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Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation

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Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation (April–June 2001) Abbreviations APE —British Broadcasting Corporation, Monitoring Global Newsline – Asia-Pacific Economic APP —British Broadcasting Corporation, Monitoring Global Newsline – Asia-Pacific Political XHNA —Xinhua (New China) News Agency CNA —Central News Agency (Taipei) ZTS —Zhongguo tongxun she (China Reporting Agency), Hong Kong ZXS —Zhongguo xinwen she (China News Agency), Beijing RMRB —Renmin ribao (People’s Daily) 1. Internal Developments (a) The 21st Session of the Ninth National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee. (b) Party and Political Affairs, and Ideological Developments; Human Rights; Public Order; Falun Gong (c) Economic Affairs (d) Education (e) Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) 2. Foreign Relations (a) Diplomatic Tours (b) Countries, Territories and Regions (c) International Organizations (United Nations, Asia-Europe Meet- ing) 1. Internal Developments (a) The 21st Session of the Ninth NPC Standing Committee The 21st Session of the NPC Standing Committee was held in Beijing between 24 and 28 April. Delegates discussed a variety of legislation, including amendments to the PRC Marriage Law, and drafts of three other laws – the Tax Law, Trust Law and Law on National Defence Education (APP,24April). The amendments to the 20-year-old Marriage Law included important new legislation, which sought explicitly to ban bigamy, concubinage and cohabitation, and combat domestic violence in marriage – changes that were urgently needed in the light of “fast-changing social realities and volatile family relations.” Thus, the new law would allow for the innocent party in disputes involving bigamy, concubinage and spouse abuse to claim compensation in divorce settlements. It was revealed that 30 per The China Quarterly, 2001 Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation 807 cent of Chinese families reported occurrences of domestic violence, which was also responsible for 60 per cent of all divorces. Statistics meanwhile showed that in 2000, 8.48 million couples had married (10.8 per cent fewer than ten years earlier), while divorces – some 1.21 million of them – showed an increase of 51.25 per cent over the same period (APP,28April). The amendments were passed by NPC Standing Committee members, as was the Law on National Defence Education (on which, see Chi Haotian, Minister of Defence in APP,10May). (b) Party and Political Affairs, and Ideological Developments; Human Rights; Public Order; Falun Gong On 14 May, the Head of the CCP Central Committee’s (CCPCC) Organization Department, Zeng Qinghong, addressed a national confer- ence on the education and training of cadres (XHNA, in APP,14May) and called for strict adherence to Deng Xiaoping Theory and Jiang Zemin’s “three representatives” in such training. At the same meeting, Vice President Hu Jintao urged upon cadres the importance of theoretical study, pointing out that the new demands of changing conditions in China demanded “new attainments, know-how, professional competence and leadership abilities.” Ongoing education should be regarded by cadres as a “lifelong endeavour,” said Hu. Later the same month, in the course of a visit to Anhui province, Jiang Zemin echoed such views, calling for improved leadership qualities in order to meet the demands of the expanding market environment, and associated legal and other developments. In his own words, “leadership styles and method is not just a question of work method, but is also a question of ideological method and world view, and a question of stance and attitude towards the masses” (APP,24May). The high priority accorded to training a disciplined and professional cadre contingent was also reflected in a circular issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the CCPCC Organization Department, entitled “On resolutely preventing and investigating mal- practices, and behaviours [sic]ofviolating discipline and the law, in the work of selecting, promoting and approving cadres” (XHNA in APP,29 May). The document addressed personnel problems among cadres, such as their frequent disregard for relevant procedures and regulations, and practices of buying votes and bribing voters, and “buying and selling official posts.” It was also revealed that some 4 million leading group members from towns and villages, county and city departments had attended training sessions held by above-county Party committees in an effort to improve ideological attitudes and work style among grassroots rural cadres. Reference has also been made to the importance of the “three represen- tations” (the notion that the Chinese Communist Party represented ad- vanced production forces, advanced Chinese culture and the basic interests of the people). Central to inculcating and applying these ideas 808 The China Quarterly was the urgent need to promote rural development and raise peasant income. To these ends, grassroots cadres were urged to analyse “conspicuous contradictions” that characterized the structure of both the agricultural and rural economies. In particular, action was needed to reduce peasant burdens (not least, through the implementation of pilot projects for rural tax and fee reform) and to promote township and village institutional reforms (APP,20April). A propos the rural sector, in April Vice-President Hu Jintao announced that a campaign would be launched in order to educate rural officials in the interests of protecting farmers’ interests and raising farm efficiency. The main thrust of the campaign would be to improve the cohesion of grassroots CCP organizations and strengthen Party leadership in the countryside. The point was made that despite the high level of grain output achieved in recent years, the situation of Chinese agriculture remained unsatisfactory: farm products were in over-supply, while farm- ers’ incomes had steadily fallen; the output structure of agriculture was also irrational and production efficiency remained low (XHNA, 1 April). Xinhua reported that at the end of 2000, CCP membership totalled more than 64.5 million people (5.2 per cent of China’s total population). Of these, 11.2 million (17.4 per cent) were women, and 4 million (6.2 per cent) were from ethnic minority backgrounds. Some 30 million CCP members were below the age of 45 and had therefore been born since the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949. The same source noted that one-third of China’s college students had applied for Party membership. Meanwhile, rural CCP members numbered 29.5 million and belonged to 1.35 million grassroots organizations. Between 1994 and 2000, 3 million CCP members from government departments had been sent to the countryside to assist in Party building (APP,1June). On 9 April, Xinhua published a White Paper on human rights, entitled “Progress in China’s human rights cause in 2000” (full text in APP,9 April). Reflecting the Chinese government’s official definition of human rights, the document spoke of further progress having been achieved in terms of employment provision and wage increases. It noted that all provinces, autonomous regions (except Tibet) and municipalities in China had now established systems enshrining a minimum wage for workers. In addition, China had “basically” put in place a social security system, which embraced the provision of basic pension, medical and unemploy- ment insurance for urban workers. The White Paper drew attention too to improvements in education, with educational funding having risen, on average, by 15.56 per cent p.a. during the previous five years. More than 90 per cent of the total population now had access to radio and television, while the number of Internet surfers had risen from a mere 10,000 (1994) to more than 22.5 million (2000). Finally, the point was made that there had also been further important developments in enhancing grassroots democracy in the countryside. Thus, 23 provinces and autonomous regions had formulated new electoral procedures for the direct election of villagers’ committees. Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation 809 The momentum of activities to combat corruption and crime was maintained throughout the quarter. In a speech to a national conference, Jiang Zemin called for a “strike hard” campaign to be launched against specific kinds of criminal behaviour, such as gang crime and violent crime. It was revealed that emergency arrangements were being made by Chinese courts in order to handle cases of criminals detained on charges of endangering public security (APP,4April and APE,11April). Luo Gan himself demanded a major effort to combat “Mafia-style crime and evil forces and their behind-the-scenes backers and protective umbrellas” (XHNA in APP,4April) Meanwhile, severe punishment continued to be handed down to senior officials who had been found guilty of corruption. One example was that of Wang Leyi (former Deputy Director of the General Administration of Customs), who had been dismissed from his post and expelled from the Party after being charged with accepting bribes of 530,000 yuan from a businessman during 1997 and with illegally helping the same business- man to purchase confiscated cars at low prices (APP,26April). The supposed threat posed by the activities of the outlawed Falun gong sect was again a source of continuing concern. There were reports of Falun gong members being detained, beaten and tortured by Chinese police (for example, see Kyodo, 25 April). An article in Renmin ribao attacked what it described as the “heretical teaching” of the sect, accusing it of propagating “fatalism” and “celestial phenomena teachings” (RMRB, 26 April; see also Hong Kong, Ta-kung pao [Dagong bao], 15 June, for further condemnation of the Falun gong “cult”). Meanwhile, a Xinhua commentary took a softer line in its advocacy of policies to educate and “redeem” followers of the sect in order to enhance their “political understanding and…ascientific world outlook” (APP,26June). Finally, the results of a survey highlighted the high degree of public ignorance of AIDS in China, some 20 per cent of those questioned having never heard of the disease. It was reported that at the end of 2000, there existed 22,517 HIV-positive cases in China–arise of 30 per cent over the previous year’s level.
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