Li's Presser - HK Election Changes - Importance of 'political judgment, understanding and execution'
Here’s a breakdown of the key stories that were covered in People’s Daily on March 12, 2021.
Page 1: The front page is dedicated to the closing of the NPC. Some of the key actions (English report) taken during the session are as follows:
“Lawmakers adopted the amendments to the organic law and procedural rules of the NPC...The meeting adopted a decision on improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The lawmakers also approved the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, the government work report, and the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. They approved a report on the implementation of the 2020 plan for national economic and social development, and the 2021 plan for national economic and social development. They also passed a report on the execution of the central and local budgets for 2020, and approved the central budget for 2021.”
In his speech, Li Zhanshu dedicated sections to following and upholding Xi Jinping Thought, and governing the country guided by Xi Thought on rule of law. He then talked about how “upholding the party’s leadership is the essential feature and greatest advantage of the people’s congress system, and is the primary political principle and fundamental political guarantee for the work of the people’s congress.” Next up, he focussed on the system, saying “The political development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the inevitable result of the Chinese people's long-term struggle for historical logic, theoretical logic, and practical logic since modern times.” He finally called for ensuring that the people’s congresses focus on “people-centered” work.
Next, there’s a commentary/report on Xi’s work during the NPC. So we learn that “Over the past few days, General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the deliberations of the Inner Mongolia and Qinghai delegations, attended the plenary sessions of the delegations of the People's Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force, visited the CPPCC members of the medical and health sector, the education sector and participated in joint meetings, exchanged ideas with the delegates and members, discussed national issues, based on the new development stage, the implementation of the new development concept, the construction of a new development pattern, promote high-quality development, create a high quality of life…”
The piece has delegates talking about their interactions with Xi. The objective, of course, is to emphasise how illuminating such engagements were, while also shedding some light on certain concepts that are now buzzwords. In addition, there’s an attempt to show Xi’s focus on key developmental themes, such as health, education, livelihood issues and encouraging development based on local strengths while protecting the environment. So you have this explanation that Xi provided about the meaning of “high-quality development.”
“high-quality development is not just an economic requirement, but a general requirement for all aspects of economic and social development. From the geographical perspective: ‘not a requirement only for economically developed regions, but a requirement that must be carried out for the development of all regions’. From the time perspective: ‘it is not a momentary requirement, but a requirement that must be adhered to in the long term’. One must not only solve the epistemology, but do a good job in addressing ‘practical problems’ - ‘to take the road of high-quality development, we must adhere to the people-centered development ideology, adhere to innovation, coordination, green, open and shared development...to adhere to the ecological priority, promote high-quality development, create a high quality of life deployment into practice...Each region should take into account the actual situation, according to local conditions, make up for the strengths and weaknesses, and come out of the road of high-quality development suitable for the actual region’...”
There’s then a discussion about the “new development concept” during the meeting with delegates from Inner Mongolia. One of them, Zhou Yizhe, tells Xi about the changing nature of professions of people. Zhou apparently told Xi how people had gone from being “tree choppers” to now being “tree watchers.” This, of course, is in the context of the forest conservation efforts that are part of the broader environmental policies of the central leadership. Here’s how Xi responded to that according to PD: “‘This change in your identity is a microcosm of the change in our country's industrial structure,’ General Secretary Xi Jinping said with emotion. ‘The total ecological value you mentioned is the concept of green GDP, which shows that the ecology itself is value’.”
Finally, there’s a long report (English version), detailing Li Keqiang’s NPC presser. He spoke about a number of issues:
He began with talking about the importance of ensuring employment during the pandemic. He then said: “we believe that as long as we can achieve more than 9 million new jobs in cities and towns, there will be positive economic growth. Because there is employment, there will be income, which can drive consumption and stimulate the economy.” Then he spoke about the employment pressure for 2021: “This year, we still face mounting pressure in employment. Some 14 million new entrants will join the labor force, including another record high of college graduates totaling 9.09 million. We also need to meet the employment needs of ex-service members, and some 270 million to 280 million rural migrant workers.” The government’s job target this year is 11 million.
On COVID-19 origins tracing, he basically said that “China has acted in a fact-based manner and with an open, transparent and cooperative approach to maintain communications with the World Health Organization concerning the origins of COVID-19.”
When asked about the GDP target of 6% being rather low, given the expectations of higher year-on-year growth considering 2020’s growth rate, Li defended the target saying that: “We are not making plans. We are guiding expectations.” The idea here was that the government is taking a long-term view on this. More importantly, he ruled out any sudden policy shifts to pull back from the stimulus that was injected last year. He said: “this year there is no need for sudden shifts in our policies. We will maintain the consistency and sustainability of the policies with a focus on solidifying the positive momentum of economic rebound. In keeping major economic indicators within an appropriate range, we must continue to support market entities, especially those smaller firms who are just recovering from COVID-19-induced shocks, just as ensuring that fertilizer goes right to the root of plants.”
Li then defended the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system. He then spoke about the importance of China focussing on basic research when it comes to science and technology development:
“Our R&D spending as a percentage of GDP is still modest, especially in terms of basic research. It only accounts for six percent of total R&D spending whereas the number in developed countries ranges between 15 to 25 percent. We will continue to increase input in basic research. We will also carry out institutional reforms regarding science and technology. One very important aspect of granting scientists and researchers greater autonomy is for them to have a bigger say in deciding how research funds will be used. These people should not have to spend their valuable time and energy on doing paperwork or competing for awards.”
On China-US ties, he said: “We hope that the two countries will act in the spirit of the phone conversation between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs and work for sustained and healthy development of China-US relations in line with the principle of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.”
On Taiwan, he refrained from talking about “peaceful reunification,” saying that Beijing was open to talking to any political dispensation based on “the one-China principle and the 1992 Consensus.” Finally, on foreign investment amid a focus on domestic demand, he said: “Rising domestic demand in China will drive its own development and present great opportunity for foreign investment, products and services.”
Page 3: The focus here is on the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system. This basically expands central government control and ends any prospect of people electing the Chief Executive. Under the new system:
The Election Committee has been expanded from 1200 to 1500 members. This includes the earlier 1200, who came from four areas, business, professional, social and political. The new 300 will be Beijing loyalists coming from Hong Kong deputies to the NPC, Hong Kong members of the National Committee of the CPPCC and representatives of Hong Kong members of related national organizations.
The Committee will nominate and elect the Chief Executive and part of LegCo members. The LegCo is expanded from 70 to 90 seats.
Xinhua English says that “candidates for the office of the Chief Executive shall be nominated jointly by not less than 188 members of the Election Committee, among whom the number of members of each sector should be not less than 15.” So that gives Beijing a greater say.
A candidate qualification review committee will be established. The key focus here is that “patriots” only end up governing HK.
This tweet thread does well to explain the changes:
There’s also a commentary about this on the page. It criticises the protests that took place in 2019 and external hostility and then talks about why “loopholes” needed to be plugged. It then says: “To implement ‘Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong’, we must insist on ‘patriots ruling Hong Kong’; insisting on ‘patriots ruling Hong Kong’, ‘One country, two systems’ can be fully and accurately implemented. This is a profound enlightenment of history and an inevitable requirement of reality.”
On Page 7 then, we have a bunch of different individuals and bodies linked to Beijing supporting the changes to HK’s election system. So, there’s HKMAO, MoFA, the Liaison Office, the HK delegation to NPC, Carrie Lam, etc.
There’s a bunch of activities that have been initiated to drum up support in HK, and of course, officials are falling in line. This piece says that “within two hours after the decision was passed, 28 established organizations issued statements expressing their support.” And this one talks about a series of activities including the signature of the National University of Hong Kong being initiated to support the National People’s Congress’s decision to improve Hong Kong’s electoral system.
Page 4: There are a bunch of official resolutions on the page. But the two key stories are about the upcoming China-US talks. First, MoFA’s Zhao Lijian confirmed that the “China-US high-level strategic dialogue” will be held in Anchorage from March 18th to 19th. Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi will be going there to meet with NSA Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. There’s a whole thing about Beijing calling this a “strategic dialogue” and the US not doing so. Anyway, Zhao also said: “We require the US to treat China and Sino-US relations in an objective and rational manner, abandon the Cold War and zero-sum thinking, respect China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and follow the spirit of the two heads of state to focus on cooperation, control differences and promote Sino-US relations are back on the right track of healthy and stable development.”
Page 11: On the Theory page today, Zang Anmin, who heads the CCP Organisation Department, writes about the need for cadres to constantly improve political judgment, political comprehension and political execution.
The emphasis for this, from Zang’s perspective, is on “leading cadres.” Political judgment, understanding and execution is critical across the board for him. He talks about the need for cadres to “know the ‘greatness of the country’ to the core.” Improving political judgement for him is important “in order to deeply understand the overall situation, from the increasingly prominent trend of the ‘East is rising, the West is falling’, from the stark contrast between ‘China’s governance’ and ‘Western chaos.’” Zang writes that it is important to have a deep understanding of the fact that “time and momentum (are) on our side.” He wants cadres to understand the “coexistence of crisis and opportunity, to turn the crisis into an opportunity.” He then emphasises the need to bolster the “Two safeguards”, which he says are the “major political achievements and valuable experience of our party since the 18th National Congress of the party.”