Xi's 1 in 100, US Human Rights Report, Expect Tougher Tibet Policy
Here are the pieces from March 25, 2021, People’s Daily that I found worth noting.
Page 1: Let’s begin with the new logo that has been issued for the Party centenary. Below is an excerpt from how PD describes the meaning of the logo.
“The number "100" constitutes the basic shape of the logo, and the ‘1’ is presented at an elevation angle of 100 degrees, implying that the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core will unite and lead the whole party, the whole army and the people of all ethnic groups on the road of advancement from victory to new victory.”
Next, there’s a new guideline for tax collection and management. PD is carrying the full guideline, but Xinhua English has a summary:
It promises significant progress in the standardization of tax law enforcement, the convenience of tax and fee services, and the accuracy of tax supervision by 2022.
By 2023, tax and fee payers in China will be able to enjoy automatic data collection, calculation and filing services, and confirm and submit all taxation information online.
By 2025, China expects to see the deep integration of tax law enforcement, services and regulation, along with intelligent big-data applications and the universal use of electronic invoices. There’s also talk about using blockchain technology in this context.
Next, a report on the State Council’s weekly meeting. This one focussed on “increasing the percentage of R&D expenses deductions for manufacturing enterprises to encourage enterprise innovation and promote industrial upgrading.” What this means in practice is this: starting from January 1, 2021, “the ratio of extra tax deductions on enterprises’ R&D costs have been raised from 75 percent to 100 percent, starting Jan 1 this year. This means that for every 1 million yuan spent on R&D, a company will see 2 million yuan deducted from its taxable income. This policy is expected to reduce corporate taxes by another 80 billion yuan this year, on top of the 360 billion yuan in tax cuts last year.”
In addition, there’s a change to the way one can claim this benefit. “Enterprises may choose to benefit from the tax incentive on a semi-annual basis, allowing R&D spending in the first half of the year to be deducted during the prepayment of corporate income taxes in October, rather than during its settlement in the next year.”
In addition, the meeting decided that things were still not great for small and micro-sized firms, and that these are critical as employment generators. Therefore, loan repayment deferral and credit loan support policies for small and micro-sized enterprises will be extended to the end of the year.
Two other pieces on the page that are worth noting. First, this one with Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua talking about supervision in the context of the Party’s poverty alleviation work. This was essentially about keeping the other “democratic parties” in line and working with them. Second, this one’s about PSC member Zhao Leji’s visit to Guangxi. It talks about grassroots supervision, corporate supervision and the “political nature and political hazards of unhealthy trends” that must be understood by grassroots cadres.
Some points here to note:
Zhao said that cadre must “resolutely correct formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, and extravagance.”
He apparently said that “corporate supervision should focus on the implementation of new development concepts and high-quality development requirements, and severely punish violations of discipline and law, such as relying on enterprises to feed enterprises and transfer of benefits.”
On grassroots supervision, he called for comprehensive work with the aim of “discover(ing) and solv(ing) problems that violate the interests of the people, promot(ing) openness and transparency in grassroots operations, supervis(ing) the implementation of the Party Central Committee’s various policies and measures to benefit the people and the people.”
Page 3: First, there’s a piece talking about the positive views of China from Central and Eastern European countries in the context of China’s pandemic cooperation.
Next, a commentary on Sino-Russian ties. It praises Xi and Putin’s leadership and then says: “Sino-Russian relations have strong endogenous power and independent value, and are not affected by changes in the international situation, and are not interfered by any other factors. The two countries should rely on each other's strategies, develop opportunities for each other, and become each other's global partners. This is not only a historical experience, but also a requirement of the times.” The next sentence is about jointly resisting the “political virus” and safeguarding the post-War order.
Page 4: A few stories to note on the page. First, there’s a new website for the party history campaign. It’s http://dangshi.people.cn. There’s also a WeChat account for this that’s been set up. Second, Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi visited Xinjiang for an investigation tour from the 19th to the 24th. His primary focus, as per the report, is about “stability maintenance” and “anti-terrorism” effort.
“It is necessary to have a clear understanding of the current risks and challenges in the fight against terrorism and stability maintenance, strengthen the awareness of danger, strengthen the bottom line thinking, and always maintain the situation of severe crackdown and high pressure, and strive to achieve fundamental changes that are more conducive to long-term stability. It is necessary to persist in moving forward, improve long-term mechanisms, carry out in-depth "de-radicalization" work, and do a solid job in preventing the risk of violence and terrorism. It is necessary to build a strong border defense line, strengthen international anti-terrorism cooperation, and resolutely defeat the conspiracy of ‘using Xinjiang to contain China’ and ‘using terror to contain China’.”
Finally, there’s a report about the Sign For HK 2021 campaign, led by Beijing loyalist Tam Yiu-chung, which claims to have collected 2.38 million signatures from the city’s residents in support of changes to the electoral system. This was reported 3 days ago. Today’s PD report basically says that this booklet of signatures was handed over to the HK Liaison Office. Luo Huining, who heads the office, basically then says that this showed the “general public’s sincere support for the central government to correct chaos in a timely manner.”
Page 9: Two pieces to note here. First, Che Dalha, who is the Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, writes about connecting Tibet better to the mainland, not just physically but also in a deeper sense of identity. He starts from Xi’s call at the Tibet work conference last year about digging out historical information to this effect. Che argues that “a large number of studies in history, anthropology, linguistics, and biology have shown that Tibet has a long history of communication with the inland of the motherland, Tibetans and other ethnic groups.” He then goes on to provide what he says are some examples of this and points out the economic development that’s taken place.
What he wants going ahead is for the Party to “adhere to the general tone of the work of seeking progress while maintaining stability, forge a sense of the Chinese nation’s community, and promote greater development of various undertakings in Tibet and reach a new level.”
He also calls to “steadily promote the formulation and revision of various administrative regulations and local regulations in Tibet to maintain the unity of the rule of law in the country. Continue to strengthen party building, especially political building, and carry out in-depth special education on ‘political standards, stricter party spirit, and stronger organizational discipline’.” This is interesting in that it could potentially mean that autonomy would further be eroded, with stricter assimilationist policies being adopted.
Here’s more to support my view: “Vigorously cultivate and practice the core values of socialism...educate the people in the region, and deeply understand that the Chinese nation is a community with a shared future. Promote the national common spoken and written language education, continue to consolidate and upgrade the results of education reform and construction, and build 18 Putonghua proficiency test stations. Take multiple measures to cultivate and practice the core values of socialism, implement the visual image project of the Chinese nation, compile a batch of reading books and textbooks that have built the sense of community of the Chinese nation, and build historical exhibition halls...so that Chinese culture has always been the emotional bond and spiritual belonging of all ethnic groups in Tibet.”
And this: “Encourage and guide Tibetan college graduates to work and start businesses in the Mainland, and attract Mainland enterprises and individuals to start businesses in Tibet.”
Here’s more on local cadre: “The people of all ethnic groups in Tibet share the same heart with the people of all ethnic groups in the country, cherishing national unity as cherishing life, and the consciousness of the Chinese nation's community is deeply integrated into the blood of the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet. Cadres in ethnic areas, especially ethnic minority leading cadres, must strengthen the ‘four consciousnesses’, strengthen the ‘four self-confidence’, and achieve the ‘two safeguards’, continuously improve political judgment, political understanding, and political execution ability, and constantly improve their grasp of the new the development stage, the political ability to implement the new development concept, the construction of a new development pattern, the strategic vision, and the professional level, and consciously assume the responsibility and mission of forging a sense of community of the Chinese nation.”
Finally, on the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation: “Adhere to the unshakable direction of Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism, and strengthen the promotion of the laws and regulations, religious rituals and historical customization of the reincarnation of the living Buddha, so that the reincarnation of the living Buddha must adhere to the important principle of ‘domestic search, golden vase drawing, and central approval’.”
The second piece to note is about the Party’s influence on universities. The basic argument is this: “Colleges and universities must unswervingly adhere to the guiding position of Marxism, and regard the enhancement of the ‘four consciousnesses’, the firmness of the ‘four self-confidence’, and the ‘two safeguards’ as important standards for testing, insisting and strengthening the party's overall leadership of the colleges and universities. In-depth study and implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on education, always adhere to the direction of socialist education, implement the fundamental task of cultivating people, and insist that education serves the people, the Communist Party of China governs the country, and consolidates and develops the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.”
Page 11: On this page, we have the full “Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020.” The English report is available here. If you’ve been following this space, then this is pretty much what was expected. Let me just point out the headers from the report; it will give you a flavour of what it contains:
“Incompetent Pandemic Containment Leads to Tragic Outcome.” This is about the management of the pandemic by the Trump administration.
“American Democracy Disorder Triggers Political Chaos.” This is about the tensions and chaos that followed the 2020 election, and political polarisation in the US.
“Ethnic minorities devastated by racial discrimination.” This covers American Indians, Asian Americans, African Americans and police brutality, etc.
“Continuous Social Unrest Threatens Public Safety.” This covers crime rates, gun violence, George Flyod’s death, and so on.
“Growing Polarization Between Rich and Poor Aggravates Social Inequality.” This covers unemployment, economic inequality, and health insurance coverage, etc.
“Trampling on International Rules Results in Humanitarian Disasters.” This covers withdrawal from WHO and Paris accord. In addition, it talks about sanctions, treatment of migrants, pardoning of Blackwater contractors convicted of war crimes in Iraq, etc.
Then we have a Zhong Sheng commentary on the page. It reiterates some of the broad points from the report, and then says:
“There is no universal human rights development path in the world. Human rights protection is not the best, only better. We support countries in the world to strengthen human rights exchanges and cooperation based on the principle of mutual respect, but we oppose double standards to attack and discredit other countries, and oppose human rights issues to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs...It is hoped that the United States can put aside its hypocrisy, dominance, big stick and double standards, meet the international community halfway, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.”