Tracking People’s Daily — July 23, 2020

Page 1: A few stories to note on the page.

First, Xi and Saudi’s King Salman exchanged congratulatory messages on the 30th anniversary of bilateral ties. Second, a commentary emphasising the key points about the role of entrepreneurs, the need to focus on the domestic market, and the support that the government will provide drawing from Xi’s speech which I covered yesterday.

Third, and I am genuinely amused by this piece, there’s a story about how Xi Jinping cares for the country’s children. It draws from his statements and speeches and even policies announced over the years. I’ve not read anything like this for a long time. Here are some excerpts:

• “Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to the work of children, cared about the growth of children, and made a series of major deployments for the development of children in the new era…”
• “He is a wise and knowledgeable ‘big friend’ and an amiable ‘Grandpa Xi.’”
• Here’s one of many quotes of advice by Xi: “A person can have many ambitions, but the most important ambition in life should be linked to the motherland and the people. This is the chassis of people’s various specific aspirations and the backbone of life.”

Fourth, a report on Li Keqiang heading the weekly State Council meeting, calling for “more efforts to strengthen the development of a new urbanization model, improve weak links, and expand domestic demand to improve people’s livelihoods.” Xinhua’s English version carries the key details. But the PD version focuses some more on employment. So, “the meeting pointed out that this year’s employment situation is severe,” calling for the creation of more flexible jobs. In this, governments at all levels need to play a role, with five key tasks identified.

• First, “for key groups such as college graduates, migrant workers, laid-off and unemployed persons engaged in self-employment, support for entrepreneurship subsidies, guaranteed loans, and tax incentives will be provided in accordance with regulations.”
• “The second is to support part-time employment. Social security subsidies will be provided to people with employment difficulties and college graduates who have not been employed for two years who have not been employed for part-time work.”
• Third “implement inclusive and prudential supervision of new employment forms such as online retail, mobile travel, online education and training, and online medical care to encourage the creation of more flexible jobs on the Internet platform.”
• Fourth, “safeguard the rights and interests of flexible employees, such as salary and occupational safety.”
• Fifth, “release new occupations needed by society, carry out targeted training, and enhance the people’s flexible employment ability.”

Page 3: A few pieces to note:

A list of foreign leaders who have written to Xi Jinping offering condolences on the floods. A story on political parties in different parts of the world, such as the vice chairman of the Communist Party of Brazil and general secretary of the Yemen Socialist Party, supporting Beijing’s HK policy.

MoFA’s comments (PD version) calling on the UK to “wake up from its colonial dream.” No longer is this the “Golden Age.” MoFA’s response to the US demanding that China close its Consulate General in Houston. “The political provocation initiated by China seriously violated international law and the basic norms of international relations, seriously violated the relevant provisions of the Sino-US consular treaty, and deliberately undermined Sino-US relations, which is very unreasonable. China strongly condemns it. China urges the US to immediately revoke the wrong decision. Otherwise, China will definitely make a proper and necessary response.”

Finally, a commentary which essentially argues for focus on domestic economic strength, while still keeping in mind that:

• “The world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century, and a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation are booming.”
• While the current external environment is “of rising protectionism, downturn in the world economy, and shrinking global markets…from a long-term perspective, economic globalization is still a historical trend.”

Page 4: The only piece to note here is this one, wherein chairs of different legislative committees in Hong Kong accuse opposition leaders of “disrupting” and “obstructing” proceedings. Some go as far as to say that the opposition has “increasingly radical and violent means to disrupt the order of the Legislative Council in recent years.” And this leads to the operative issue: “Some opposition politicians have recently threatened that once the opposition gains more than half of the seats in the seventh legislative council, it will veto the budget of the SAR government and paralyze the operation of the SAR government. In this regard, many interviewees said that the general public should maintain a high degree of vigilance and use votes to guard Hong Kong.”

Page 5 & 8: One commentary of note on page 5. This one’s about the role of party branches and what sort of innovation these units must engage in. It says:

• Party branch activities should focus on improving political leadership, ideological leadership, mass organization power, and social appeal.
• To increase the appeal, attractiveness and appeal of organizational life, the party branch must keep pace with the times and innovate its activities. It is necessary to walk into the fields and conduct workshops as well as to the red education base to educate people with the party’s fine traditions, inspire people with the party’s great achievements, and inspire people with the party’s successful experience.

The eighth page is dedicated to flood “heroes.” Pointing this out just to highlight how narrative is built

Page 11: The noteworthy story here is the Supreme People’s Court and the National Development and Reform Commission held a press conference to jointly issue the “Opinions on Providing Judicial Services and Guarantees for Accelerating the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economic System in the New Era.” There are many components to highlight, and I think a more authoritative translation would be needed to understand these than machine translations that I am using. But these two points give a gist of the release.

• The opinions aim “to clarify and unify judgment standards, accurately define property rights, and focus on solving outstanding issues in the protection of property rights such as illegal seizures, and freezing of private enterprise property.”
• They seek to “prohibit excessive seizures and random seizures; establish and improve seized property financing and debt repayment and disposal mechanisms to maintain the operating value of corporate property as much as possible; strengthen the protection of new rights and interests such as digital currency, online virtual property, and data.”

Page 17: This is the international page. Nothing specifically noteworthy, but the image below shows the stories that were covered.