a request for it, reports PD. Second, a commentary about China’s vaccine diplomacy. If you’ve followed the narrative around the health silk road last year, then this is just an extension of that. So you have details about how many countries China has supported, and how leaders of these countries are so grateful to China, and of course, selective quoting from international media to further make the case. Third, a long report quoting foreigners who are supportive of Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang, telling you why those are good policies.
Page 4: Key leaders from the National Party History and Documentation Department met in Beijing recently. The report on this talks about the key tasks for the department.
“It is necessary to make the preparation of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party as the top priority of this year’s work, actively play its role, promote the solid and in-depth development of party history learning and education, and guide the majority of party members and cadres to continuously enhance the ‘four consciousnesses’ and strengthen the ‘four confidences’ to achieve ‘two maintenances’.” I’ve focussed on this paragraph just to highlight how the Party approaches the past. It is not just about present control but seen as critical to actively shape the future.
Page 15: There’s an interesting piece on understanding the concept of comprehensive national security. It’s written by Wang Puhuo, Director at Xi Jinping Institute of Socialist Thought with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era at Peking University. He begins with talking about the complexity of modern times and the importance of the Party’s control over national security work. This is followed by explaining the key tenets of the idea of overall national security.
He talks about national security relying on fulfilling people’s needs, but also relying on people being successful, and giving full play to their enthusiasm, initiative and creativity.
On balancing political security and people’s security: “national security work must be the organic combination of stability and the maintenance of rights, the construction of security order and the resolution of social contradictions organically combine to build an integrated pattern of political security and people's security.”
On development and security: “National security in the new era is a security that is continuously improved on the basis of development, and is a development that is continuously achieved under security.”
“While opening wider to the outside world brings new development opportunities for our country, it also brings unprecedented challenges and threats to our national security. Therefore, in the process of comprehensively deepening reforms and expanding opening to the outside world, we must earnestly safeguard national security, social stability, and people’s safety, maintain sustainable economic and social development, and continue to realize the organic integration of the two in reform and opening up and the development of national security.”
Traditional and non-traditional security: Wang defines traditional security as requiring the military and other means to safeguard the country’s political, economic, social, and ideological security. But he adds that “non-traditional security issues represented by environmental climate, network security, infectious disease issues, and ideology are increasingly attracting widespread attention”.
Wang wants to prioritise “prevention and resolution of national security risks,” “improve risk prediction and predictability,” and nip “hidden dangers” in the bud.
To further national security, he wants to focus on building a system along with enhancing cadres capacity.
He finally talks about the dialectical unity between national security system innovation and technological innovation and between national and global security. With regard to the former, he wants more focus on technology and innovation in system construction. On the latter, he talks about how national and global security feed into each other. Therefore, it is important to focus on common international security, global governance, etc.
Finally, here’s what was covered on the international page:
