China news 5th July 2021
Readers will know that this week is the celebration of 100 years of the Communist Party of China. Chinese people are proud of the party and what the country has achieved. Here are a few excerpts from some of the commentary in Beijing about why the Party has been so successful and is so popular.
What are the main contributions of the Chinese Communist Party?
Qu Qingshan, President of the Central Party History and Documentation Research Institute said that the first “profound change” was the great contribution of the Chinese Communist Party to the country. It has profoundly changed the tragic state of China’s poverty, weakness, and bullying in modern times. After more than 70 years of unremitting struggle, China’s economic strength, scientific and technological strength, national defence strength, and comprehensive economic strength are at the forefront of the world.
The second “profound change” is the great contribution of the Chinese Communist Party to the people. This contribution has profoundly changed the tragic situation of the Chinese people being oppressed, enslaved, and exploited. In old China, the vast majority of the Chinese population became increasingly impoverished and starved. The people lived a life of hunger and cold and no political rights. After the founding of New China, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the people have truly become masters of the country, society and their own destiny. The people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security have been continuously enhanced, and the essential requirements of common prosperity have gradually manifested in real life. The average life expectancy of residents across the country has increased from 35 years before liberation to 77.3 years, which is a massive change.
Qu Qingshan said that the third “profound change” is the great contribution of the Chinese Communist Party to the Chinese nation. This is reflected in the profound changes in the future and destiny of the Chinese nation. The establishment of New China made a great leap from “the sick man in East Asia” to standing up.
The fourth “profound change” is the great contribution of the Chinese Communist Party to the world. He said that the Communist Party of China has always adhered to the principle of independence, firmly safeguarded the interests of developing countries, insisted that all countries are equal regardless of size, strong or weak, rich or poor, and resolutely oppose colonialism, hegemonism, and power politics.
Why does the Chinese Communist Party have so many members and has developed so fast?
Jiang Shuping, director of the Third Research Department of the Central Party History and Documentation Research Institute, stated that as of December 31, 2019, the total number of party members of the Communist Party of China was 91.914 million, and the number of grassroots party organizations was 4.681 million. The Communist Party of China has grown from a party with no more than 50 members to the largest Marxist ruling party in the world.
The Communist Party of China has strong principles. While focusing on the development of the number of party members, it also pays attention to the quality of party members, continuously strengthens the party’s self-building, and always maintains the party’s advanced nature and purity. It has always been a strong foundation for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
China’s per capita national income has exceeded US$ 10,000
Han Wenxiu, deputy director of the Central Finance Office, said that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the lives of the Chinese people have undergone earth-shaking changes. At the beginning of the New China, per capita national income was only tens of US dollars, the average life expectancy was only 35 years old, and the adult literacy rate was only about 20%, which means that the vast majority of the population was illiterate at the time, and the infant mortality rate was as high as 200 per 1,000.
After more than 70 years of hard work since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China’s per capita national income has exceeded US$10,000, average life expectancy has risen to 77.3 years, the average number of years of education for people over 15 years of age has reached 9.9 years, and the infant mortality rate has been reduced to one per thousand.
Since the reform and opening up, China’s 770 million rural poor people have been lifted out of poverty. China’s poverty reduction population accounted for more than 70% of the world’s population during the same period. The absolute poverty problem that has plagued the Chinese nation for thousands of years has been resolved.
Source: bjnews.com.cn.
Stories of Hong Kong Drifters – in previous bulletins, readers will recall the group of young Mainland Chinese executives who have chosen to live in Hong Kong rather than their own home city in Mainland China. Not surprisingly they have mixed loyalties, especially in the turbulent months since June 2019.
After the reunification, Hong Kong gradually allowed mainlanders to enter Hong Kong for education and employment. Unlike new immigrants, most of this group of people known as “Hong Kong drifters” have higher education qualification and can apply for permanent residency after seven years of residence in Hong Kong. Many people left midway, and some reflected on the different social movements with Hong Kong.
In the “New Hong Kong” under the “Hong Kong National Security Law” and “Improving the Electoral System”, three “Hong Kong drifters” with different political positions accepted an exclusive interview with “Hong Kong 01”. Some people found themselves slowly losing their connection with Hong Kong; They constantly emphasized the hope to communicate with Hong Kong people, and started from discussing the colonial “history of humiliation.” Some people think that the hope of Hong Kong being a mainland democratic experiment has been dashed. Even if they identify themselves as “Hong Kong people,” they must think about moving away.
Lu Kehua bluntly said that Hong Kong is only a “place where there are jobs.” If there are suitable jobs in other places, they may leave Hong Kong. He travelled to Hong Kong for half a year because of the epidemic last year, and after returning to Hong Kong, he simply stayed in a hotel.
Lu Kehua, who works in a Big Four accounting firm, fits the most “drifting” status. He has lived in seven places in the past nine years. Last year, due to the epidemic, he returned to Hong Kong after six months of business trips in the mainland and moved into a hotel to live.
He is fluent in Cantonese. The reporter hoped to conduct interviews in Cantonese, but he insisted on using Mandarin, because the hotel room is his “home”, and because Cantonese is just “a business language” for him to speak to people who are not close to him.
“Yes, I feel lonely.” He just said that the source of loneliness is not personally being targeted. Colleagues will even take the initiative to help because he is not a local, but he still feels that Hong Kong people are more interested in the mainland. The group is not so friendly. Drinking and chatting after work and touching on topics in China and Hong Kong will always make him feel embarrassed.
2019 is his seventh year in Hong Kong. He believes that the demonstrations and conflicts will eventually become a political storm that no one can control. Public governance has failed, and it is difficult to feel a connection with the city. This is not as he had planned.
He dislikes “yellow and blue politics” and thinks that some people should be punished. He pointed out that the indiscriminate beating of people by a gang in Yuen Long in 2019 was a “terrorist attack” and that “two policemen swaggered past” was inaction. A reporter from the Global Times, Fu Guohao, was beaten at the airport, which made him feel personally terrified as a Mandarin speaker, and reminded him of the Cultural Revolution.
When Zhao Shihao came to Hong Kong in 2014, he often wondered about the local young people who took to the streets and eventually resorted to violence. Zhao Shihao was puzzled. He could not understand why some demonstrators were holding foreign national flags and it was difficult to accept “heroes” throwing petrol bombs.
So he took to the streets to “communicate and exchange” with the young people, but his method was to ask the other party about the “humiliation history” of the British colonization after the Opium War in 1840. Of course, he did not get the ideal answer, “They seem to be very poor at understanding the Chinese nation. The revival of China has no concept for them, it is a misunderstanding of China’s entire system. Everyone is completely at odds.”
During the interview, Zhao Shihao often said that he should integrate and understand the other side. However, the friends who have come to Hong Kong for many years have been in the “Hong Kong drifting” circle. Communication with local young people has repeatedly hit the rocks.
Zhao Shihao claims to be longing for freedom. His understanding of freedom is that you don’t need to be in prison to watch American TV shows.
Zhao Shihao said without being shy that Hong Kong’s freedom is lessening after the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, but he thinks it will soon rebound. “I want freedom, but not that much. The concept of “freedom” is that you can watch American dramas freely, and you don’t need to be in prison like a North Korean. You can find Internet resources according to your own wishes.”
He said that he would vote after he got the right of permanent residence.
He Jia, who came to Hong Kong to study for a master’s degree in political science, has been living in Hong Kong for eight years and has obtained a permanent identity card. He never considered himself a Hong Kong drifter. A Hong Kong drifter does not know when to leave, or regards this as a transitional place, or does not recognize that he is a “Hong Kong citizen”. He feels that the “Hong Kong National Security Law” and the electoral system have undergone major changes, which have worsened Hong Kong, losing its sense of freedom. He may leave this home in the future.
He Jia once dreamed that both the Mainland and Hong Kong would move towards democracy and freedom, but now his hopes are disillusioned. He Jia has contacted many people who also came to Hong Kong from the Mainland, and some of them have never identified themselves as “Hong Kong people.” What is identity?
So, he understood the actions of some dissatisfied parallel buyers and the demands of some local factions.
He Jia pointed out that the “Hong Kong National Security Law” and the “perfect” electoral system have changed the quality of Hong Kong. Some students from the mainland who came to Hong Kong to study expressed support for the anti-regulation movement in Hong Kong. After returning to the mainland, they were arrested and “confessed guilty on television.”
Our reporter asked him: “Has anyone criticized you for not being patriotic?” He replied simply: “Some people feel that I am not patriotic.” But he felt that identity is not black and white, and the identity of Hong Kong people is not clear either.
He Jia described herself as naive, thinking that Beijing would be more relaxed about Hong Kong’s political attitudes, that Hong Kong would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, and would eventually embark on the road of freedom. He also thought that mainland politics would gradually move towards freedom and openness, and even democracy.
However, after observing the development of Hong Kong’s political situation in recent years, He Jia feels that Hong Kong has fallen into a vicious circle. The current atmosphere is uncomfortable and pessimistic. There is no way out in politics, and no one knows what the end is.
Source: hk01.com.
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