Keeping Local Leaders in Check - New Development Concept & Rule of Law Agenda
Here are the stories and pieces from the People’s Daily’s March 22, 2021, edition that I found worth noting.
Page 1: A couple of stories to note on the page. First, a quick wrap of the Party history study work that’s been going on recently. The piece basically says that the Organization Department ran campaigns across ministries and departments to this effect. The Central Propaganda department also held a mobilisation meeting and then ran campaigns. This section offers a clear explanation of the political significance of studying Party history.
“It is necessary to deeply understand that the study and education of party history is a solid foundation for adhering to the original mission and firming ideals and convictions. It is a far-reaching strategy for drawing on historical experience and motivating forge ahead. It is a key strategy for tempering political awareness and political ability and strengthening party spirit. The strategic move to cultivate and forge a good style of work is to carry out and participate in the study and education of party history with a high degree of political consciousness.”
The rest of the piece provides brief details of the work of ministries and government departments in promoting party history study.
Next, Xi Jinping’s video remarks to the Colombian people. These came as the third batch of COVID-19 vaccines provided by China arrived in Bogota. Xinhua English’s report is detailed. It says: “Over the past 41 years since the establishment of their diplomatic ties, the China-Colombia relations have achieved historic development, Xi said, with China becoming Colombia’s second largest trading partner and China-invested enterprises actively participating in Colombia's development in various fields.” Xi also spoke about pandemic cooperation. Xinhua says that Xi’s counterpart Ivan Duque “expressed gratitude to Xi and the brotherly Chinese people for their deep friendship to the Colombian people and their important support to Colombia’s fight against the pandemic. Duque said that developing relations with China is a broad consensus among different political groups in Colombia.”
Page 2: There’s a report based on a press conference by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council. It says that so far 74.956 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across China. Mao Junfeng, deputy director of the Consumer Goods Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told the media that “according to the existing production arrangements, the annual output of new coronavirus vaccines can fully meet the vaccination needs of the people across the country.”
Also note this piece bylined to Zhong Zuwen, believed to be a pseudonym for the Central Organisation Department, basically directs local level leaders to ensure that they follow the central leadership to fulfil its goals. It says that:
“At present, the renewal of leadership groups in cities, counties, and townships across the country has begun one after another. Party committees at all levels and their organization departments must thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions and the deployment requirements of the Party Central Committee, effectively enhance the sense of political responsibility and historical mission in the transition work, strengthen leadership, strengthen guidance...and ensure that the reelection work proceeds in a healthy, smooth and orderly manner.”
The piece categorically states: “Upholding and strengthening the party’s overall leadership is the fundamental guarantee for the success...We must insist on establishing a correct employment orientation, strictly control politics, character, ability, work style, and integrity, and resolutely prevent and overcome unhealthy trends in employment...It is necessary to strengthen the overall situation awareness, continuously improve political judgment, political understanding, and political execution ability, with a highly responsible attitude towards the cause of the party and the people, conscientiously perform duties and responsibilities, strengthen follow-up guidance, and unswervingly follow the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions.”
Page 9: On the Theory page today, we have Han Wenxiu, deputy director of the Office of the Central Finance and Economics Commission, talking about the “new development concept.” The piece says that the concept comprises five aspects: “Innovative development, coordinated development, green development, open development, and shared development.” Now to fully implement this, he says that “it is necessary to strengthen top-level design and overall coordination, in terms of planning and design, macro guidance, policies and laws, financial investment, work arrangements.” Another important point that he makes is that while all regions and departments must be implementing this concept in their work, this must be done according to one’s “own conditions and possibilities.”
He adds: “With the changes in the main contradictions of our society and the profound adjustment of the international power balance, the internal and external risks of our country’s development have risen significantly. We must effectively increase our awareness of danger, regard safe development as an important starting point for the overall implementation of the new development concept, and be good at foreseeing and predicting various risks and challenges, prepare plans for various ‘black swan’ and ‘gray rhino’ incidents, and continuously enhance the safety of development.”
He then talks about ensuring benefits for the people and ensuring the development is in harmony with the environment. In this, he highlights key challenges:
“The modernization we want to achieve is a modernization that all people prosper together. We must adhere to the people-centered development concept, implement the new development concept, promote shared development, and always pay attention to solving prominent problems such as regional gaps, urban-rural gaps, and widening income distribution gaps throughout the modernization process.”
Finally, he emphasises the political significance of all this: “In the overall situation of the party and the country, economy and politics are closely linked. There is no economy away from politics, and there is no politics away from economics...A complete, accurate and comprehensive understanding and implementation of the new development concept is a concrete manifestation of the implementation of the ‘two maintenances’...The foundation of the party lies in the people, and the strength lies in the people. The implementation of the new development concept is related to the support of the people and the party's ruling foundation.”
Page 11: There’s a longish piece by Jing Hanzhao, who is the deputy secretary-general of the Central Political and Legal Committee. This is some serious genuflection to Xi Jinping. His name gets 20 mentions in this piece, and that’s because on everything - overall situation, legal work, ideological and political quality of professionals, training, etc - related to rule of law, there is a Xi Jinping Thought apparently.
Jing does provide a bunch of ideas on changes in the legal system. His broad point based on Xi Thought is: “To emphasize the implementation of the basic strategy of ruling the country by law and to build a socialist country ruled by law, there must be a high-quality team. This argument indicates the importance of the construction of the rule of law team. Emphasize the need to persist in building a high-quality legal work team with both ability and political integrity.”
Other points he makes:
“We must persist in putting ideological and political construction in the first place, earnestly steer the political direction, strengthen political stance, and temper political capabilities.” To do this, he wants to focus on the leadership team, ideological and political understanding and execution to ensure that the team “resolutely resist(s) the influence of wrong thoughts such as ‘constitutional democracy’, ‘separation of powers’ and ‘judicial independence’ in the West, and unswervingly follow(s) the path of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics.” And finally, he wants to strengthen the organisation department of the legal units.
“At present, the problem of violation of discipline and law by a small number of rule-of-law workers is still prominent. Individual law enforcement and judicial personnel have lost their professional bottom line, entangled with criminals and criminals, and even acted as the ‘protective umbrella’ of criminal forces, seriously damaging the interests of the people and the image of the rule of law team. To build a high-quality legal team, we must firmly grasp the construction of professional ethics, insist on giving equal attention to incentives and restraints, and use disciplines and rules to regulate job practice.”
“To further strengthen the political and ideological leadership of law schools, grasp the correct direction of school running and education and training, we must integrate Xi Jinping's rule of law thought into school education.”