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Weekly Report 4|4 10.31.2020-11.6.2020
Highlights
The Central Committee released its proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan that were adopted during the Fifth Plenum (see Senior Leaders section).
Senior Leaders
Xi Jinping: A Number of Major Issues in the Nation’s Medium-Long Term Strategy on Economic and Social Development.
10.31 Xi Jinping published an article in Qiushi about how to turn the “crisis” and “test” of the coronavirus pandemic into an opportunity to achieve high-quality development. The article pointed out six key areas of focus: expanding domestic demand, stabilizing industrial supply chains, improving urbanization, adhering to goal-oriented scientific research, realizing the harmonious balance with man and nature, and strengthening the construction of the public health system.
First, a major strength of a big country is having a domestic but cyclical economy. Expanding domestic demand is necessary to achieve a “benign cycle (良性循环)” with a foundation based in the middle class consumption in domestic and international market cycles.
Second, Xi explained having a stabilized industrial supply chain is an important feature of a major economy. It is necessary to enhance the position of competitive industries and reduce the dependence on foreign markets and build a self-circulating safe supply chain.
Third, urbanization needs to put more emphasis on ecology and safety. Urbanization also needs to control population density by not blindly “spreading the jianbing” (“摊大饼”) and instead create multi-nodes and urban clusters of cities.
Fourth, the pandemic has shown the importance of optimizing the layout of scientific and technological resources, and improving the ability of scientific and technological innovation. It is necessary to increase research and development of virology, genetics, and immunology, and big data in medicine.
Fifth, Xi pointed out he has repeatedly emphasized that mankind must conform with, protect, and respect nature. It is necessary to improve territorial and spatial planning, clarify the ecological red line (生态红线), accelerate the formation of a protected nature system, and reasonably restrict economic and social activities.
Sixth, the pandemic has exposed shortcomings in the healthcare system. It is necessary to engage in top-down design of public health institutes and professional training, strengthen grassroots prevention and early-warning detection, and manage sensitive medical data.
Central Committee Releases Proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan on National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives for 2035
11.3 Xinhua published the Central Committee’s proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan that were adopted during the Fifth Plenum. It also published a summary article titled “Have You Taken Note of the 12 Key Areas of the ‘14th Five-Year Plan?’” that condensed the 14th Five-Year Plan’s proposals into 12 sections as summarized below:
Scientific and technological innovation: Innovation should play a central role in modernization and support the country’s development strategy. Target innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, brain science, aerospace technology and implement forward-looking strategic scientific and technological programs. Carry forward the construction and reorganization of laboratories and cultivate a talent reserve.
Industrial development: Focus on economic development in the real economy to build China as a strong manufacturing and digital power, improve the quality of the country’s infrastructure, strengthen international industrial security cooperation, promote the move toward a high quality and diversified service industry, and accelerate development of 5G.
Domestic market: Promote the balanced development of finance and real estate in the real economy, and the construction of a strong domestic economy and trade power. Advance the healthy development of household spending and expand holiday spending. Implement major domestic development projects such as the Sichuan-Tibet Railroad.
Deepen reform: Accelerate the optimization and structural adjustments to the state-owned economy, carry forward market reforms of the energy, railroad, and telecommunications industries, as well as other public sectors. Protect the property rights of private enterprises and the interests of entrepreneurs.
Rural revitalization: Strengthen the use of industry to supplement agriculture and promote coordination between industrial and agricultural workers and between urban rural areas. Explore implementing rural collective management, home ownership and qualification rights, and promote the development of poverty alleviation areas.
Regional development: Gradually form urbanized regions and production regions for agricultural goods. Implement urban renewal actions and increase the supply of affordable housing and rentals.
Cultural construction: Implement Xi Jinping Thought and Marxism, and strengthen the histories of the Party, New China, and Reform and Opening. Strengthen major cultural facilities and projects and promote the fused development of culture and tourism.
Green development: Support places where conditions permit to take the lead in reaching peak carbon emissions and form a plan to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030. Basically eliminate heavy pollution weather, strengthen the control of white pollution, and carry out waste management.
Open to the outside: Safeguard overseas Chinese enterprises’ legitimate rights and interests. Promote the internationalization of the RMB and create a new type of mutually beneficial cooperative relationship based on its use.
Social construction: Promote joint prosperity, increase low and middle income groups’ income rights, and increase rural and urban property income. Take advantage of online education to improve lifelong learning. Improve health services and responses and implement a national strategy to respond to China’s aging population.
Security development: Improve the centralized, unified, and highly effective authority system of National Security leadership. Place the protection of people’s life safety first, raise the capabilities of public safety guarantees, and improve the national emergency management system.
Defense construction: Ensure the realization of the military’s centenary goals in 2027.
Propaganda Work
Continued Zhong Sheng Series: The True Face of the US--A Menace to Global Security
11.01 The third installment in People’s Daily’s Zhong Sheng series, entitled “Promoting A Culture of Hegemony, Threatening the Security of the Global Culture of Security,” emphasized US cultural hegemony and violation of other countries’ sovereignty. The commentary used the designation of six Chinese media outlets as 'foreign missions’ as an example US hypocrisy in pursuing “frantic containment (疯狂遏制)” and “forcible interference (强行渗透)” while still pursuing cultural exchanges and democracy promotion. According to Zhong Shen, “some American politicians” stubbornly hold on to the idea of “American exceptionalism” and believe that the United States can only maintain national security by promoting American values and democratic systems throughout the world. The article explains that after their failed experiment to “change China” (改变中国), these politicians are “paranoid” (妄想狂) and “soaked in cultural hegemonic thinking in their bones,” saying they want “to formulate a framework for relations with China based on the clash of civilizations.” The article concludes that the diversity of civilizations is the reality of human society, and human beings should “light the lamp of wisdom together in exchanges and mutual learning.” Those who engage in cultural hegemony “will eventually become lonely.”
Wang Huning Hosts Central Propaganda Team Mobilization Meeting
11.5 The “Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the Fifth Plenum of the 19th CCP Central Committee Central Propaganda Team Mobilization Meeting” was held in Beijing. Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning (王沪宁) presided over the meeting and delivered a speech. Wang expressed the “high level of importance that General Secretary Xi attaches to the study, dissemination, and implementation of the spirit of the plenum,” and “raised clear requirements [for cadres].” In the speech, Wang stressed the importance of the “guiding [philosophy] of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism for a New Era with Chinese Characteristics.”
Wang described the importance of “comprehensively and precisely grasping and thoroughly disseminating the spirit of the plenum, guiding the masses of cadres in strengthening the ‘four consciousnesses,’ insisting on the ‘four confidences,’ doing the ‘two safeguards’ well, and [to create a] burgeoning study and implementation spirit of the plenum.” Wang also noted the importance of “doing dissemination work well, the necessity of thoroughly studying and comprehending Xi’s ‘series of major thoughts’ regarding the 14th Five-Year Plan, to remain inseparably closely connected to the Party’s 18th Congress, to promote the undertakings of the Party and the nation, to overcome all manner of risks and challenges, to receive worldwide attention for grand accomplishments, and to thoroughly disseminate Comrade Xi as the core of the Central Committee in order to unite and lead the whole party and the whole nation at haste through trials and hardships.”
Party Discipline
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Standing Committee Convenes- Emphasizes Deepened Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the Fifth Plenum- To Provide a Strong Guarantee for Embarking on a New Journey to Build a Modern Socialist Country in All Respects
10.30 The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Standing Committee convened a conference on “studying the spirit of the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee.” The Standing Committee asserted the importance of “strengthening the four consciousnesses (四个意识), insisting on the four self-confidences (四个自信), and [the] two defends (两个维护).” The committee emphasized the significance of “consciously unifying thought and action with the policies deployed by the Party Central Committee, to promote the development of high-quality disciplinary inspection and supervisory work for a new era, in order to comprehensively construct a modern socialist nation, and to continue to offer strong guarantees.”
The committee indicated the “need to enter the new stage of development with assurance, to implement new development concepts, and to meet the new requirements of discipline and inspection work with respect to construct[ing] new development patterns.” It also emphasized the importance of “adherence to the centralized and unified leadership of the CCP Central Committee, and insisting on putting the people in the center, adhering to seeking progressing while ensuring stability, and adhering to the principle of strict discipline in the long term.”
International Liaison Work
11.3 International Department Deputy Head Guo Yezhou (郭业洲) met with Nepali Ambassador to China Mahendra Bahadur Pandey.
11.3 Guo Yezhou held a video conference with British Member of Parliament and former Labour Party Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Andrew Gwynne.
11.4 International Department Head Song Tao (宋涛) participated in and Guo Yezhu presided over the opening ceremony of a high-level webinar for the CCP and Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP/Sri Lanka People's Front) on “strengthening exchanges between the two countries’ ruling parties and mutual learning from governing experience.” Other Chinese participants included Hainan Party Committee Secretary Liu Cigui (刘赐贵), Hainan Party Committee Standing Committee member and Secretary-General Sun Dahai (孙大海), and Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong (戚振宏). Sri Lankan participants comprised more than 50 high-level government officials and SLPP leaders, including Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Education Minister and SLPP Chair G. L. Peiris, Youth Affairs and Sports Minister and SLPP Youth Head Namal Rajapaksa, Plantation Minister Ramesh Pathirana, and SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam.
11.4 International Department Deputy Head Qian Hongshan (钱洪山) held a video conference with Italian Senate Foreign Affairs Committee President and Five Star Movement Head of International Relations Vito Rosario Petrocelli.
11.4 International Department Deputy Head Wang Yajun (王亚军) participated in the opening ceremony of a webinar for Cambodia People's Party (CPP) cadres on “jointly planning for the new development of the community with a shared future for China and Cambodia in the post-pandemic era.” Other participants included Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian (王文天) and CPP Central Committee member and Monitoring Committee Deputy Head Men Sam An.
11.4 Wang Yajun held a video conference with Mongolian State Great Khural Mongolia-China Parliamentary Group Vice Chair and Mongolian People's Party Parliamentary Group Vice Chair Bulgantuya Khurelbaatar.
11.5 Guo Yezhou participated in an online activity for neighboring countries’ political parties on “rural revitalization under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control” and “the role of grassroots party organizations in rural revitalization.” Other participants included nearly 300 leaders and youth members of 16 political parties from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
11.6 Song Tao met with Japanese Ambassador to China Yutaka Yokoi.
Organization Work
Central Organization Department Publishes Notice Regarding Political Achievement Evaluation for Improving and Promoting High-Quality Development
11.5 The Central Organization Department published a “Notice Regarding Political Achievement Evaluation for Improving and Promoting High-Quality Development.” The notice “requires all regions, all work units to organize [respective] personnel departments to concentrate on objectives and assignments to promote high-quality development and to conscientiously carry out work in light of actual conditions.”
The notice indicated the importance of “promoting high-quality development and optimizing performance indicators for substantive political accomplishments.” The notice mentions that high-quality development requirements include “innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and shared development.” The notice warns cadres against “formalism” and emphasized the importance of “clarifying cadres political accomplishments and strengthening leading groups and leading cadres daily management, and linking the advancing implementation of high-quality development work tasks.” The Central Organization Department guidance sets evaluation criteria that assesses cadres based on their performance promoting “the people’s feeling of fulfillment, happiness, and safety.”
11.6 Pan Yue (潘岳) was appointed deputy head of the Central United Front Work Department and director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.