San Nong Focus - Wang Yi on Afghanistan - Qin Gang on Ideological Confrontation - P5 FMs Meet - Xi Thought: Party is Mìng Mén, But Xi's Rule Unlike Mao's & Constituents of Party Leadership System
Here are the stories and pieces from the September 24, 2021, edition of the People’s Daily that I found noteworthy. Just an extra bit here: Do not skip the Xi Thought piece today.
Page 1: Another long story on the page today telling us that it is important to focus on 三农 - San Nong. This is a feature, and the first part of a series. It has much more information to offer than the piece yesterday. The thrust of the story, however, is to tell people that Xi Jinping is personally invested in the work of rural development. That means everything starts from a comment, visit, meeting, etc by Xi. Some key points to note in the piece:
Grain production capacity has been around 650 million tons for 6 consecutive years
Farmers incomes have doubled compared to 2010
Rural revitalization strategy is a major decision and deployment made by the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
As of 2020, the national rural sanitary toilet penetration rate was 68%.
The rural household waste collection and disposal system covers over 90% of administrative villages.
There’s been a policy of encouraging people to return to their rural hometowns; as of 2020, as per the report, the estimate is that 10.1 million people would have returned to their hometowns “to start businesses and make innovations.”
The piece has some details about the poverty alleviation campaign; for instance, Xi has presided over the Central Poverty Alleviation Conference 7 times through his tenure. Some 1.6 trillion yuan was earmarked by governments at all levels for poverty alleviation, including 660.1 billion yuan from the central government.
Next, we have a report telling us that Xi will be speaking today at the opening ceremony of the 2021 Zhongguancun Forum. Then a brief report informing about the publication of the Nepali version of the second volume of the Governance of China series. I guess this is how you make a splash with a launch -- a lesson that I shall cite to the publishers of my next book. Xinhua tells us that:
Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari joined the event and made a speech, and Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a video address. Hou Yanqi, the Chinese ambassador to Nepal, and Sundar Nath Bhattarai, officiating chairman of the China Study Center in Nepal, were present as well, with people from all walks of life for the event co-organized by China's State Council Information Office, the Office of the President of Nepal, China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration and the Chinese Embassy in Nepal.
Also note:
“A study of Xi’s work will give readers an insight into the Chinese president's ideological and political views, policies, programs and governance arrangements, and their successful implementation in the past nearly one decade, she said, adding China's success in the field of poverty alleviation and political governance also inspires Nepal and other developing nations in the world.”
Moving on, we have a report about Li Zhanshu speaking to Brunei’s Legislative Council speaker Abdul Rahman. Some of the key points that he touched on are:
viewing ties from a “strategic and long-term perspective”
“intensify high-level exchanges, deepen strategic mutual trust and continue to firmly support each other on issues involving respective core interests and major concerns”
“strengthen anti-pandemic cooperation and join hands to build a community of health for all.”
align development strategies and “jointly build a high-quality Belt and Road”
cooperation among legislatures
I haven’t come across any detailed study about what cooperation between the NPC and other legislatures entails. If you’ve come across something, please do share with me.
Next, a brief report telling us that the Qinhuangdao/ Caofeidian onshore power project has commenced operation (English report).
Page 2: First, a report (English report) about Sun Chunlan’s visit to Fujian amid the COVID-19 outbreak there. The report tells us that she inspected cities including Xiamen, Putian, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou from Saturday to Thursday. The PD report tells us that among these cities, Xiamen is the worst hit; and even there, it is the Tong’an district, which has the bulk of the cases. However, things appear to be under control, with a vast majority of those infected being under quarantine, and community transmission being “virtually cut off.” Also, the report says that the situation in Putian, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou is much better and mostly cleared. Yet, she stressed on nucleic acid testing for prime groups, epidemiological investigations, quarantine, community lockdowns, and disinfection of key sites in order to prevent spillovers.
Page 3: A bunch of stories to note on the page. First, Wang Yi attended a high-level meeting to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Wang said that China “firmly supports the UN General Assembly to hold a commemorative meeting on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of this programmatic document.” He added that “slave trade and colonialism are the main sources of racism.” Also, he added:
“Relevant countries must at least have the courage to face up to this disgraceful history, take measures to eliminate the suffering caused by these acts, and have more responsibility to take the lead in resisting all forms of racism.” And, China calls on all countries to uphold an attitude of zero tolerance and establish a sound legal framework to combat racism.
Next, Wang Yi spoke at the G20 meeting on Afghanistan (English report). I referenced this yesterday. But here’s what he said as per state media.
Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves are national assets and should belong to and be used by the Afghan people, Wang said, adding that they cannot be used as a bargaining chip to exert political pressure on the country. He added: “unilateral sanctions or restrictions on Afghanistan should be lifted.”
He talked about the Chinese aid commitment and added that he hopes “that countries responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan will seriously reflect on what it has done, do more to alleviate the difficulties faced by the Afghan people as soon as possible, and fulfil its due responsibilities.”
International financial institutions should also provide financing support for poverty reduction in Afghanistan, sustainable development, people's livelihood and infrastructure projects.
While Afghan people should choose, “a broad and inclusive political structure should be formed finally.” Later, he added: “Afghanistan should increase the inclusiveness and predictability of its governance.”
On terrorism, “Afghanistan must earnestly fulfill its commitments, draw a clear line with various international terrorist forces, and resolutely crack down on them.”
He wants the United States and NATO countries to assume the primary responsibility for resolving the immigration problem in Afghanistan.
The UN should be the “main channel in maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan and humanitarian assistance.”
Third, we have Wang Yi meeting with other permanent UNSC members and UN Secretary General (English report). Here’s what Wang said:
He wants the P5 to become “a positive force for peace and to solve problems instead of creating them.”
He wants them to “perform their duties of maintaining world peace, and deal with hotspot issues through upholding the UN Charter, making good use of mediation and peacekeeping operations, refraining from using coercive measures, and avoiding arbitrary use of force.”
He wants the P5 to “practice true multilateralism, which is about having international affairs addressed through consultation, jointly formulating international rules, sticking to dialogue and inclusiveness instead of confrontation and exclusiveness, and forging a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation.”
He talked about Biden’s comment about a “new Cold War” but asked the US to give up “Cold War mentality, ideological bias and a tendency for bloc confrontation.”
He wants the P5 to focus on “respecting science and upholding solidarity,” on vaccines, and “oppose politicizing the pandemic and using origins tracing as a tool.”
They also spoke about the Afghanistan situation and Iran nuclear issue; and Wang mentioned dealing with terrorism, climate change, food security and economic recession.
Although this is not on the page, a couple of other interesting stories that I would like to point to:
First, CPEC has brought Pakistan direct investment totaling $25.4 billion over the past eight years, informed NDRC’s Ning Jizhe. He said the focus going ahead will be to improve the utilization rate of existing infrastructure and enhance bilateral cooperation in technology, agriculture, and other sectors.
Second, China’s ambassador to the US, Qin Gang’s comments at an event held by The Carter Center and The George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. He specifically pushed back against the idea of the democracy versus authoritarianism ideological confrontation. His argument is that China has a distinct governance process, which he calls democracy. This is his benchmark to judge the democratic nature of a system:
“whether a system is democratic depends on whether it can represent the overall interests of the people and whether the people are satisfied. Whether it is good or not should not be judged by what we say, but what we do.”
“My friends, isn’t it obvious that China is just pursuing peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom, which are common values of mankind? Isn't it obvious that both China’s people-centered philosophy and President Lincoln’s ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ are for the sake of the people? Shall we understand China’s socialist whole-process democracy as this: from the people, to the people, with the people, for the people?
Qin also said that in the time, “some people are busy fanning up the battle between democracy and authoritarianism, and putting together an alliance of democracies…” China has prospered with poverty alleviation, development, market size and business expansion, better social security, etc.
His other big point was: “Our two countries should not and cannot change each other. Instead, we should break ideological barriers, discard zero-sum mentality, respect other countries, and accommodate each other without losing our own distinctions, so as to get along with each other in peace.”
Interesting Twitter take from the ambassador after this:
One of the tweets in this thread in particular caught my attention:
Third, Qin also spoke at the High-Level Meeting of Bloomberg New Economy Forum. He took this opportunity to also talk about the China-US relationship. The key points he made are:
China and the US need to show broad vision, shoulder great responsibilities and bring their relations back to the right track of stable development.
The Chinese people never believe in the ‘Thucydides trap’. We will act to open up a path of national renaissance and peaceful development. At the same time, we call upon the US to stay committed to peaceful development, abandon any wrong thinking, and work with China to find a way of getting along based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation.
We have to face the reality, look to the future, think out of the box, create new institutions and methods and open up new dimensions for China-US engagement...China and the US can advance coordination and cooperation on climate change, COVID-19 response and economic recovery. These areas are innovation intensive and very promising for cooperation. China will continue to expand opening-up, continue to do business with the world, and promote technology and trade cooperation with the US side. The US side also needs to create conditions, instead of barriers, for our cooperation.
The ambassador’s done a Tweet thread about his comments:
Page 5: We have the 48th piece in the Xi Jinping Thought Q&A series. The first question is about the Party leading everything. We are told that on October 1, as the Chinese flag rose up, the four small stars that form a ring around the big star, symbolised millions of people gathering around the Communist Party of China. From here, we are told that the Party leads everything, and Party leadership is the “fundamental” aspect and “lifeblood” of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Also, the interests and happiness of the people of all ethnic groups in China lie in ensuring that the Party exercises leadership over all work. Also, when it comes to the system of governance and the state, the Party is the Gate of Life - 命门 mìng mén.
Then we are told that the Party’s leadership is not something that’s self-appointed, rather it is a product of the nature of the Party, a choice of history and the people, and it is explicitly stipulated in China’s constitution. -- This is a fascinating explanation. It says that in part the Party leads because it is by nature the vanguard of the working class, Chinese citizens and Chinese nation. In other words, it is because of a certain inherent quality. The next but says that the leadership is also a product of historical evolution of society (a certain inevitability about this argument) and popular legitimacy. The third bit says that it enjoys an institutionalised, legal basis through the constitution.
中国共产党的领导地位不是自封的，是由党的性质决定的，是历史和人民选择的，是由我国宪法明文规定的。中国共产党是中国工人阶级的先锋队，同时是中国人民和中华民族的先锋队。在近代以来风云变幻的历史大潮中，正是凭借这一先进特性，我们党才能从当时各种政治力量中脱颖而出，成为推动中国历史前进无可替代的核心领导力量。对比党成立前后中国革命面貌的根本转变，回望新中国成立以来翻天覆地的伟大变化，就不难发现，如果没有中国共产党的领导，我们的国家、我们的民族不可能取得今天这样的成就，也不可能具有今天这样的国际地位。我国宪法以国家根本法的形式，确认了党领导人民进行革命、建设、改革的伟大斗争和根本成就，确认了中国共产党的执政地位，确认了党在国家政权结构中总揽全局、协调各方的核心地位，为我们党长期执政提供了根本法律依据.
In the next paragraph, we get a quote from Xi Jinping about the nature of the system. It talks about governance being akin to a game of chess. The CPC Central Committee is the commander in charge while chariots, horses, and cannon each have their respective roles. 习近平总书记鲜明指出：“在国家治理体系的大棋局中，党中央是坐镇中军帐的‘帅’，车马炮各展其长，一盘棋大局分明. And just like this, under the Central Committee’s leadership, the Party, the government, the army, the people and academia should each perform their respective functions and responsibilities while coordinating with each other.
Then, the piece emphatically informs us about the Party-government relationship. It says that “irrespective of the adjustments we have made to the relationship between the party and the government, one thing remains unchanged, that is, upholding the leadership of the party. To handle the party-government relations well, we must first uphold the party's leadership. Under this premise, each entity has its own division of labor, and no matter how this is done, the starting point and goal is to uphold and improve the leadership of the Party.” 党政关系既是重大理论问题，也是重大实践问题。改革开放以来，无论我们对党政关系进行了怎样的调整，但有一条是不变的，就是坚持党的领导。处理好党政关系，首先要坚持党的领导，在这个大前提下才是各有分工，而且无论怎么分工，出发点和落脚点都是坚持和完善党的领导.
The next paragraph is really interesting too, and I guess this is aimed to address some of the issues around the notion of Xi emulating Mao, personality cult and revival of the Cultural Revolution. There’s also a serious indictment of the Jiang and Hu eras here.
“On the issue of upholding and strengthening the overall leadership of the Party, some people simply equate it with the unified leadership of the Party in the past, which is an incorrect understanding. The unified leadership of the Party is a leadership system that was formed during the Anti-Japanese War. At that time, the base areas were divided for a long time. In order to adapt to the harsh war environment, the Party needed to exercise unified leadership over the army, the government and the people, which played an important role in unifying the ideological will of the whole Party, effectively concentrating various resources, promoting the development of revolutionary base areas, and finally winning the Chinese revolution. However, in the later planned economy period, under the influence of erroneous ‘Leftist’ ideas and the imperfections of democratic and legal systems, power was excessively concentrated; there was no distinction between government and enterprises, government and political affairs, and government and society, resulting in ‘paternalism’ (家长制 -- Jiāzhǎngzhì) and 一言堂 (yīyántáng - implying undemocratic/arbitrary style of functioning). The unified leadership of the Party was extreme and dogmatic, which seriously damaged the cause of the Party and the country. Since the reform and opening up, we have deepened our understanding of the laws governing the Communist Party. Especially after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in view of the neglect, dilution and weakening of the Party’s leadership for a period of time, our Party proposed to uphold and strengthen the overall leadership of the Party, which is both related to and different from the unified leadership of the past. The overall leadership of the Party not only adheres to the principle of centralized and unified leadership of the Party and the fact that the Party is the highest force for political leadership, but also upholds democratic centralism, promotes intra-Party democracy, and ensures the organic unity between Party leadership and the position of the people as masters of the country and law-based governance.” 在坚持和加强党的全面领导问题上，一些人把它与过去党的一元化领导简单等同起来，这种认识是错误的。党的一元化领导是抗战时期开始形成的领导制度，当时各根据地长期被分割，为了适应严酷的战争环境，需要党对军、政、民实施统一领导，这对于统一全党的思想意志、有效集中各种资源、推动革命根据地发展，最终取得中国革命的胜利发挥了重要作用。但后来计划经济时期，在“左”的错误思想影响下，加之民主与法制不健全，导致权力过分集中，政企不分、政事不分、政社不分，出现“家长制”、“一言堂”，党的一元化领导被极端化和教条化，给党和国家事业带来严重破坏。改革开放以来，我们不断深化对共产党执政规律的认识，特别是党的十八大以后，针对一段时期党的领导被忽视、淡化、弱化的状况，我们党提出坚持和加强党的全面领导，这与过去的一元化领导既有联系又有不同。党的全面领导既坚持党的集中统一领导原则，坚持党是最高政治领导力量，又坚持民主集中制、发扬党内民主，坚持党的领导与人民当家作主、依法治国有机统一.
The next paragraph says that strengthening the Party’s leadership “over all work is not an empty or abstract requirement, but must be implemented...it has to be reflected in terms of “scientific theory, correct line, principles and policies, the Party’s ruling ability and leadership capacity, political judgment, political understanding and political execution, as well as the Party’s strict organizational system and strong organizational ability. It talks about how measures have been adopted since the 18th Party Congress to “reverse the weakening of the Party’s leadership and address the lack of Party building” but there are still many obstacles to the implementation of Party leadership, particularly at the grassroots level.
We are then told that “upholding and strengthening the overall leadership of the Party bears on the future and destiny of the Party...we must never make subversive mistakes on this issue.” 历史和现实充分表明，坚持和加强党的全面领导，关系党和国家前途命运，我们的全部事业都建立在这个基础之上，在这个问题上决不能犯颠覆性错误.
The next question is about the Party leadership system being China’s fundamental leadership system. 党的领导制度是我国的根本领导制度. The piece does a quick historical sweep. We get to the 6th Plenary of the 18th Central Committee, which anointed Xi Jinping as the core and “established relevant systems to resolutely safeguard the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee.” Then the “4th Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee further defined the Party's leadership system as the fundamental leadership system, emphasizing the need to uphold and improve the Party's leadership system, which is a major achievement of the unity of theoretical innovation, practical innovation and institutional innovation.”
The next paragraph makes the following declaration:
“We will improve various systems for firmly safeguarding the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, ensure that General Secretary Xi Jinping's position as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the entire Party are fully implemented, and make clear the highest principles that this system must adhere to.” 完善坚定维护党中央权威和集中统一领导的各项制度，坚决把维护习近平总书记党中央的核心、全党的核心地位落到实处，明确这一制度体系必须坚持的最高原则...
But more broadly the paragraph talks about six interconnected aspects that ensure the Party leadership system. These are summarised as:
First, the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee
Second, Xi’s core position
Third, Party’s leading role in various organizations
Fourth, the system of governing for the people and by the people, the class foundation that supports the Party’s governance and the Party’s mass foundation.
Fifth, Party’s governance capacity
Sixth, strict governance of the Party and Party building
We are then told that the Party leadership system is the “root” and “source” of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and the “heart” and “engine” of the modernization of the national governance system and capacity.
Other Stories:
On the Theory page, the lead piece is by Zhang Qingwei, Party Secretary of Heilongjiang Province. He talks about development in the northeast of China. Actually, this is a political statement from a 59-year-old Party Secretary. He mentions Xi 13 times in the piece, excluding the headline. And he basically underscores some of the key points from Xi’s recent comments, particularly the July 1 speech. And says that “Forging ahead on a new journey, we must more consciously use Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era to arm our minds, guide practice, and promote work, so that the party’s innovative theories in the new era will glow with a stronger force of truth.” 奋进新征程，我们要更加自觉用习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想武装头脑、指导实践、推动工作，让新时代党的创新理论焕发出更为强大的真理力量.