Tackling the 'Four Winds'

Below are the stories that I found noteworthy from the People’s Daily’s January 27, 2021, edition. The really interesting bit about today’s edition is how Xi’s speech at the CCDI plenary has percolated through different agencies with those leading the agencies interpreting how it translates into action for their domains.

Page 1: First, Xi Jinping spoke to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in. Both the stories are covered in Xinhua English. With Lukashenko, Xi spoke (PD report) about furthering BRI. He spoke about “cooperation in the fields of anti-epidemic, economy and trade, education, science and technology, culture, as well as exchanges at local levels.” 

Also, this is an important bit: “China supports Belarus in pursuing a development path that fits its national conditions, hopes that Belarus will maintain political and social stability, and is willing to provide assistance within its own capacity to the economic and social development in Belarus. The two sides should continue to support each other, safeguard the common interests of developing countries and defend international fairness and justice.”

Here’s Lukashenko saying that “Belarus and China are comprehensive strategic partners, he said Belarus firmly stands with China on issues involving China's core interests such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang and firmly opposes all external interference.”

With Moon, Xi exchanged new year greetings and hailed cooperation amid the pandemic. Xinhua (PD report is the same) says that Xi called on the two sides to “accelerate the completion of the second-phrase negotiations on the free trade agreement between the two countries, so as to put into effect the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership at an early date and speed up the construction of the China-Japan-South Korea free trade area.” Xinhua says Moon congratulated the CCP on its centenary, praised its pandemic response and then said: “with China's international status and influence rising day by day, the country is taking important steps towards achieving the second centenary goal, and he is very pleased to announce with Xi the launch of the South Korea-China Year of Cultural Exchanges as the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries approaches.”

Away from Xinhua/PD, here’s what SCMP’s report quoting the South Korean side says the following:

• Xi and Moon also agreed to reschedule a visit by Xi to Seoul that was postponed last year due to the coronavirus pandemic and to work out a “blueprint for the development of bilateral ties over next three decades.”

• Moon asked for China to take a “constructive role” on North Korea, while Xi expressed support for both inter-Korean dialogue and talks between the United States and Pyongyang.

• While Moon last week pledged to develop his country’s traditional alliance with the US “as a more comprehensive and mutually beneficial one,” he also stressed a need for cooperative ties with “neighbouring countries”.

Next, there’s a commentary based on Xi’s speech to the World Economic Forum. The commentary focuses on the four “major tasks” that Xi had talked about. But there’s a lot of reiteration of the view that: 

“Each country’s history, culture and social system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and there is no distinction between superior and inferior. The key lies in whether it conforms to the national conditions, whether it can be supported and supported by the people, whether it can bring political stability, social progress, and improve people’s livelihood, and whether it can contribute to the cause of human progress. contribution. The difference is not terrible. The terrible thing is arrogance, prejudice, and hatred. The terrible thing is that we want to divide human civilization into three, six or nine classes. The terrible thing is to impose our own history, culture and social system on others.”

Finally, Li Keqiang led the leading Party members group of the State Council to study Xi’s speech at the CCDI plenary. The PD story talks about four tasks that they must focus on:

• “The first is to strengthen political construction, adhere to the correct political direction, and continuously improve political judgment, political understanding, and political execution.”

• “The second is to integrate upright anti-corruption efforts with deepening reforms...”

• “The third is to make no effort to rectify the ‘four winds’, especially formalism and bureaucracy.” The four winds refer to the four key areas to tackle, i.e., formalism, bureaucratic red-tape, hedonism and waste or extravagance.

• “Fourth, civil servants at all levels of government, especially leading cadres, must maintain a high degree of ideological and political action with the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core”

The Party Group of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress also held a meeting to do this. The story talks about improving work on the anti-corruption front. It also says that “the most important and fundamental thing is to resolutely achieve the ‘two maintenances’, firmly adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, and always be loyal to, trust and maintain the core...From the perspective of safeguarding the security of state power and political security, it is necessary to provide legal guarantees for improving the Party and state supervision system, improving power operation and supervision and restriction mechanisms.”

Page 3: A story about how foreigners have responded positively to Xi Jinping’s Davos speech. Then, here’s one about Chinese scholars talking about the significance of Xi’s speech. Another commentary on the speech. This one is much more opinionated, rather than drawing from Xi’s speech directly. 

It says that “in today's world, what kind of multilateralism is needed is the focus of global attention at the moment. The international community must be clear about what to adhere to and what not to engage in. China's proposition is very clear: we should insist on openness and inclusiveness, not closed exclusivity; we should insist on the basis of international law, not engage in self-reliance; we should insist on consultation and cooperation, not conflict and confrontation; we should insist on keeping up with the times, not sticking to the status quo.”

Page 4: An enlarged meeting of the Disciplinary Committee of the Central Military Commission was held in Beijing on the 26th. CMC vice chairman Zhang Youxia led the meeting. Zhang Shengmin, member of the Central Military Commission and Secretary of the Disciplinary Committee of the Military Commission, presented a work report. 

“Zhang Youxia emphasized that it is necessary to focus on clear-cut politics and deepen political supervision, strict discipline and rules, timely correction of deviations, and continuous improvement of political judgment, political understanding, and political execution to ensure that the troops are highly centralized, unified, and pure.” In addition, he spoke about the need for “strict rectification and discipline...to guarantee the high-quality development of military construction; service and war preparation must be deepened and solidified” and that reforms must help increase efficiency, and changes in work styles to correct the ‘four winds.’

Page 11: A few stories on the Politics page. First, China's Supreme People's Procuratorate has ordered the arrest of Li Wei, former vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, for suspected bribe-taking. Second, a report on a three-day seminar on China-US ties organised in Hong Kong by the China-US Exchange Foundation and the China Center for International Economic Exchange. Basic idea: “A Sino-US relationship based on coordination, cooperation, and stability will not only benefit China and the United States, but will also have a positive and far-reaching impact on global development.” This is, of course, all signalling and a feeling out process with the Biden administration.

Page 17: Here’s the list of stories on the international page: