Party's Political Construction, Historical Nihilism, PLA Rank System
Below are the stories that I found noteworthy from the People’s Daily’s January 29, 2021, edition.
Page 1: The lead story on the page is about the Politburo meeting on Thursday, which saw a bunch of work reports being discussed. Xinhua English reports that “the meeting fully acknowledged the work of the leading Party members groups of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the State Council, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, as well as the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee in 2020, and approved their work plans for 2021.”
The PD report, however, has much more detail.
Here’s the overview of the situation based on the report: “since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, the party building at all levels and the overall strict governance of the party have been significantly strengthened, and the political ecology has continued to improve. The work has achieved new results, but there are still some problems.”
These call for: “It is necessary to strengthen the party’s political construction, enhance political awareness, continuously improve political judgment, political insight, and political execution, accurately grasp the new development stage, thoroughly implement the new development concept, accelerate the construction of a new development pattern…” This approach requires inspection, rectification and maintaining a strict organisational line. In fact, inspection is a strategic institutional arrangement to strengthen supervision within the party...It is necessary to adhere to the political positioning of the inspection work, thoroughly implement the inspection work policy, accurately implement the political inspection requirements, focus on the fundamental tasks of the ‘two maintenances’.”
The report says that central agencies “must adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” and “strengthen the four consciousnesses, the four self-confidences, and achieve the two maintenances.”
It also says that: “We should follow the general requirements of party construction in the new era, take the political construction of the party as the lead, conscientiously fulfil the main responsibility of strict governance of the party, strictly implement the spirit of the eight central provisions and their implementation rules, persistently correct formalism and bureaucratism, motivate the majority of party members and cadres to maintain a good state of mind and work, and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party with excellent results.”
There’s a lot of emphasis on grassroots governance. Here’s why: “All regions and departments must deeply understand the importance of doing a good job in grassroots governance from the height of consolidating the party's ruling foundation and safeguarding the security of state power.”
Next, Xi Jinping’s phone call with Bolivian President Luis Arce. Xinhua says (PD report’s the same) that Xi spoke about BRI and “expanding cooperation in agriculture, mining, infrastructure construction, telecommunication and other fields, and promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges and local cooperation in accordance to the epidemic situation.” There’s a promise to support Bolivia with vaccines. Arce reportedly thanked Xi for China’s pandemic assistance and said that they’d need more from Beijing on this front.
Page 2: A report on the State Council’s new document regarding centralised drug procurement. There are five areas that are covered, i.e., coverage, procurement rules, quality safeguards, operation of the procurement mechanism and payments and settlement. The State Council’s website has a good English version of this.
It says that “medicines frequently used on the national drug reimbursement list with high procurement amounts should be included, and a stable supply of rare drugs is required. Suppliers must ensure medicines’ quality and supply in the procurement, and all public health institutions are required to participate...The purchase amount will be mainly decided by the demand of medical institutions and modified according to the previous year's consumption, clinical feedback and progress in medical technology.”
Next, a piece based on a bunch of interviews looking at the “importance and urgency of building a national strategic scientific and technological force.” This is a useful, albeit uncritical, piece to understand the approach to tech and innovation.
It quotes Liu Yuxin from the Ministry of Science and Technology as saying that they will “strengthen the systematic planning and layout of scientific and technological innovation...In addition, we will gather elite science and technology forces, accelerate the implementation of a number of forward-looking, strategic national major science and technology projects, seize the high ground of international science and technology competition, and provide strong support for the security and stability of the industrial chain supply chain.” What this translates to in practice is creating linkages between research institutions and enterprises.
“Wan Jinbo, a researcher at the Academy of Science and Technology Strategy Consulting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the advantages of the new nationwide system must be used to promote the optimal allocation and resource sharing of scientific research institutes, universities, and enterprises. Innovation-driven organizational integration improves the overall effectiveness of the national innovation system.”
Also note this: “Liu Yuxin suggested that to organically integrate government guidance and market mechanisms, it is necessary to give full play to the role of the state as a major scientific and technological innovation organizer, strengthen cross-departmental, cross-disciplinary, cross-military-civilian, cross-central integration of forces, and build technology, industry, finance, Policy coordination mechanisms for talents, intellectual property rights, etc. The market must also play a decisive role in resource allocation, make good use of the huge domestic market, and more reflect market demand in terms of technology route selection and industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, and respect the laws of the market…”
Page 3: We have a Zhong Sheng commentary on China’s ties with the US, but in the context of the pandemic. This is Beijing showing domestic audiences that it is reaching out to the Biden administration.
It begins by saying that “if the United States can regain the spirit of cooperation on the fight against the epidemic and meet China halfway, it will not only improve the health and well-being of the people of the two countries, but also strengthen the resilience of the global health governance system.” The piece says that the Trump administration’s performance in dealing with the pandemic “shocked the world.” It then talks about how December was among the worst months for the US in terms of the outbreak. And then it talks about how China and the US can cooperate, highlighting the 2008 financial crisis and the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
“The world hopes that China-US cooperation will inject confidence in winning the global battle against the pandemic...The cooperation between researchers and scientists from the two countries on treatment methods, vaccine development, and production is not only in the interests of the United States, but also can help save the lives of people in other countries.”
And then this: “From March 1 last year to January 10 this year, China has provided the U.S. side with more than 42 billion masks, more than 900 million pairs of surgical gloves, about 780 million sets of protective clothing, about 50.66 million pairs of goggles, and nearly 16,000 respirators through export and donation channels.” Must admit this framing using “provided” and “export and donation channels” did make me chuckle.
Page 4: First, in terms of historical events being celebrated, today, the focus is on the Zunyi Conference. A quick reminder of what this was: This was a meeting of the enlarged CCP Politburo in January 1935. It came amid the Long March, which was essentially a retreat of the CCP under fire from the Nationalists. The meeting saw a power struggle playing out between Mao and Bo Gu and Otto Braun, as they examined the collapse of the Jiangxi Soviet. It ended with Bo and Otto being demoted. This marked the beginning of Mao Zedong’s rise to the top of the CCP, something that he consolidated years later in Yan’an. Or as the PD report says: “In three days, a major resolution of historic significance was formed that affected the direction of the Chinese revolution. It put an end to the ‘Left’ dogmatism error ruled by the Central Committee and established Mao Zedong's leadership in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Red Army.”
Next, the Chinese Defense Ministry spoke about the new military rank of officers. The PLA, Wu Qian said, as a system of “three levels of ten titles:” (I’ve not been able to identify English reports to double-check these details. So, do please help out with the translation if you can.)
General-level officers are divided into admirals, lieutenant generals, and major generals
Colonel-level officers are divided into major, colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors
Lieutenant-level officers are divided into captains, lieutenants, and second lieutenants.
The ministry’s spokesperson added that the new officer ranking system mainly includes 3 aspects: rank, post position hierarchy and treatment level. The post position hierarchy regulates the order of promotion and appointment of officers and leadership and command relations. The level of treatment entails the basic living conditions of officers. He said that officer treatment level is based on the rank level, and there are 19 such levels. Wu also spoke about the linkage of educational degrees with military ranks.
Page 9: On the Theory page today, a couple of pieces about the centenary. First, this one talks about having the “correct” view on the Party’s history. It’s an interesting piece in that it outlines the narrative on history that the Party would like to emphasise. So it narrows down three phases of the CCP’s history i.e.,
revolution and establishment: this covers the years of the civil war to the formation of the CCP
reform and social development: this covers Deng’s reforms until Xi’s era. In this time, “overall national strength is significantly enhanced, and the international status is significantly improved.”
Xi’s era, with him having “united and led the entire party and the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country, undertaking great struggles, great projects, great undertakings”
This it says is “the theme and main line of the party's history.”
The piece placed Xi Thought within the context of the long-term theoretical development in terms of the Sinicization of Marxism. It says that “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is the inheritance and development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the "Three Represents", and the scientific development concept. It is the latest achievement of the Sinicization of Marxism and the practical experience of the party and the people.”
It adds that Xi Thought is the “fundamental guide for us to establish a correct view of history.” It also calls for this: “we must correctly deal with the relationship between politics and academics, history and reality, research and propaganda, take a clear-cut stand against historical nihilism, and truly study, research, propagate and defend the Party's century-old history.”
Finally, here’s the narrative that they’d like to continue hammering: “Over the past 100 years, the Communist Party of China has been able to lead the Chinese nation to overcome countless difficulties and obstacles and usher in the great leap from standing up, getting rich to getting strong because the Party's cause represents the direction of history and the fundamental interests of the broadest Chinese people, and the Party's construction has forged the Party to be strong and powerful.” Obviously, the truth is far more messy than this.
If you are looking for examples of how this narrative framework is put out in the public domain. Look at this other piece on the page. It basically talks about how the Party keeps people at the center, maintains vitality and ideological strength, which have allowed it to make tremendous progress over the years and will allow it to continue to do so.