Posts tagged ‘Mao Zedong’

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29/08/2013

Bo Xilai on trial: Settling scores

The Economist: “IN A heavily guarded courthouse in the eastern city of Jinan, the trial began on August 22nd of a politician who was once one of China’s most powerful figures. Bo Xilai, who is 64, has been accused of receiving bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power. His downfall in March 2012 caused the greatest political shock of its kind in decades.

That the trial is under way at last is a sign that Xi Jinping, who took over as China’s leader eight months after Mr Bo disappeared from public view, is confident that he can handle its ramifications. Mr Bo, like Mr Xi, is the son of one of Mao Zedong’s fellow revolutionaries. He remains popular in the parts of China where he has served, including as Communist Party chief in the 29m-strong region of Chongqing in the south-west. He is an icon of diehard Maoists and members of the “new left” who decry China’s move towards money making. Handling Mr Bo’s case without upsetting powerful families and arousing public ire (whether of Mr Bo’s fans or of the many Chinese who are aggrieved at widespread official corruption) has been Mr Xi’s challenge. As the trial began, dozens of supporters gathered nearby. Police dragged several away.

Mr Xi and his colleagues wished to choreograph the proceedings—which at the time of going to press were expected to last just a day or two—with great precision. But Mr Bo, with a characteristic feistiness, queered the pitch from the outset. He denied a charge of bribery involving payments of more than 1.1m yuan ($180,000) from a businessman in the north-eastern city of Dalian. His response to the other charges, including millions of dollars in other kickbacks, are not yet known. Foreign journalists were barred from the trial.

The allegations, even if disagreeable to Mr Bo, would have been tailored to suit all factions—including, to some extent, his own, for Mr Bo had powerful backers, including within the security forces. Speculation has also centred on whether the state tried to secure Mr Bo’s co-operation by promising not to go after his 25-year-old son, Bo Guagua, who was expensively educated in Britain and is now studying in America. The younger Mr Bo may hope one day to to avenge his father’s downfall.

via Bo Xilai on trial: Settling scores | The Economist.

Posted in China alert, corruption, Internal politics, Justice, Politics, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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23/08/2013

In Bo Xilai Trial, Some See Positive Signs for Legal System

WSJ: “Many China watchers see the trial of Communist Party insider Bo Xilai as scripted and staged, unveiling flaws of a closed Chinese judicial system. Yet amid the criticism, some are seeing positive signs emerge from Jinan, the northeastern Chinese city in Shandong province where Mr. Bo is facing corruption charges, including allegations that he took bribes with the aid of his wife.

The following are opinions of legal experts who have been following the trial:

Many Western critics of the Bo trial are comparing it to the stage-managed show trials of China’s past, including Jiang Qing [the wife of Mao Zedong] and victims of the Cultural Revolution. But this criticism misses the point. The Bo trial is exactly 180 degrees different in nature. In the show trials of China’s past, the politics would drive the criminal prosecution. In other words, the target would fall out of favor politically and then be legally persecuted as a result. In this trial, we have the opposite: the criminal prosecution is driving the politics. A towering and influential figure is being prosecuted in spite of his political influence, and the trial is driven primarily by the criminal allegations against him. Instead of being accused of serious crimes because his political standing has collapsed, his political standing has collapsed because he has been accused of serious crimes. –Geoffrey Sant, adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and special counsel at Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Despite the degree of supervision provided for the trial, there are nevertheless grounds for opening up the administration of justice to the supervision of the people. We’ve seen that in China there are many cases and trials that are not open, that attendance is constrained. Yet leaders have shown that they are willing to open up this case—to a certain extent—to the media, creating the perception that they are moving toward creating a more accessible judicial system.

Leaders are going farther than they could have to make the trial available. It’s a show trial, but not all trials are for show in China. To the extent that openness reveals shortcomings of the judicial system and promotes civil liberties is a positive thing. –Lester Ross a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm WilmerHale.”

via In Bo Xilai Trial, Some See Positive Signs for Legal System – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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21/08/2013

China’s Xi “Lurches” to the Left, Promotes Maoist Revival

Meadia: “In a move sure to dismay the people inside and outside China who hoped Xi Jinping would begin a new era of democratic reform, China’s president has “lurched” to the left, as the WSJ reports, promoting a revitalized version of nationalist Maoism across the country. ”Our red nation will never change color,” Xi said during a ceremony at Mao’s old lakeside mansion in Wuhan, declaring that the villa should become a center to educate young people about patriotism and revolution.

“It isn’t just Mr. Xi’s rhetoric that has taken on a Maoist tinge in recent months,” the Journal reports. “He has borrowed from Mao’s tactical playbook, launching a ‘rectification’ campaign to purify the Communist Party, while tightening limits on discussion of ideas such as democracy, rule of law and enforcement of the constitution.”

Xi appears to have capitalized on some uncertainty at the top levels of the Party after the fall of Bo Xilai, a charismatic and popular leader who also led a Maoist revival campaign and became a threat to the stability of the Party leadership. “Many of Mr. Bo’s former supporters and several powerful princelings have thrown their weight behind Mr. Xi’s efforts to establish himself as much a stronger leader than his predecessor,” party insiders told the WSJ.

Xi’s nationalist streak comes as the country prepares for Bo Xilai’s trial and amid an economic downturn that has caused worry among investors and analysts. At the same time, China and other Asian powers are engaged in a dangerous and accelerating game of military one-upmanship. New ships and maritime units are being unveiled from India to the Philippines to Japan and territorial disputes are growing more intense. Across the region, this trend is driven in part by a rising nationalism among citizens—in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, India, elsewhere—who push their governments into increasingly aggressive and antagonistic positions against the neighbors. China is no exception.”

[Xi Jinping photo courtesy of Shutterstock]

via China’s Xi “Lurches” to the Left, Promotes Maoist Revival | Via Meadia.

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21/06/2013

China’s Communist party takes page from Mao’s playbook

FT: “China’s Communist party has unleashed a rectification campaign of a scale and tone not seen in more than a decade as the leadership seeks to address frustration over corrupt officials while avoiding bold political reforms.

A China Communist party flag wavesd among soldiers and policemen at the opening ceremony of a revolutionary song singing concert

As investors wait for party chief Xi Jinping to initiate long-delayed economic reforms and liberals in China push for political change, Mr Xi is taking a page out of the playbook of Mao Zedong, the charismatic but dictatorial politician who led China through a sequence of mass campaigns.

Mr Xi, in a speech on Tuesday, exhorted the party that it must embrace the “mass line” to avoid its extinction. Every cadre, demanded Mr Xi, must “look in the mirror, tidy your attire, take a bath and seek remedies” to clean the party from formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.

All cadres from county level upwards have to attend study and criticism sessions during the year-long campaign. State media are blanketing the public with interpretations of the “mass line” – the concept that the party must remain close to the people to understand and address their needs.

“This is a very big thing for the party’s style. There has been nothing like it for at least the past decade,” says Wang Wen, the former commentary head of the party tabloid Global Times who now leads a think-tank at Renmin university.

via China’s Communist party takes page from Mao’s playbook – FT.com.

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18/06/2013

Mao’s birthday: Party time

The Economist: “THERE was a time, just a few months ago, when some analysts were speculating that new leaders preparing to take over in China wanted to abandon Mao. If it ever seemed likely then, it is looking far less so now. The new helmsman, Xi Jinping, has been showing no sign of squeamishness about the horrors of that era. Preparations are under way for big celebrations of Mao’s 120th birthday on December 26th. Mr Xi will likely use the occasion to pay fulsome homage.

On June 5th the party chief of Hunan, Xu Shousheng, paid a visit to one of his province’s most-visited attractions: Mao’s rural birthplace in Shaoshan village (the Hunan Daily’s report is here, in Chinese). There he laid a wreath before a bronze statue of the late chairman. Mr Xu has good economic reasons for showing obeisance. Last year the province earned nearly $4.6 billion from “red tourism”, as pilgrimages to historic Communist sites are known (a local newspaper, in Chinese, describes hopes to boost this by more than 20% in 2013). But Mr Xu made clear he was not there just to drum up business for Hunan. The central leadership, he said, was attaching “great importance” to the birthday celebrations. The entire nation, he said, was paying “great attention”.

Hunan officials are pulling out all the stops. In September it was reported that Xiangtan prefecture, which governs the village, was planning to spend 15.5 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) on 16 projects described as “presents” for Mao (see here, in Chinese). These include the refurbishing of a Mao museum in Shaoshan, a new road around the tourist area, a new drainage system for nearby Shaoshan city and the building of a new community called Hope Town for local farmers (described here). Shaoshan village is organising cultural performances, an academic conference and a “big gathering” to mark the anniversary, as well as the usual handout of free “happiness and longevity noodles” to visitors on the big day (see here, in Chinese, for a list of this year’s events in Shaoshan and here, in English, for some of the traditional ones).

It is all but certain that Mr Xi will feature prominently in the celebrations. His two immediate predecessors both gave speeches in praise of Mao on similar occasions: Hu Jintao in 2003, on the 110th anniversary (here, in Chinese), and Jiang Zemin in 1993, on the 100th (here, in Chinese). The signs are that Mr Xi will strike a similar tone. In January he told colleagues in the ruling Politburo that the achievements of the post-Mao era should not be used to negate those of the earlier years of Communist rule, and vice versa. In May a Beijing newspaper revealed that Mr Xi had also quoted Deng Xiaoping as saying that repudiation of Mao could lead to chaos (see here, in Chinese).

But in the coming months Mr Xi might be wary of overdoing the adulation. In the autumn he will preside over a crucial meeting of the party’s central committee that he apparently hopes will approve plans for wide-ranging economic reforms. Encouraging Maoists could play into the hands of what liberals in China call “interest groups”, such as large state-owned enterprises, that stand in the way of reform.

Fuelling Maoist fervour could also make it more difficult to handle the case of Bo Xilai, a Politburo member who was expelled from the party in November for alleged abuses of power, including complicity in the murder of a British businessman. Mr Bo is a darling of die-hard Maoists who believe that, for all the party’s lip-service to Mao, the country has fallen prey to the worst excesses of capitalism. He is widely expected to be put on trial in the coming months. Mr Xi does not want to encourage supporters of Mr Bo.”

via Mao’s birthday: Party time | The Economist.

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19/05/2013

* Chinese shoppers bringing bags of cash

Manila Bulletin: “Lin Lu remembers the day last December when a Chinese businessman showed up at the car dealership he works for in north China and paid for a new BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo -in cash.

“One of his friends carried about $60,000 in a big white bag,“ Mr. Lin recalled, “and the buyer had the rest in a heavy black backpack.“

Lugging nearly $130,000 in cash into a dealership might sound bizarre, but it’s not exactly uncommon in China.

This is a country, after all, where home buyers make down payments with trunks filled with thick wads of renminbi, China’s currency. And big-city law firms hire armored cars to deliver the cash needed to pay monthly salaries.

For all China’s modern trappings -the high-speed rail networks and soaring skyscrapers -analysts say this country still prefers to pay for things the old-fashioned way, with cash.

Doing business in China takes a lot of cash because Chinese authorities refuse to print any bill larger than the 100-renminbi note. That’s equivalent to $16. Since 1988, the 100-renminbi note, graced by Mao Zedong‘s face, has been the largest note in circulation, even though the economy has grown fiftyfold. No major economy has limited itself to such a low denominated bill as China.

By making the 100-renminbi note the largest bill, the nation’s citizens need more of it to buy a television, never mind a car, home or a yacht.

Chinese economists and govern ment officials often suggest that printing larger denomination notes might fuel inflation. But there is another reason.

“I’m convinced the government doesn’t want a larger bill because of corruption,“ said Nicholas R. Lardy, a leading authority on the Chinese economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, noting that it would help facilitate corrupt payments to officials. “Instead of trunks filled with cash bribes you’d have people using envelopes. And there’d be more cash leaving the country.“

All the buying, bribing and hoarding forces China to print a lot of paper money. China, which a millennium ago was the first government to print paper money, accounts for about 40 percent of all global paper currency output.

Although China’s coastal cities have flourished during the 30 years of economic prosperity, economists say the country’s interior remains poor and disconnected from the more modern aspects of the financial grid. As a result, the poor prefer to do business in cash. The rich also like to deal in cash, and they typically hide their money in the underground economy to avoid government scrutiny.

“The average Chinese trusts neither the Chinese banks nor the Communist Party,“ said Friedrich Schneider, an authority on shadow economies and a professor of economics at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria.

That lack of trust fosters a game between the government and its subjects, analysts say. Executives make secret cash deals to earn outside consulting fees while working at state-run companies. The government responds by trying to penetrate a vast underground economy, where transactions are conducted almost entirely in cash.

Often, the culprits are the very government officials who are supposed to be upholding the laws.

Take the case of Wen Qiang, the former police chief in the city of Chongqing. He was caught in 2009 with nearly a million dollars in renminbi, carefully wrapped in plastic bags and hidden in a water tank at a relative’s home.

To keep a lid on the illegal cash transfers, China restricts cross-border money transfers and places limits on foreign currency exchange.

And then there’s the issue of rodents. In March, a migrant worker in Shanghai discovered that mice had chewed into tiny pieces the $1,200 his wife stored in a closet. A local bank agreed to exchange the money if the man could reassemble at least three-quarters of a bill.

“But the bills are now in small pieces and it’s almost impossible to fix them,“ said Zhao Zhiyong, the 37-year-old worker. “Who could know that the money would be chewed by mice?“ Xu Yan contributed research in Shanghai.

via : http://mb.pressmart.com/manilabulletin/publications/ManilaBulletin/MB/2013/05/18/articlehtmls/Chinese-shoppers-Bring-Bags-of-Cash-18052013648009.shtml

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11/05/2013

* Photograph of Chairman Mao goes under the hammer for 391,000 yuan

SCMP: “An original photo of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong went under the hammer on Friday in Beijing, and sold for 391,000 yuan (HK$490,490 or £40,000).

mao_auction.jpg

The picture, taken by his wife Jiang Qing, shows Chairman Mao sitting in a chair in front of Lushan Mountain in 1961.

Originally black and white, the photograph later had colour added by hand.

Although Jiang Qing, Mao’s last wife, was an actress, she was also very politically active and played a major role in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). She was also known for forming the radical political alliance known as the “Gang of Four“.”

via Photograph of Chairman Mao goes under the hammer for 391,000 yuan | South China Morning Post.

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10/05/2013

* Mao Zedong’s granddaughter among China’s richest people

SCMP: “Mao Zedong’s granddaughter has become one of China’s richest people, according to an annual ranking of the nation’s richest 500.

Kong Dongmei, right, granddaughter of the father of Communist China, Mao Zedong

Kong Dongmei, the granddaughter of the founder of the People’s Republic and his third wife He Zizhen, along with her husband Chen Dongsheng have the combined wealth of five billion yuan (HK$6.3 billion), putting them at number 242 in the annual ranking by the Guangdong-based New Fortune magazine.

Their marriage has only become publicly known last year. It was rumoured the couple of 15 years could only marry after Chen divorced his previous wife in 2011.

Chen is the founder of China’s first national auction house Guardian and the country’s fourth largest insurance house Taikang.

“The House of Mao will never engage in business,” Mao’s only known grandson Mao Xinyu, a major general in the People’s Liberation Army, reportedly pledged, perhaps to avoid suspicion of exploiting the illustrious ancestor for personal gain.

Xinyu’s comments came at a time when China was debating the legacy and business ties of disgraced Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, himself the son of one of the founding fathers of Communist China, Bo Yibo.

Mao Xinyu is Kong’s half-brother. His grandmother Yang Kaihui was Mao’s second wife. Both Kong and Mao Xinyu have written books titled My Grandpa Mao.

In stark contrast to their aristocratic background, the man who topped the list of China’s richest, Zong Qinghou, started his career as a salt harvester in Zhejiang province.

With an estimated wealth of 70 billion yuan, the co-founder of the Wahaha beverages group has 14-times the wealth of the Great Helmsman’s offspring.”

via Mao Zedong’s granddaughter among China’s richest people | South China Morning Post.

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25/04/2013

* Xi Jinping orders generals and senior PLA officers to serve as privates

SCMP: “Chinese generals and senior officers will have to serve as the lowest-ranking soldiers for at least two weeks under a measure by President Xi Jinping to shake up the military and boost morale.

usa_sin109_35189443.jpg

Xi, as the nation’s commander-in-chief, issued the order over the weekend, which the Ministry of National Defence publicised on its website.

It dictates that officers with the rank of lieutenant-colonel or above must serve as privates – the lowest-ranking soldier – for not less than 15 days. Generals and officers will have to live, eat and serve with junior soldiers during the period.

They need to provide for themselves and pay for their own food. They must not accept any banquet invitation, join any sight-seeing tours, accept gifts or interfere with local affairs

“They need to provide for themselves and pay for their own food. They must not accept any banquet invitation, join any sight-seeing tours, accept gifts or interfere with local affairs,” said the directive, which covers both the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police.

Leaders of regiment- and brigade-level units have to serve on the front line once every three years. Division- and army-level commanders must serve once every four years. Top leaders from army headquarters and military districts will do so once every five years.

The measure recalls a similar shake-up launched by Mao Zedong in 1958. Mao at the time famously said all military leaders should serve as foot soldiers for a month every year.

He used the chance to strengthen his control of the military and forced many powerful marshals and generals into retirement or exile.”

via Xi Jinping orders generals and senior PLA officers to serve as privates | South China Morning Post.

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09/03/2013

* Where Have China’s Workers Gone?

Bloomberg: “Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are taking over China’s leadership at a time when growth has slackened and labor issues have become more complex.

China's Disappearing Surplus Labor

Reports that businesses such as Foxconn Technology Group are raising wages and struggling to recruit workers in China have intensified debate over just how many surplus workers the country still has. Meanwhile, a boom in college-educated Chinese has raised concerns of an impending threat to U.S. competitiveness. These seemingly disparate concerns about China’s labor force are actually linked by common underlying factors, with critical implications for China’s ability to remain the growth engine of the world.

China’s large pool of surplus labor has fueled its rapid industrial growth. Now this “demographic dividend” may be almost exhausted, and its economy reaching a Lewis turning point: a shift named after the Nobel prize-winning Arthur Lewis, who was the first to describe how poor economies can develop by transferring surplus labor from agriculture to the more productive industrial sector until the point when surplus labor disappears, wages begin to rise and growth slows.

Citing periodic labor shortages and unskilled wages that have risen since 2003, prominent Chinese economists suggest that time has come. The International Monetary Fund disagrees and puts the turning point much later — between 2020 and 2025, based on a model analyzing labor productivity. A third view is that China’s surplus labor is still plentiful, given that about 40 percent of the labor force is still underutilized in the rural sector, mostly in agriculture, which accounts for only 10 percent of gross domestic product.

Mobility Restrictions

In China, many market imperfections impede the mobility and use of labor. Thus, actual availability may fall far short of what is potentially available. The hukou residency system that restricts migrant workers from accessing services where they are employed is the most glaring example of this kind of imperfection. Less obvious is the extent to which China’s rural- support policies, including subsidy programs, may be encouraging workers to stay in agriculture longer than they should.

Surplus workers may not be in agriculture as in the original Lewis model but in smaller towns, underemployed at depressed wages. The result is that China has the highest rural- urban income disparity in the world.

Why don’t these workers move to more productive jobs in more dynamic settings? In formal terms, it is because their “reservation wage” has increased — that is, the minimum wage they demand to move is much greater than their current wage, because for a generation that didn’t experience the hardships of the Mao Zedong era, the monetary and emotional costs of relocation have risen. Many workers won’t move to major cities that lack affordable housing. They may also have rights to land that can’t be sold for full market value — thus, staying in familiar surroundings is now a more attractive proposition.

If recent decades saw a huge migration that “brought workers to where the jobs are” along the coast, the future may mean the reverse, involving “bringing the jobs to where the workers are” with profound implications for China’s economic geography.

In lesser known provinces such as Henan, with a country- sized population of 100 million, large numbers of young workers seek factory positions but are unwilling to relocate to seemingly foreign places in coastal China. As China becomes more consumption-oriented with rising incomes and urbanization, the center of economic gravity will naturally move inland where two- thirds of the population resides.

College Graduates

Just as young workers are demanding more satisfying jobs, they also increasingly feel entitled to a college education. Government policy has expanded access to higher education. From 2000 to 2010, the percentage of college-age cohorts enrolled in universities more than tripled in China, a rate of increase far above that of India, Malaysia and Indonesia. China wants to produce 200 million college graduates by 2030; they will make up more than 20 percent of the projected labor force, more than double the current ratio. The push to expand higher education means the number of college-educated has leapfrogged — and excessively so — ahead of those holding only vocational or junior college degrees.

These college-educated workers are unwilling to settle for factory work and compete for office-based positions. College graduates are four times as likely to be unemployed as urban residents of the same age with only basic education, even as factories go begging for semi-skilled workers. Given the underdeveloped service sector and still-large roles of manufacturing and construction, China has created a serious mismatch between skills of the labor force and available jobs.

As the economy moves up the value chain, substituting more capital-intensive manufacturing for unskilled labor-intensive assembly, a shortage of semi-skilled workers is appearing. But the excessive growth of college graduates has outpaced the structural transition and prematurely shifted the labor supply from semi-skilled manufacturing workers to more knowledge- intensive service professionals. More emphasis on vocational training and industry-specific engineering skills will help China fill its immediate need for manufacturing workers.”

Yukon Huang and Clare Lynch are, respectively, a senior associate and a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. The opinions expressed are their own.

via Where Have China’s Workers Gone? – Bloomberg.

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