Xi’s Kitchen Cabinet (3): Zhao Leji – two Upholds, never change Color

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Much of the following table’s content is taken from the bio published by “People’s Daily” online, on October 25, 2017, when Zhao became a permanent politburo standing committee member for the first time (then ranking #6).

Short Bio Politburo Standing Committeee — #3 — Zhao Leji (赵乐际)
1957-03-08	Born in Xining, Qinghai province, family background: parents from Xi’an.
1974-07-00	party membership
1974-09-00	Considered an “educated youth” (知识青年), Zhao is sent or “called” to Hedong Township, Qinghai, during the “Down to the Countryside” movement. Hedong is part of the “Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture”.
1975-08-00	Returns to city life as a mail clerk and messenger at Qinghai Department of Trade.
1977-02-00	Studies at Beijing University’s philosophy faculty, as a worker-peasant-soldier student.
1980-01-00	graduation
about 1980	Returns to Qinghai Department of Trade.
1984-12-00	Party secretary at Qinghai Province Hardware Electric & Chemical Products (a Qinghai Department of Trade company), also picking up managerial duties.
1986-04-00	Chairman of financial and commercial workers’ trade union’s Qinghai Department of Trade branch.
1993-02-00	Assistant to Qinghai provincial governor, provincial department of finance director.
1994-07-00	Qinghai deputy provincial governor.
1997-03-00	Xining Municipal Party Committee Secretary.
1997-12-00	Deputy secretary of Qinghai Provincial Party Committee.
1999-08-00	Acting governor.
2000-01-00	Officially appointed as Qinghai provincial governor.
2003-08-00	Secretary of Qinghai Provincial Party Committee.
2004-01-00	Qinghai Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee director.
2007-03-25	Deputy secretary of Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee.
2008-01-23	Shaanxi Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee director.
2012-11-15	Member of the CPC’s 18th Central Committee, and politburo member.
2012-11-19	Secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party.
2012-11-19	Holding the office of CPC Central Organizational Department director at the same time.
2017-10-25	First plenary session of the 19th CPC National Congress, CPC politburo standing committee membership (ranking 6th) among seven standing-committee members).
	Also Central Commission for Discipline Inspection secretary, replacing Wang Qishan.
	Investigates Yang Jing (杨晶), Zhao Zhengyong (赵正永), Qin Guangrong (秦光荣), Fu Zhenghua (傅政华), Sheng Guangzu (盛光祖), Meng Hongwei (孟宏伟), Xiao Yaqing (肖亚庆), and others.
2022-10-23	First plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee,Zhao Leji ranks second in the new politburo’s standing committee.

^{Zhao Leji’s (r) research tour in Hebei, September 2019, “Hebei Xiong’an New Area”}

What may strike a reader of this summarized biography is how often Zhao returned to previous posts in his career, how long he stayed within Qinghai networks, and how rapidly his career picked up in the 1990s (still in Qinghai, and then also in Shaanxi — see family background, accidental or not).
Deutsche Welle’s Chinese service suggested in an online article of October 23 that according to previous politburos’ practice, Zhao was likely to head the “National People’s Congress”, the CPC’s parliament simulation with Chinese characteristics. This would also match his previous experience as Qinghai Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee director (2004) and Shaanxi Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee director (2008).
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The following is my translation of a Xinhua article, published on November 12, 2021 (a bit more than a year ago). Zhao is quoted there in his capacity as secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Main Link: “Zhao Leji emphasizes …”
Links within blockquotes added during translation.

At Central Commission for Discipline Inspection´s Standing Committee session, Zhao Leji emphasizes the positive contributions to be made for self-revolution in the new era, by thorough study and implementation of the 19th Central Committee´s Sixth Plenary Session´s spirit<
赵乐际在中央纪委常委会会议上强调 深入学习贯彻党的十九届六中全会精神 为新时代党的伟大自我革命作出积极贡献
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November 12, 2021, 21:34, Xinhua Online
2021-11-12 21:34:39 来源： 新华网
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Xinhua, Beijing, November 12 report.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection´s Standing Committee held a meeting on November 12, to convey and study the 19th Central Committee´s Sixth Plenary Session´s spirit, and to look into ways to thoroughly implement decisons. Politburo Standing Committee member and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Secretary Zhao Leji directed the meeting and emphasized the need for the disciplin inspection and supervision organs to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of the [19th Central Committee´s Sixth] plenary session, to strengthen the “Four Awarenesses” [also known as the “Four Consciousnesses”], to strengthen the “Four Matters of Confidence”¹⁾, to achieve the “two upholds”, to link together and to put to use the historic experience from the party´s one-hundred years of struggle, to promote high-quality development of discipline inspection work in the new era, and, in advancing the party´s self-revolution, making positive contributions, leading the new practice of society´s revolution by self-revolution.
新华社北京11月12日电 中央纪委常委会12日召开会议，传达学习党的十九届六中全会精神，研究贯彻落实举措。中共中央政治局常委、中央纪委书记赵乐际主持会议，强调纪检监察机关要深入学习贯彻全会精神，增强“四个意识”、坚定“四个自信”、做到“两个维护”，贯通运用党的百年奋斗历史经验，推动新时代纪检监察工作高质量发展，在推进党的自我革命、以伟大自我革命引领伟大社会革命的新实践中作出积极贡献。
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Zhao Leji pointed out that Xi Jinping, in a speech of profound and long-lasting deep thought and of a strong political, theoretical, strategic and guiding nature, clearly designated the way forward for the party to take bravely and resolutely, for the party so as not to forget the original intention at this new major historic juncture. The plenary session´s “resolution” stands on the Communist Party of China’s summarized political experience of why the party can, why Marxism works, and why socialism with Chinese characteristics works. [The plenary session´s “resolution” stands on] a grasp of the development and discipline of party building. It is the CPC’s political declaration and guide for action in the new era. Discipline inspection and supervision organs must make the study and implementation of the plenary session’s spirit a major political mission, study the plenary session’s documents in their entirety, learn the original documents, become aware of the principles, deeply understand the main points and essentials, correctly grasp the main theme and the main line of the party’s historic development and its main stream essence, and make use of the plenary spirit for common purpose, aggregated consensus, staunch confidence and strengthened fighting spirit.
赵乐际指出，习近平总书记在全会上的重要讲话，立意深远、思想深邃、内涵深刻，具有很强的政治性、理论性、战略性、指导性，为全党在新的重大历史关头不忘初心、勇毅前行指明了方向。全会《决议》站在中国共产党为什么能、马克思主义为什么行、中国特色社会主义为什么好的政治高度总结历史经验，把握党的事业发展和自身建设规律，是新时代中国共产党人的政治宣言和行动指南。纪检监察机关要把学习贯彻全会精神作为重大政治任务，原原本本学习全会文件，读原文、悟原理，深刻领会要点要义，准确把握党的历史发展的主题主线、主流本质，用全会精神统一思想、凝聚共识、坚定信心、增强斗志。
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Zhao Leji emphasized that for the iscipline inspection and supervision organs to study and implement the plenary session’s spirit, it is necessary to link closely to reality, to stick closely to one’s duties, to deeply understand the demands of the new ideology, new conclusions and new demands put forward by the plenary session, particularly the important discourse and requirements concerning comprehensive and strict governance over the party, the party’s work style and building clean government, and fight against corruption [must be implemented at work and embodied in action]. We must – unswervingly and with all-encompassing unity and maintaining the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics – continue to learn and to put in real efforts, strive to grasp the marxist position, viewpoint and methods contained in it, and always guarantee the correct political course of discipline inspection and supervision work. We must – unswervingly and with all-encompassing unity – promote the strengthening of the entire party’s “four consciousnesses”, maintain the “four matters of confidence”, achieve the “two upholds”, conscientously carry out the responsibility and mission of political supervision, earnestly guarantee the party’s unity, guarantee centralized and unified leadership, unswervingly and with all-encompassing unity implement the guidelines of comprehensive and strict governance over the party, strengthen the will and ability to fight, promote [a state of affairs / a status when] nobody dares to nor is able or wishing to be corrupt, resolutely carry the anti-corruption work out to the end, and play a positive role in making sure that the party will never degenerate, never change color, never change smell, nor its level of achievement²⁾.
赵乐际强调，纪检监察机关学习贯彻全会精神，要联系实际、紧扣职责，深刻领会全会提出的新思想新论断新要求，特别是关于全面从严治党、党风廉政建设和反腐败斗争的重要论述、重要要求，落实到工作中、体现到行动上。要坚定不移、一以贯之坚持以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导，在持续学懂弄通做实上下真功夫，努力掌握蕴含其中的马克思主义立场观点方法，始终保证纪检监察工作正确政治方向；要坚定不移、一以贯之推动全党增强“四个意识”、坚定“四个自信”、做到“两个维护”，认真履行好政治监督的责任使命，切实保证党的团结统一、保证党中央集中统一领导；要坚定不移、一以贯之贯彻落实全面从严治党战略方针，增强斗争意志和本领，一体推进不敢腐、不能腐、不想腐，坚决把反腐败斗争进行到底，在确保党不变质、不变色、不变味中发挥职能作用。要以学习全会精神为重点巩固党史学习教育成果，引导广大纪检监察干部坚定历史自信、增强历史主动、涵养历史思维、运用历史经验，不断深化规律性认识，进一步提高正风肃纪反腐工作的质量和水平。
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Yang Xiaodu, member of the politburo of the CPC and deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, attended the meeting.
中共中央政治局委员、中央纪委副书记杨晓渡出席会议。

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Previously: Li Qiang #2

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Notes

1)–	“Confident in our chosen path, confident in our guiding theories, confident in our political system, and confident in our culture”
2)–	Beijing’s “zero-covid” policy may raise questions about what <em>achievement</em> means in the CPC’s dictionary – I have no idea how they define achievement.

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CPC’s 20th National Congress: “The Party will never degenerate”

2,300 delegates were supposed to attend in February, more precisely, according to Li Keqiang (main link) on Saturday morning, the number was 2,296, plus particular invitees (特邀代表), that would be 2,379 delegates, minus 39 delegates having asked for leave because of illness, i. e. 2,340 delegates present there.

“Major-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics to be unfolded in a comprehensive way” was unfolded by Xi Jinping himself in his work report. You should be forgiven if you think that this is about Chinese consuls-general tweeting about how America bombs and China helps Africa, or how their tummies bulged with pride when Xi Jinping told the party’s national congress that Taiwaners had no right to be free when 1.4 million Chinese were not.

But major-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics isn’t a diplomatic market-economy product – it was produced at home in Beijing, by the 19th Central Committee’s Sixth Plenary Session (according to their communiqué in November 2021).

Condensed self-flattery concerning the party’s “zero-Covid” policy (which probably didn’t go down as well with the audience outside the “Great Hall of the People” as other parts of Xi’s speech), and this.

We have kept nailing the nails, thus correcting and punishing the “four winds”, opposed the idea and phenomenon of privileges, stopped some unhealthy trends that hadn’t been brought to a halt for a long time, and investigated and punished obstinate chronic diseases which hadn’t been eliminated for many years. We have fought an unprecedented fight against corruption, and by “offending thousands, and living up to the 1.4 billion” [Chinese people], we have fulfilled our mission to dispel the disease and disorder. The multi-pronged struggle against corruption, by beating the tigers, swatting the flies and hunting the foxes, has achieved an overwhelming victory and overall consolidation, eliminating the serious hidden dangers within the party, the state, and the military. By uncompromising efforts, the party found self-revolution, thus escaping the historical cycle of order and chaos, of rise and fall, for a second time. This has made sure that the party will never degenerate, never change color, never change smell.
我们以钉钉子精神纠治“四风”，反对特权思想和特权现象，刹住了一些长期没有刹住的歪风，纠治了一些多年未除的顽瘴痼疾。我们开展了史无前例的反腐败斗争，以“得罪千百人、不负十四亿”的使命担当祛疴治乱，“打虎”、“拍蝇”、“猎狐”多管齐下，反腐败斗争取得压倒性胜利并全面巩固，消除了党、国家、军队内部存在的严重隐患。经过不懈努力，党找到了自我革命这一跳出治乱兴衰历史周期率的第二个答案，确保党永远不变质、不变色、不变味。

^{No offense meant, miserable failure}

If Bo Xilai had said that, it would have struck people as populism – but then, Bo never made it into the top ranks.
China’s “Communists” have announced many victories in the past. If this one is as decisive as Xi has claimed will be hard to prove or disprove as long as he remains in control of the narrative.

Just these few sidenotes for now.

CPC Economic Work Plan 2022: Manufacturing Chain Resilience, Discipline Inspection Regulations, and a warm Two-Festivals Season

The following Xinhua report was also broadly reported on Monday night’s (China local time)  main evening news, Xinwen Lianbo. “Stability” enjoys a preference among China’s leadership, and that also seems to be the case for “social development”, along with economic development (统筹疫情防控和经济社会发展).

In addition to the meeting described in the following translation, Xi Jinping also “solicited opinions and suggestions concerning economic work” from dangwais, also on Monday. Contrary to the Xinwen Lianbo report on the CPC politburo meeting, the coverage of the dangwai ceremony was accompanied by video footage.

Maome

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Not daring to speak

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Links within blockquotes added during translation.

Main link: Xi Jinping chairs politburo meeting, analyzes 2022 economic work

 

According to Xinhua, Beijing, December 6, the central committee’s politburo held a meeting on December 12, analysed and researched 2022 economic work, heard the central disciplinary national inspection and supervision work report, studied and arranged the 2022 clean-party-building and fighting-corruption work, and gave consideration to the “work regulations for the CPC discipline inspection commission”. CPC secretary general Xi Jinping chaired the meeting.

据新华社北京12月6日电 中共中央政治局12月6日召开会议，分析研究2022年经济工作;听取中央纪委国家监委工作汇报，研究部署2022年党风廉政建设和反腐败工作;审议《中国共产党纪律检查委员会工作条例》。中共中央总书记习近平主持会议。

The meeting believed that this year had had milestone historical significance for the party and the state. We have calmly esponded to situations with lasting effects and to the global pandemic, did our outmost to complete the enormous tasks of reform and development, and put the “14th five-year plan” to a good starting point. Our national economic development maintains a leading global position, th national strategic technological strength sees accelerated development, manufacturing chain resilience and advantages have been upgraded, reform and opening have been promoted in-depth, the people’s livelihood has been efficiently guaranteed, and construction of ecological civilizsation continuously promoted.

会议认为，今年是党和国家历史上具有里程碑意义的一年，我们从容应对百年变局和世纪疫情，奋力完成改革发展艰巨任务，实现“十四五”良好开局。我国经济发展保持全球领先地位，国家战略科技力量加快发展，产业链韧性和优势得到提升，改革开放向纵深推进，民生保障有力有效，生态文明建设持续推进。

The meeting demanded next year’s economic work to be done well, to be guided by Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and to fully implement the spirit of the Party’s 19th National Congress and the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth plenary sessions of the CPC’s 19th Central Committee. [The meeting demanded] that the spirit of the great construction of the party be enhanced, the overall main key of making progress while ensuring stability be persisted in, the new development concept be completely, accurately and thoroughly be carried out, the construction of the new development pattern be accelerated, reform and opening be comprehensively deepened, innovation-driven development be persisted in, high-quality development be promoted, the central line of supply-side structural reform be maintained, wholistic plans for epidemic prevention and economic as well as social development be applied, wholistic plans for development and security be applied, the good work on the “six stabilities” and “six guarantees” be continued, the hard work at stability be maintained, the economy be kept operating within reasonable ranges, general social stability be maintained, and the victorious 20th CPC national conference be welcomed.

会议要求，做好明年经济工作，要以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导，全面贯彻落实党的十九大和十九届二中、三中、四中、五中、六中全会精神，弘扬伟大建党精神，坚持稳中求进工作总基调，完整、准确、全面贯彻新发展理念，加快构建新发展格局，全面深化改革开放，坚持创新驱动发展，推动高质量发展，坚持以供给侧结构性改革为主线，统筹疫情防控和经济社会发展，统筹发展和安全，继续做好“六稳”、“六保”工作，持续改善民生，着力稳定宏观经济大盘，保持经济运行在合理区间，保持社会大局稳定，迎接党的二十大胜利召开。

The following paragraph re-emphasizes the need for ” making progress while ensuring stability” (and putting stability first – “稳字当头”), for expanded domestic demand, a steady monetary policy, consumption recovery, supply chain resilience, and also it mentions affordable housing (including support for the commercial building industry), plus a “virtuous circle” of science & technology, industry, and finance. In Chinese:

会议强调，明年经济工作要稳字当头、稳中求进。宏观政策要稳健有效，继续实施积极的财政政策和稳健的货币政策。积极的财政政策要提升效能，更加注重精准、可持续。稳健的货币政策要灵活适度，保持流动性合理充裕。实施好扩大内需战略，促进消费持续恢复，积极扩大有效投资，增强发展内生动力。微观政策要激发市场主体活力。要强化知识产权保护。结构政策要着力畅通国民经济循环，提升制造业核心竞争力，增强供应链韧性。要推进保障性住房建设，支持商品房市场更好满足购房者的合理住房需求，促进房地产业健康发展和良性循环。科技政策要加快落地，继续抓好关键核心技术攻关，强化国家战略科技力量，强化企业创新主体地位，实现科技、产业、金融良性循环。改革开放政策要增强发展动力，有效推进区域重大战略和区域协调发展战略，抓好要素市场化配置综合改革试点，扩大高水平对外开放。社会政策要兜住民生底线，落实好就业优先政策，推动新的生育政策落地见效，推进基本养老保险全国统筹，健全常住地提供基本公共服务制度。

The meeting pointed out that the importance of doing good work concerning the turn of the year and making sure that the masses’ were going to have a good “two-festivals” season¹⁾. Maintain prevention of the coronavirus re-entering the country and causing a new epidemic, and do the prevention work precisesly and solidly. Have a wholistic plan for the arrangement of coal, electricity, oil and gas transportation guarantees, ensure that the laobaixing keep warm during winter. Payment of the migrant workerss’ wages need to be ensured. the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics work be well done, and a marvelous distinguished Olympic gathering be guaranteed.

会议指出，要做好岁末年初各方面工作，确保人民群众过好“两节”。坚持“外防输入、内防反弹”，科学精准扎实做好疫情防控工作。统筹安排煤电油气运保障供应，确保老百姓温暖过冬。要保障农民工工资发放。要做好北京冬奥会、冬残奥会筹办工作，确保办成一届简约、安全、精彩的奥运盛会。

The meeting pointed out that under the strong leadership of the party central committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection had, at all levels, faithfully carried out the responsibilities assigned to them by the party constitution and statute. closely centered around the “four consciousnesses”, strengthen the “four confidences”, achieve strengthened political supervision of the “two upholds”, promote solid progress in political inspection, unremittingly pursue the promotion and implementation of the spirit of the central eight-point regulations, correct and punish the chronic “four winds” diseases, promote the struggle for the building of “party work style and clean government” without a single pause, resolutely bring problems with corruption and work style under control that affect the masses, unfold supervision and law enforcement in line with the rules and regulations, solemnly change the general attitude towards discipline, deepen the use of the “four forms”, deepen reform of the disciplinary inspection and supervision, increase the degree of self-constraint and self-purification, continuously improve the integrated promotion of effectiveness of not daring to, not being able to and not wanting to commit corruption, and to provide strong guarantees for a good start for the 14th five-year plan.
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会议指出，在以习近平同志为核心的党中央坚强领导下，中央纪委国家监委和各级纪检监察机关忠实履行党章和宪法赋予的职责，紧紧围绕增强“四个意识”、坚定“四个自信”、做到“两个维护”强化政治监督，扎实推进政治巡视，持之以恒推动落实中央八项规定精神，着力纠治“四风”顽瘴痼疾，一刻不停推进党风廉政建设和反腐败斗争，坚决整治群众身边腐败和作风问题，依规依纪依法开展监督执纪执法工作，严肃换届纪律风气，深化运用“四种形态”，深化纪检监察体制改革，加大自我约束、自我净化力度，不断提升不敢腐、不能腐、不想腐一体推进综合效能，为“十四五”开好局起好步提供了坚强保障。

The meeting pointed out that the courage to conduct self-revolution is a significant mark that makes our party different from other political parties. The sixth plenary session of the 19th central committee had comprehensively summarized the party’s one-hundred years of struggle, its successes and historic experience, so as to show the way to deepening and promoting the new-era party’s self-revolution, and to comprehensively and strictly govern the party. Discipline and supervision work must be guided by Xi Jinping socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics-in-the-new-era ideology, comprehensively implement the spirit of the party’s 19th national conference’s as well as its 19th central committee’s second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth plenary sessions, maintain the overall main key of making progress while ensuring stability, maintain seeking truth from facts, keep to the right path and innovate and, based on the new development phase, to completely, accurately and comprehensively implement the new-development concept, construct a new development pattern, promote high-quality development, make conscious use of experience from the party’s century of historic struggle, always maintain the spriit of self-revolution, keep to the strategic guideline of strictly governing the party, unswervingly carry the clean-party-building and fighting-corruption to the end, continue to deepen the integrated promotion of not daring to, not being able to and not wanting to commit corruption, integrated exercise of power to achieve awe through punishment, institutional constraints and improved awareness, efforts for the achievement of more institutional results and greater administrational efficiency, strengthen the standardization of inspection and supervision organs, the construction of rule of law and standardization, and bring the supervision, guarantee, implemantation and promotion of development still better into play.

会议强调，勇于自我革命是我们党区别于其他政党的显著标志。党的十九届六中全会全面总结党的百年奋斗重大成就和历史经验，为深入推进新时代党的自我革命、全面从严治党指明了前进方向。纪检监察工作要以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导，全面贯彻党的十九大和十九届二中、三中、四中、五中、六中全会精神，坚持稳中求进工作总基调，坚持实事求是、守正创新，立足新发展阶段，完整、准确、全面贯彻新发展理念，构建新发展格局，推动高质量发展，自觉运用党的百年奋斗历史经验，永葆自我革命精神，坚持全面从严治党战略方针，坚定不移将党风廉政建设和反腐败斗争进行到底，持续深化不敢腐、不能腐、不想腐一体推进，惩治震慑、制度约束、提高觉悟一体发力，努力取得更多制度性成果和更大治理成效，加强纪检监察机关规范化、法治化、正规化建设，更好发挥监督保障执行、促进完善发展作用。

Before this, secretary general Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the politburo’s standing committee, heard the central discipline inspection commission’s 2021 work report and 19th central discipline inspection commission’s sixth plenary session peparatory report.

此前，习近平总书记主持召开中央政治局常委会会议，听取中央纪委国家监委2021年工作情况和十九届中央纪律检查委员会第六次全体会议准备情况汇报。

The meeting agreed to next year’s 19th central discipline inspection commission’s sixth plenary meeting to take place from January 18 to January 20.

会议同意明年1月18日至20日召开十九届中央纪律检查委员会第六次全体会议。

The meeting pointed out that the central discipline inspection commission members at all party levels are the party’s internal organs with specific responsibilities, with the “work regulations for the CPC discipline inspection commission”, since the 18th national conference, deepening and summarizing the theoretical, practical and institutional results from comprehensively and strictly governing the party, promoting party work style and clean government & deepening discipline inspection institutional reform, having provided operational, duties and comprehensive standards for discipline inspection leadership systems at all levels.

会议指出，党的各级纪律检查委员会是党内监督的专责机关，《中国共产党纪律检查委员会工作条例》深入总结党的十八大以来全面从严治党、推进党风廉政建设和反腐败斗争、深化纪检监察体制改革的理论成果、实践成果、制度成果，对党的各级纪律检查委员会的领导体制、产生运行、任务职责等作出全面规范。在建党百年之际制定出台《条例》，彰显了我们党勇于进行自我革命的坚强决心。

The meeting emphasized the need to promote discipline inspection and supervision work to serve the party’s and state’s work better, to bring more effectiveness into play at organizational setups, to link discipline and law enforcement together into a new structure, to maintain systematic treatment of both causes and symptoms. There is a need for clear-cut limits of power, for strict internal control mechanisms by a rule-by-law line of thought and lawful methods strengthen supervision, for corruption prevention, to continuously build comprehensive organizational systems, operational guidelines and approval procedures, in accordance with supervisory work regulations. There is a need for the building of high-quality and specialized disciplinary inspection cadre units, a strengthening of achieving a political consciousness of the “two upholds”, for strengthening ideological training, political experience, practical training, professional training, continuous improve one’s self-immunity and ones’s sense of duty, fulfillment of duty, unity of sense and fulfillment of duty, and to be a model for respecting discipline and the law.

会议强调，要推动纪检监察工作更好服务党和国家工作大局，在组织体系上发挥新效能，在贯通执纪执法上形成新机制，坚持系统施治、标本兼治。要明确权力边界，严格内控机制，以法治思维和法治方式强化监督、防治腐败，不断健全符合纪检监察工作规律的组织制度、运作方式和审批程序。要建设高素质专业化纪检监察干部队伍，增强做到“两个维护”的政治自觉，加强思想淬炼、政治历练、实践锻炼、专业训练，不断提高自身免疫力，知责于心、担责于身、履责于行，自觉做遵纪守法的标杆。

Editor: Zhao Xi
Source: Xinhua News Agency

编辑 赵熹
来源：新华社

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Notes

1)	international and lunar new year / new year’s eve and spring festival
2)	formalism (xíngshì zhǔyì) bureaucracy (guānliáo zhǔyì), hedonism (xiǎnglè zhǔyì) and luxury (shēmí)

Xinhua: “Trial opens on former Central Propaganda Department Deputy Director Lu Wei’s Bribery Case”

Main link

Links within blockquotes added during translation.

The Intermediate People’s Court in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province held a first-instance public court session on October 19, 2018 to hear the bribery case against former Central Propaganda Department Deputy Director Lu Wei.

2018年10月19日，浙江省宁波市中级人民法院一审公开开庭审理了中共中央宣传部原副部长鲁炜受贿一案。

The Ningbo People’s Procuratorate charge is that from July 2002 to the second half of 2017, the accused Lu Wei had made use of the conveniences and the authority of his posts as Xinhua party branch member, secretary and seputy agency director, as standing member of Beijing’s Municipal Party Committee, propaganda department director, vice mayor, as director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, as deputy director of the State Council’s information office, as director of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, vice director of the propaganda department of the Communist Party of China, of other posts, and favorable conditions shaped by these positions, trying to gain benefits from relevant work units and individuals in internet administration, advancement, and other matters, obtaining property from relevant units or individual’s directly or through others, amounting to 32 million Yuan RMB.

浙江省宁波市人民检察院指控：2002年7月至2017年下半年，被告人鲁炜利用担任新华社党组成员、秘书长、副社长，中共北京市委常委、宣传部部长、北京市副市长，国家互联网信息办公室主任，国务院新闻办公室副主任，中央网络安全和信息化领导小组办公室主任，中共中央宣传部副部长等职务上的便利以及职权、地位形成的便利条件，为有关单位和个人在网络管理、职务晋升等事项上谋取利益，直接或者通过他人收受相关单位和个人给予的财物，共计折合人民币3200万余元。

During the trial, the prosecution brought relevant evidence, Lu Wei and his defender(s) carried out cross examinations, prosecution and defense amply expressed their opinions under the court’s presiding, and Lu Wei also made a final statement, pleaded guilty and confessed.

More than sixty people – People’s Congress members from the national, provincial and Ningbo level, members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, People’s Courts special supervisors, news reporters and members of the masses from all walks of life – attended the trial.

庭审中，公诉机关出示了相关证据，鲁炜及其辩护人进行了质证，控辩双方在法庭的主持下充分发表了意见，鲁炜还进行了最后陈述，并当庭表示认罪、悔罪。全国和浙江省、宁波市三级人大代表、政协委员，人民法院特约监督员，新闻记者和各界群众60余人旁听了庭审。

After the court hearing, the court announced a postponement, to determine a prison term.

庭审结束后法庭宣布休庭，择期宣判。

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Related

First tiger, Nov 22, 2017

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Updates

Anti-Lu campaign, SCMP, Sept 26 / Oct 8, 2018

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Argentine Radio to the World: “Universal Topics”

As part of its “National People’s Congress 1rst plenary session” coverage, China Radio International (CRI) also quotes Adrián Korol, director of RAE, Argentine Radio Nacional’s international radio station.

CRI online, Yin Xiaotong and Li Mingqi reporting — On 13th of March, the “People’s Republic of China Supervision Law (draft)” has been proposed for the National People’s Congress first plenary session’s consideration. As an important environment for national legislation against corruption and for deepening the national supervision organizational reform, the supervision law (draft) deliberations haven’t only lead to heated debate at home, but have also attracted foreign media attention.

国际在线报道（记者尹晓通、李明其）：３月１３日，《中华人民共和国监察法（草案）》提请十三届全国人大一次会议审议。作为国家反腐败立法和深化国家监察体制改革的重要一环，监察法（草案）的提审不仅在国内引发热议，同样也吸引了外国媒体人的关注。

The director of Argentine National Radio’s foreign broadcasting station, Adrían Korol, believes that corruption has become one of the problems faced by all mankind. China’s supervision law offers important experience for Latin American countries to learn from. “I believe that (this proposed draft) is absolutely necessary, and marks another important step by China on its road of fighting against corruption. Undoubtedly, corruption is currently one of the major issues for all humankind to confront.”

阿根廷国家电台对外台台长阿德里昂•克罗尔认为，腐败已成为全人类共同面临的难题之一，中国的监察法对拉美国家具有重要的借鉴意义，“我认为（这项草案提交审议）是非常有必要的，标志着中国在反腐败道路上又迈出了重要的一步。毫无疑问，目前腐败是全人类共同面临的重大问题之一。

“For many years, corruption has pervaded all aspects of life in most Latin American countries. Fighting against corruption is very important, because corruption has globalized. All countries need to learn other countries’ innovative and efficiently carried-out experience, and match these with their own realities. To propose this supervision draft to the Natonal People’s Congress will undoubtedly be influential.  It will become a sample of how to confront, strike and defeat corruption, it offers important experience for Latin America and countries in many other regions to learn from.”

很多年来，腐败问题已经渗透到拉美绝大多数国家的各个领域。反腐败斗争非常重要，因为腐败已经实现全球化，各国需要学习其他国家具有创新性的、行之有效的反腐经验，再与自身实际相结合。提交到全国人大审议的这份监察法草案无疑将产生重要影响，它将被作为如何面对、打击和战胜腐败问题的样本，对拉美地区和很多其他国家都具有借鉴意义。”

Korol visited China and had cooperation talks with China Radio International earlier this month.

RAE programs are broadcast via WRMI (Florida, USA) and Kall-Krekel (Germany), and through the internet. If sent by ordinary mail, reception reports on shortwave broadcasts are confirmed with a special QSL card in Argentina’s national colors – click picture for more info.

RAE carries a short podcast by Korol, as he addresses RAE listeners from Beijing. My Spanish is rather poor – translation errors are therefore not unlikely, and corrections are welcome:

Hello, friends of Radio Argentina to the World, and greetings from China. I’m Adrián Korol and I’m here on invitation by CRI, Radio China International, to talk personally on a cooperation agreement on which we are working, and about our country, its people, and culture. These are important days here in the People’s Republic of China, for what is called the “two sessions”, a series of meetings of the representatives of the people, where proposals on issues are dealt with which are fundamentally important for life in this country. The two sessions also deal with many universal topics, such as the environment, or the struggle against corruption, something very visible in many parts of Latin America and the world. A topic that catches attention, and positively so, is the eradication of poverty, which happens quite rapidly. There’s also the reform of the constitution as another major issue in the two sessions which are taking place here in Beijing.

Korol also refers to cooperation talks already underway between Argentine television and China’s ministry of communications, and points out three major points of (envisaged) cooperation between RAE and CRI:

[…] content, training, and technology. These topics will have an important effect on RAE, our international service, which completes its sixtieth year this year.

According to some written context added to the podcast, RAE writes that Radio Nacional’s executive director Ana Gerschenson appointed Korol to try to get RAE included into Argentine Television’s (RTA) cooperation with China Central Television (CCTV).

Korol was also quoted by China Daily‘s Chinese online edition (中国日报网), along with media workers from Angola, Australia, and Pakistan:

In an interview, Argentine National Radio’s reporter Adrián Korol said: “I’m from Argentina, and therefore very interested in the direction of relations between China and Latin America. China has left a deep impression on me, and I want to understand the future development between China and Argentina.”

阿根廷国家广播电台记者阿德里昂克罗尔在接受采访时说：“我来自阿根廷，所以我非常关心中国和拉丁美洲的关系走向。中国给我留下深刻印象，我想了解中阿的未来发展方向。”

Asked about his impression of foreign minister Wang Yi, Adrián Korol said that he liked him.

在被问到对外交部长王毅的印象时，阿德里昂克罗尔表示，自己很喜欢他。

Adrián Korol also said that he liked China, and even though he had only come from the other side of the world for the first time, he felt a warmth as if he was at home.

阿德里昂克罗尔进一步表示，他很喜欢中国，虽然是第一次从地球的另一端来到这里，但就感觉跟待在家里一样温暖。

Huanqiu Shibao also carried the story.

Korol’s remarks to CRI about the “two sessions” (see beginning of this post) were duly posted under CRI’s “Our new Era – NPC and CPPCC’s 2018 All-China Two Sessions” category. China’s media habitually collect favorable foreign commentary on events in China, while suggesting that China doesn’t care when reactions abroad are less favorable.

On Wednesday, Xinhua newsagency also quoted extensively from foreign punditry (which can probably best be summed up as “strong China, sunny world”). The report quotes a Japanese professor, a Palestinian economist, an Indonesian think tank’s chairman, a global security expert from South Korea, an Argentine China researcher, another Japanese professor, a researcher at Russia’s “Valdai Club”, a publisher from the US, a Cuban international politics researcher, another researcher from Russia, and a French China expert.

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Note

RAE programs are broadcast on shortwave via WRMI (Florida, USA) and Kall-Krekel (Germany), and streamed on the internet. If sent by ordinary mail, reception reports on shortwave broadcasts are confirmed with a special QSL card in Argentina’s national colors.

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Related

Entrevista al embajador de Argentina, CRI, March 6, 2018

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Liu Xiaobo, 1955 – 2017

It won’t be long before Liu Xiaobo‘s first post-mortem biography will be published. But it won’t have the last word. There will be further biographies, and each of them will be contested. That’s because of the man himself, and because of his country. He was a man with a conscience, and his country has been a totalitarian dictatorship for nearly seven decades – if you count the KMT’s martial law in, it’s been a dictatorship for much longer than that.

Liu Xiaobo’s political lifespan lasted for three or four decades. That doesn’t count as long in China. The Communist Party’s propaganda works tirelessly to create and sustain the “People’s Republic’s” population’s imagination of a civilizational history of five or more millenia. And at the same time, the party needs to sustain the notion that the most recent seven decades had been the best in China’s history. Not only the past fourty, after the leadership’s decision to “reform and to open up”, but the past seven decades, including Maoism. CCP propaganda’s aim is to build an image of its rule where the pre- and post-1978 decades are one political unit, without substantial contradictions within.

In all likelihood, Liu Xiaobo had foreseen that trend. Many Chinese dissidents, no matter if opponents of China’s cultural restauration, or opponents of the KMT’s military dictatorship on Taiwan, saw a Chinese complacency at work, considering itself the center of the universe.

Cultural criticism is rarely a rewarding trade, but in China, it can be lethal, as shown in Liu Xiaobo’s case.

Liu’s last camp and prison term, which began in 2009 and ended with his relase on medical parole, with cancer in its final stage, had been based on the accusation that he had “incited subversion of state power”. But the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court’s verdict – passed on Christmas day of 2009, probably to keep the level of international attention as low as possible –  only reflected the CCP’s fear of Liu, not the likely divide between the dissident and his people. A likely divide only, because in a totalitarian dictatorship, these things are more uncertain than in an open society. Hu Jia, himself a dissident who spent more than three years in prison from 2007 to 2011, noted during Liu’s dying days that only about one out of a hundred Beijingers knew who Liu Xiaobo was. Michael Bristow, the BBC’s China correspondent  in 2011, made a similar observation back then.

The 1980s mostly came across as a period of economic optimism, but accompanied by phenomena that were viewed negatively – particularly corruption, which was one of the factors that propelled the June-4 movement at its beginning.

Liu’s answer to what was frequently seen as China’s ailments was “westernization”. Stays in Western countries seem to have intensified his idea, just as Deng Xiaoping is said to have had his own cultural shock when visiting Singapore, in 1978.

But there lies a difference between the great statesman, and the great dissident. Singapore, a highly developed city state led by a family clan, is a model not only for authoritarian Chinese nationals – Taiwanese law-and-order-minded people tend to prefer Singapore as a holiday destination, rather than “messy” Hong Kong.

Liu Xiaobo’s model of development was Hong Kong of the 1980s. It was also the crown colony that provided the intellectual in his early thirties with some public resonance. In one of the interviews, given by Liu to a magazine named Kaifang at the time, Liu made statements that astonished the interviewer:

Q. Under what circumstances can China carry out a genuine historical transformation?
A. Three hundred years of colonialism.  Hong Kong became like this after one hundred years of colonialism.  China is so much larger, so obviously it will take three hundred years of colonialism.  I am still doubtful whether three hundred years of colonialism will be enough to turn China into Hong Kong today.

Q. This is 100% “treason.”
A. I will cite one sentence from Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party: “Workers do not have motherlands.  You cannot take away what they don’t have.”  I care about neither patriotism nor treason.  If you say that I betray my country, I will go along!  I admit that I am an impious son who dug up his ancestors’ graves and I am proud of it.

Both the “insults” and Liu’s expressly stated pessimism probably made for a divide between him and many Chinese (as far as they got to know his story). Or, as Roland Soong, a blogger from Hong Kong, noted next to his translation of the 1988 interview, as of 2010, “I suggest that unless Charter 08 (or any other message) can connect with many people in other social strata, it will remain a mental exercise among ‘public intellectuals.'”

And nothing works in the modern middle kingdom, unless it comes with a festive up-with-people sound. (In that sense, China is globalizing indeed.)

When Soong translated the interview quoted from above, and added his assessment of the Charter 08, the global financial crisis had been wreaking havoc on Western economies for about two years, and at least one of the Charter’s demands had fallen from the tree since: #14 called for

Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.

There wasn’t necessarily a conflict on this matter, between the party leadership and the authors of the Charter – time will show how the CCP is going to handle the remaining state sector of the economy. But among everyday Chinese people, this demand would hardly strike a chord. Besides, who can imagine a transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership “in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner”?

In the Charter’s preface, the authors wrote:

The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.

It was a cautious description of the status quo: Liu and his co-authors understood that only a critical minority would side with them. And indeed, there was more to endure in the pipeline. The educational dictatorship China is now entering encourages anticipatory obedience rather than awareness, and it is likely to succeed. When you keep beating people up long enough – and provide them with a hopeful perspective for the future -, there is little that can help people of conscience to counter the propaganda.

This may be the main difference between Liu and his enemies (and many of his admirers, too): in the eyes of many, only hard power – no matter if you refer to it as “the people’s power” or as the “authorities” -, creates reality. If the realities are good, you don’t need to get involved. If they are evil, you can’t get involved. And when realities come in many shades of grey, you either needn’t or can’t get involved. The power of the powerless is no reality in these peoples’ world – unless they begin to tilt, so that re-orientation appears advisable.

That’s a stabilizing factor, so long as realities remain what they appear to be.  But appearances can be deceiving, often until the very last hour. Who of the Egyptians who ditched their longtime president in 2011, in colossal demonstrations, had known weeks before that he wanted to get rid of him? A mood had capsized. It wasn’t about awareness.

A manipulated and intimidated public tends to be unpredictable, and that can turn factors around that were originally meant to add to “stability”.

China’s leaders feared Liu Xiaobo. They feared him to the extent that they wouldn’t let him leave the country, as long as he could still speak a word. But in all likelihood, they fear China’s widespread, politically tinged, religious sects even more, which have a tradition at least as long as Chinese scholarship. Falun Gong is only one of its latest manifestations.

By suppressing public intellectuals not only before 1978, but after that, too, they provided space for nervous moodiness. The Communists themselves want to “guide” (i. e. control) public awareness, without leaving anything to chance.

But chance is inevitable. Totalitarian routine may be able to cope for some time, but is likely to fail in the long run, with disastrous consequences.

In that light, the CCP missed opportunities to reform and modernize the country. But then, the party’s totalitarian skeleton made sure that they could only see the risks, and no opportunities, in an opening society.

What remains from Charter 08 – for now – is the courage shown by its authors nine years ago, and by the citizens who affirmed it with their signatures.

Each of them paid a price, to varying degrees, and often, their families and loved ones did so, too: like Liu Xia, who had hoped that her husband would not get involved in drafting the Charter, but who would never dissociate herself from him.

Nobody is obligated to show the same degree of courage, unless solidarity or conscience prescribe it. In most cases, making such demands on oneself would be excessive. But those who hate the Lius for their courage – and for lacking this courage themselves – should understand that their hatred is wrong. One may keep still as a citizen – but there is an inevitable human duty to understand the difference between right and wrong. By denying our tolerance toward despotism and by repressing awareness of our own acquiescence, we deny ourselves even the small steps into the right direction, that could be taken without much trouble, or economic hardship.

May Liu Xiaobo never be forgotten – and may Liu Xia find comfort and recovery.

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Updates/Related

再生：致刘晓波, Woeser, July 13, 2017
Rebirth, Woeser/Boyden, July 16, 2017
Wiedergeburt, Woeser/Forster, July 27, 2017
The abuse hasn’t stopped, Wu Gan, July 25, 2017

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Populism in China (1): The Downfall of Bo Xilai

There is no Weltinnenpolitik yet, but there are cross-civilizational trends.

The City of Red Songs

There would be no second chance. Gerhard Schröder, former chancellor of Germany, was in a hurry in June 2011, on the sidelines of a forum in southwestern China’s metropolis of Chongqing. He was therefore lacking the time to attend one of the red-song nights that were customary there. But he still pleased his interlocutors with a German proverb: Where people sing, you can settle down – wicked people sing no songs.

In full, the red-songs custom advocated by Chongqing’s party chief Bo Xilai was Singing revolutionary songs, Reading classic books, telling stories and spreading mottos. There would be nine more months of that before Bo Xilai was toppled by his CCP comrades.

A Hudong article explained the activity at the time. It was a mass concept, started in Chongqing in 2008, which was greeted with enthusiasm there, and elsewhere in China. The concept wasn’t outdated, because

if a country and a nation have no correct thought and advanced culture, it will lose its backbone. The current deep changes of the economic system, the structure of society, and the profound adjustment of interest patterns must be reflected in the ideological field. There is diversity in peoples’ minds, and although the mainstream is positive and healthy, while some peoples’ material life conditions have improved, spiritual life is somewhat empty. To change that condition, and to ensure a safe passing of the torch in the cause of the party and the country, the red flag must be righteously upheld, the ideology of Marxism must be consolidated in its guiding position within the ideological field, and the attractiveness and the cohesive power of socialist ideology must be strengthened.

一个国家和民族没有正确的思想、先进的文化，就会失掉主心骨。当前，经济体制深刻变革、社会结构深刻变动、利益格局深刻调整，必然反映到意识形态领域。人们的思想日趋多元多变多样，虽然主流积极健康向上，但一些人物质生活改善了，精神生活却有些空虚。为了彻底改变这种状况，保证党和国家的事业薪火相传，必须理直气壮地举红旗，不断巩固马克思主义在意识形态领域的指导地位，增强社会主义意识形态的吸引力和凝聚力。[Links within these lines omitted.]

According to the HuDong article, CCP politbureau member and Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙来) had deplored the phenomenon of young people who sang decadent songs (唱 .. 靡靡之音, chàng mímí zhī yīn), who were reading “fast-food” kinds of literature (读 .. 快餐文化, dú kuàicān wénhuà), told “low and vulgar stories” (讲 .. 低俗故事, jiǎng dīsú gùshì), and “spread pornographic or dull scripts/pieces” (传 .. 黄段子、灰段子, chuán huáng duànzi, huī duànzi).

So, apparently, there were dirty songs, too. Maybe things weren’t as simple as Schröder had believed. At least one  reader and forum commenter of China’s Huanqiu Shibao didn’t trust Schröder’s expertise and wrote:

OK, listen [to the red songs], you won’t comprehend them anyway. It will be as if you were listening to folk songs.

听吧，反正听不懂，就当听民歌了

The “Chongqing Model” was controversial, at least in the perceivable medial public of China. The party elite wasn’t entirely in love with Bo’s pretentious neo-Maoism. A vice president of Law School at China University of Political Science and Law was quoted by the English-language party mouthpiece “Global Times”:

There have been 104,000 “Red Song Concerts” in Chongqing, with 80 million participants. It cost 1,500 yuan ($231) per person for onsite renting and costume expenses, 210 million yuan in total. Adding in the offwork compensation and transportation the final cost is 270 billion [sic – probably means million – JR] yuan. Why don’t they use the money for health insurance?

Bo Xilai’s “Populism”, 2007 – 2012

At the grassroots, however, Bo’s leadership style appears to have worked (maybe it still does). The Chongqing Model wasn’t just about folklore, red or otherwise.

Chongqing (Sichuan province) residents set off firecrackers today, celebrating the execution of the provincial-level city’s former chief justice Wen Qiang (文强), cqnews.net reported in July 2010. The Wall Street Journal explained:

Wen Qiang was put to death following the rejection in May by China’s Supreme Court of an appeal of his conviction on charges including bribery, shielding criminal gangs, rape and inability to account for millions of dollars in cash and assets, according to Xinhua news agency. Xinhua didn’t say how Mr. Wen was executed.

Punching black crime and uprooting vice (拳打黑除恶) was the name of the campaign that cost Wen his life – according to the historical records as Bo would have it, he and his police chief Wang Lijun not only battled against gangs, but infiltrated cadres, too.

The now defunct website Chinageeks published an English translation of Zhang Wen, a former chief editor of the Xinhua magazine Globe:

Bo Xilai and the “northeast tiger” Wang Lijun entered Chongqing and started a war and began a “battling corruption and evil” movement that has gradually begun to spread nationwide and worldwide. This action is in line with the people’s wishes, and at the same time, also in line with what central authorities wish.

At first, the public opinion was very one-sided; no one could find any fault with Bo. The controversy and difference of opinions came with the case of Li Zhuang. Proponents of the democratic rule of law questioned and criticized the legality of Chongqing [court] proceedings, but Bo Xilai’s supporters hold that punishing lawyers who defend “bad people” is appropriate.

Bo Xilai’s wife Gu Kailai is a high-level lawyer who has been working for many years. The two have been together for many years and Bo himself was once the head of the Ministry of Commerce, and thus often negotiated international legal issues with foreign opponents. Because of this, Bo Xilai should have a solid conception and knowledge of the law.

But in the end, in the Li Zhuang case, the organs of justice in Chongqing left a bad impression that they might violate legal procedures. Precisely because of this, some people’s opinions on Bo Xilai changed dramatically. I myself once wrote an essay expressing pity that Bo Xilai hadn’t turned out to be the sort of high-quality modern politician [we had hoped].

Chongqing was a small pond for a big fish – Bo Xilai appeared to have hoped for a permanent seat in the CCP’s central politburo, but landed the job as party secretary of Chongqing instead. Chongqing wasn’t an insignificant city, but it was far from where central Chinese power was. Only an alernate politburo membership linked him to Beijing. From 2008, his Maoist song events raised nationwide attention, and even beyond China – Henry Kissinger apparently leapt at the chance Schröder had missed.

In 2011, Bo Xilai started his second campaign for a permanent seat at the CCP’s top table. While the Economist found Bo’s style refreshing, it noted nervously that

The region’s party chief, Bo Xilai, is campaigning for a place on the Politburo Standing Committee in next year’s leadership shuffle. He looks likely to succeed. Like every other Chinese politician since 1949, he avoids stating his ambitions openly, but his courting of the media and his attempts to woo the public leave no one in any doubt. Mr Bo’s upfront style is a radical departure from the backroom politicking that has long been the hallmark of Communist rule and would seem like a refreshing change, were it not that some  of his supporters see him as the Vladimir Putin of China. Mr Bo is a populist with an iron fist. He has waged the biggest crackdown on mafia-style gangs in his country in recent years. He has also been trying to foster a mini-cult of Mao, perhaps in an effort to appeal to those who are disillusioned with China’s cut-throat capitalism.

Bo didn’t appear to aim for the top job as secretary general, the Economist noted, as that position appeared to have been reserved for Xi Jinping. Indeed, Xi succeeded Hu Jintao as party secretary general in autumn 2012, and as state chairman in March 2013.

Bo Xilai’s plans didn’t work that smoothly. In November 2011, a British citizen, Neil Heywood, died in a hotel in Chongqing. Given that Chinese courts don’t work independently from the party, the circumstances of his death can’t be considered resolved. A Chinese court found Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife, guilty of killing Heywood, and after only one day in court, she got a suspended death sentence.

The BBC‘s China editor Carrie Gracie tried to shed light on the circumstances of Bo Xilai’s rise and fall, and the role Heywood’s death played in the latter, but didn’t find too many interlocutors. Instead, she presented a Rocky Horror Picture Show of elite power struggles with Chinese characteristics. Bo Xilai as the avenger of the common man, a crashing, media-savvy scourge of organized crime, who addressed the public directly, without party media filtering. That hadn’t happened since Mao’s days – “think Donald Trump”.

With support from local police chief Wang Lijun, who fancied leading roles in martial-arts television, too, Bo had exercised a regime that labeled opponents as mafiosi and not only jailed them, but expropriated them too, in favor of Chongqing’s budgets.

It isn’t contested that Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun prosecuted the real or supposed gangsters’ advocates, too, with questionable means. Gracie quotes one of these advocates, Li Zhuang (see above, Zhang Wen’s criticism of Bo Xilai), as Li describes how he was arrested by Wang Lijun personally:

The scene was so over-the-top, loads of police cars surrounding the plane, riot police in helmets and camouflage, armed with submachine guns. I asked, “Why the big show? Is it Obama’s state visit or are you capturing Osama Bin Laden?”

We were surrounded by a huge scrum of reporters. He wanted to show his authority on camera. He was in a trench coat, hands in his pockets. He said: “Li Zhuang, we meet again.”

There were admirers of Bo and Wang, there were critics and enemies, and there were people who detested the two. But at the grassroots, the fans appeared to be numerous. According to Gracie, there are still many.

Making inconvenient lawyers disappear was no unique feature of Bo Xilai, however. The party leadership with Xi Jinping at the core has been proving for years that to them, the rule of law is a theroretical nicety they may or may not care about.

Gracie reduces the causes of conflict between the noisy polit-soloist Bo Xilai and the basically “collectivist” leadership in Beijing on a personal rivalry between princeling Bo and princeling Xi.

Certainly, top politicians’ egos can hardly be overestimated, and when they are Chinese, ostentatious modesty shouldn’t fool anyone.

But Xi alone wouldn’t have gotten Bo under control. Neither with the sudden Neil-Heywood scandal – that became known as the Wang-Lijun incident in China after the police chief fled into the next US consulate and being passed on to the central authorities from there (but only after having spilled the beans). Nor otherwise.

The question suggests itself if Bo Xilai’s career wasn’t finished in summer 2011 anyway, given wide-spread disapproval among the party elite, of his egotistic leadership style in Chongqing.

“Unity is strength” was one of the “red songs” Bo Xilai had them sing in Chongqing (above: October 8, 2009). But it wasn’t only the Xi faction that saw a lack of just that on Bo’s part. Bo was putting himself forward, and that had been a taboo during all the post-Mao years.

He didn’t denigrate his leading comrades – appearances like that of Donald Trump as a campaigner, cursing fellow members of his political class, would have been inconceivable. But putting himself into the limelight (and casting it away from others) amounted to the same thing, by Chinese standards. Besides, given his anti-corruption renown, sanctimonious as it may have been, could have threatened his “comrades”. A tribun within their ranks – that couldn’t work.

Xi Jinping and his predecessor Hu Jintao are said to be rivals. But within the Hu camp, Bo’s populism didn’t seem to resonate either. On the contrary: Wen Jiabao, chief state councillor (aka “prime minister”) during the Hu Jintao era, had been a tireless, even if unsuccessful, advocate of political reform, way beyond economics or technology.

At a press conference in March 2012, after the closing ceremony of the annual “parliament” plenary sessions, Wen warned that China wasn’t immune against another cultural revolution. That John Garnaut, an Australian correspondent in Beijing, got the opportunity to talk with Hu Dehua, one of Hu Yaobang’s sons, may also count as an indication that the comparatively liberal factions in the party leadership were at least as sick of Bo Xilai’s revolutionary operas, as were the Xi supporters.

Garnaut, two weeks after Wen’s press conference, in an indirect account of his conversation with Hu Dehua^*):

Hu Dehua told his father how pessimistic he felt about his country’s future. Hu Yaobang agreed that the methods and ideologies of the 1987 anti-liberalization movement came straight from the Cultural Revolution. But he told his son to gain some historical perspective, and reminded him that Chinese people were not joining in the elite power games as they had 20 years before. He called the anti-liberalization campaign a “medium-sized cultural revolution” and warned that a small cultural revolution would no doubt follow, Hu Dehua told me. As society developed, Hu Yaobang told his son, the middle and little cultural revolutions would gradually fade from history’s stage.

From there, everything went fast. Still in March, Bo was dismissed as Chongqing’s party chief. He also lost his alternate membership in the politburo. In summer 2012, his wife Gu Kailai got her commuted death sentence, and in September 2013, Bo was sentenced to life in prison – based on the usual charges for unrigged politicians: corruption.

Is there a Chongqing Heritage?

At first glance, Bo Xilai’s “populism” or “Maoism” is finished. But Bo counted as a champion of many Chinese from the political left. A comment in German weekly Die Zeit, in September 2013, saw the verdict against Bo as a signal from the top that resistance against economic reform was futile.

To assess Bo Xilai’s political heritage objectively. The CCP may be beyond the era when beaten opponents were airbrushed from all photos and records. But the question about how publicly or privately-owned China’s economy should be might impose itself with any questions about Bo Xilai, and the now seven-member standing committee of the politburo can’t use such questions.

A political scientist of Beijing University, He Weifang (贺卫方), hinted at problems in assessing the Chongqing Model’s performance, from 2007 to 2012:

It is generally believed that the so-called “Chongqing Model” is mainly shaped by three aspects: “red culture” on the political level, “targeted actions against dark and evil forces in Chongqing“, and the reduction of the income gaps between the poor and the rich. The most criticized aspects are the former two, although there is support for the two of them in Chongqing and elsewhere. The third aspect isn’t that controversial. However, all data published concerning the efficiency of the measures taken to narrow the income gap are actually issued by the Chongqing authorities, and therefore lacking neutral assessment. Also, we can see that the whole process is strongly government-led, whose focus isn’t on creating a market logic of equal opportunities. If this approach will or will not lead to mistakes in financial policies, including the rural land policies‘ impartiality, is also questionable. And then there are concerns about life today being lead on future earnings, short-term inputs being made to curry favor with the public, which may come at high future costs.

答：一般认为，所谓的重庆模式主要由三方面内容构成：政治层面上的红色文化，执法层面上的“打黑除恶”以及民生方面的缩小贫富差距。最受诟病的是前两者，虽然在重庆和其他地方，似乎也有一些人人对于“唱红”和“打黑”表达支持。第三方面内容相对较少争议。不过，那些举措究竟对于缩小贫富差距产生了怎样的效果，目前得到的信息都是由重庆当局发布的，缺少中立的评估。另外，我们可以看到整个过程是在政府强势主导下进行的，其重点并非创造机会均等的市场逻辑。这种做法是否会带来财政决策中的失误，包括重庆所推行的农村土地政策的公正性，都是大可怀疑的。还有寅吃卯粮的隐忧，短期内的高投入讨好了民众，但是却需要未来付出巨大的代价。

If Bo Xilai was a populist, one of Donald Trump’s kind, or Putin’s, or Neil Farage’s, or whoever, one has to ask oneself how much influence he has maintained over Chinese politics to this day. After all, populists like Geert Wilders aren’t ineffective, merely because they can’t lay their hands on the imperial regalia.

When looking at European populism – that’s only a snapshot, of course -, one can get the impression that populists may not be elected, but they do leave marks on politics, from Merkel’s Willkommenskultur back to the traditional Christian Democrats’ policies, and Britain’s Brexit, implemented not by its original proponents, but by Theresa May, who had used to be a lukewarm supporter of Britain’s EU membership.

Populism is hardly ever the common peoples’ business, but that of the elites. The battles are fought within the political class, as observed by Hu Yaobang in the late 1980s. That is about as true in Europe. However, these battles within the superstructure may create or intensify certain trends in the public mood – and once policies have moved sufficiently into the “populist” direction, the support for these parties wanes, and the electorate turns back to the long-established parties. After all, Joe Blow doesn’t want to look like an extremist.

When Xi Jinping announced China’s new role as a guardian of free trade at the Davos forum in January, German Handelsblatt China correspondent Stephan Scheuer hailed the party and state leader’s “dressing-down for populists”. In Davos, Xi had become “a pioneer of fair-minded globalization”.

What could be beginning to show in China is a comparatively strong Maoist component in propaganda, as long as this doesn’t come at the cost of China’s privileged, and as long as this doesn’t require substantial reallocation of means or wealth to poor classes of population, or laggard regions. But whenever the name “Bo Xilai” should appear in any token event, the exorcists will be just around the corner.

Li Keqiang’s Consolation Tour: addressing Unpaid-Wage issues

The State Council’s (or Chinese government) website carried an article about a visit by Chief State Councillor Li Keqiang to Yunnan Province, some five days ahead of Spring Festival. The article contains a photo, apparently showing Li comforting a migrant worker’s family in their home.

Homestory

As usual during the season of hope and goodwill, Li has to take care of the darker sides of China’s economic development.

Links within blockquotes added during translation.

On January 23, Li Keqiang came to the newly constructed home of Gan Yonrong’s family, in Ganjiazhai, Ludian County, Yunnan Province. On learning that the young man, who secured a six-person family’s livelihood by working out of town, had seen his wage payments being delayed by more than a year, the chief state councillor became “angry” right away [and said]: He is the family’s main support, and to hurt him means hurting his entire family. This violates market rules, and it violates virtue and conscience even more. There is no way that migrant workers who have to leave their hometown to do hard work should have to add tears to their sweat.

1月23日，李克强来到震后重建的云南鲁甸甘家寨村民甘永荣家。得知小伙子在外打工养活一家6口，却被拖欠一年多工资，总理当即“怒”了：他是家中顶梁柱，伤害他就是伤害他全家。这既违背市场规则，更违背道德良心。决不能让农民工背井离乡流汗再流泪。

On February 3, the first working day after Spring Festival, the State Council’s standing committee was convened, and one of the topics was exactly how to solve migrant workers’ delayed payment with the establishment of an effective system. The meeting decided to launch dedicated regulation and supervision, to focus on exposing typical cases, to seriously investigate illegal behavior of wages arrears, including already recorded cases, and to resolutely strike at the illegal and criminal behavior of evil-intentioned wages arrears. In particular, cases where government project funding delays led to delays in wage payments.

2月3日，春节后的首个工作日，国务院召开常务会议，其中议题之一便是部署建立解决农民工工资拖欠的长效机制。会议决定开展专项整治和督查，集中曝光一批典型案件，严肃查处欠薪违法行为包括欠薪陈案，坚决打击恶意欠薪违法犯罪。尤其要坚决解决涉及政府项目拖欠工程款导致欠薪问题。

[…]

The standing committee’s meeting had been determined by the Chief State Councillor prior to the Spring Festival. On January 23, as Li Keqiang was inspecting post-earthquake reconstruction work in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, several locals from the disaster area working masses had made their problems with delayed wages known to the Chief State Councillor. On the spot, Li Keqiang instructed the accompanying local and departmental officials in charge that they should help [the workers] with their legal wage demands as quickly as possible, and to investigate the problem. After the Chief State Councillor had spoken, the departments and local officials in charge helped the migrant workers within 48 hours to “discuss” an answer to the delayed wage payments.

事实上，此次常务会议的这一议题安排，本身就是总理春节前确定的。1月23日，李克强在云南昭通考察鲁甸地震灾后重建工作时，当地几位外出打工的灾区群众向总理反映他们遭遇欠薪的问题。李克强当场责令随行的地方和部门负责人，要尽快帮他们依法讨薪，并就此问题进行排查。总理发话后，有关部门和地方48小时后帮助农民工“讨”回欠薪。

“We can’t solve only a small number of cases, but we must build a long-term effective system to solve this chronic evil from the roots.” On the three-day meeting, Li Keqiang said, “governments on all levels must catch up with this over and over again, and grasp it completely!”

“我们不能光是解决几个个案就了事了，而要借此建立起一个长效机制，从根本上解决农民工欠薪这个顽症。”李克强在3日的常务会议上说，“这个问题各级政府一定要反复抓、抓到底！”

The second chapter of the article quotes Li as using the words “anger” (愤怒), “pain” (痛心), and “embarrassment (尴尬)” to describe his feelings in his encounter with the petitioners.

In Ludian, I ran into that migrant worker whose wife had been killed in the earthquake, and his family’s farmland had been lost, too. Now, there’s still the old mother, three sons, and one younger brother who attends upper-mediate school. The entire family depends on the money he earns with his work away from home. He is his family’s backbone!” Li Keqiang said: “Where is the conscience of companies who have the nerves to delay the wages of working masses from disaster areas who have to work away from their hometown?”

“我在鲁甸遇到的那位农民工，妻子在地震中遇难，家里的耕地也。现在家里还有老母亲、三个儿子，和一个正在上高中的弟弟。全家生活就靠他一个人外出打工的收入，他是一家人的顶梁柱啊！”李克强说，“这样的地震灾区的群众外出打工，企业也忍心欠薪，良心何在？”

As he was leaving the home of this migrant worker, Li Keqiang asked people at the public square of the village who had encountered problems with “delayed wages” in reconstruction work. On repeated questions from the Chief State Councillor, several migrant workers hesitantly raised their hands. One of them couldn’t hold back his tears after having spoken two sentences.

他询问大家有多少人外出打工，有多少人遇到了欠薪问题。总理反复询问下，有几位农民工犹犹豫豫地举起了手。一位农民工没说两句，忍不住抹起了眼泪。

Their work’s pay is extremely important for migrant workers. If they don’t get their money, that’s a devastating blow to them!”, Li Keqiang said passionately. “Migrant workers are an important supporting force in the several decades of our country’s rapid development. They have made an enormous contribution to the economic and social development. If their efforts don’t get their appropriate remuneration, it will not only do great damage to their families, but will also bring a vile influence on society.”

“打工的钱对于农民工来讲太重要了。拿不到钱，对他们可以说是毁灭性的打击！”李克强动情地说，“农民工是我们国家几十年快速发展的重要支撑力量，为经济社会发展做出了巨大的贡献。如果他们的辛勤付出得不到应有的回报，不仅会给他们的家庭造成巨大的伤害，也会给社会带来恶劣的影响。”

With added emphasis, he said that this issue was about fairness and justice in society. This is a bottomline which must not be crossed!

他加重语气说，这一问题事关社会公平正义。这是社会底线，决不能突破！

The article’s third and fourth chapters are basically more of the same message, but contain an interesting (to me) bit of vocabulary. Li Keqiang’s inspection tour in Yunnan is referred to as a grassroots-level consolation and inspection tour (基层慰问考察), and the issue of “delayed payment” is linked to emloyment and development policies in general (更加积极的就业政策).

Finally, the article quotes Li as advocating (or prescribing) “not only an implementation of the responsibility of governments of all levels, but to build a coordinating network without barriers between local governments”, given that many cases of wage delays among migrant workers occur “at construction projects” outside the workers’ home provinces.

“People’s Daily” republished the government website’s article, although they left out the photo.

While the government website article, designed for a domestic audience, comes across as somewhat wage (as for the actual effects migrant workers may expect from Li Keqiang’s endeavors), foreign broadcaster China Radio International (CRI) presents the State Council standing committee’s decisions in a much more positive way, at least at first glance.

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Related

You name the Problem, Febr 15, 2011
So together with the People, Dec 31, 2010

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