Tracking People’s Daily — July 6, 2020

Page 1 and 2: The front page today didn’t touch on anything of sensitive nature. The only report that I found worth noting was this one on railways investment through the first half of the year. This is obviously important from driving GDP through investment. “In the first half of the year, the national railway fixed assets investment was 325.8 billion yuan, surpassing the same period last year by 3.8 billion yuan, an increase of 1.2%. Among them, the national railway infrastructure investment completed 245.1 billion yuan, an increase of 3.7% year-on-year; as of July 1, the new railway line opened 1,178 kilometers, including 605 kilometers of high-speed rail.”

The second page had much more that caught by attention. First, Hu Chunhua’s visit to Chongqing. “Hu Chunhua pointed out that due to the impact of the epidemic, the employment situation in our country is very grim this year,” says the report. It then talks about measures such as ensuring HR agencies and recruitment firms connect with people, creating self-employment, skilling people and support for enterprises to create employment opportunities. Second, the epidemic situation in Beijing, which has significantly improved. There are daily cases, but these are in single digits. And the report says that “Beijing’s high-risk areas have been downgraded. As of now, there is only one high-risk area in Huaxiang (region) in Fengtai District.” Also note: “Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that since June 11th, a total of 334 cases of new coronary pneumonia have been reported in Beijing as of July 4. Diagnosed cases, 47% of which were market staff in the new development area.” Finally, this bit about the use of TCM, which has become commonplace in propaganda: “At present, there are 324 patients treated in hospitals. The combination of Chinese and Western medicine and equal emphasis on Chinese and Western medicine is a major feature of this medical treatment. Seven of the 10 people who have been discharged are mainly treated with Chinese medicine.”

Page 3: A few pieces to note:

A piece about the role that Chinese medical teams are playing in Africa. It says that there are 46 such Chinese teams in the continent at the moment.

A commentary on the HK natsec law, critical of the US for “interference” and talking about how this aims to plug loopholes and how such legislation is common practice in countries around the world. For instance, “the constitutions of more than 100 countries in the world all stipulate that the exercise of basic rights and freedoms must not endanger national security.” The piece then talks about changes to US laws after 9/11 and then again about minorities in the US. This paragraph is worth noting, for it informs of Beijing’s anxieties about Hong Kong:

“It is necessary and necessary to plug Hong Kong’s loopholes in national security. The promulgation and implementation of the National Security Law of Hong Kong will provide a stronger system guarantee for the stability of “One Country, Two Systems”, will help maintain Hong Kong’s long-term stability and long-term prosperity and stability, help to better safeguard the freedom rights enjoyed by Hong Kong residents in accordance with the law, and help protect all countries. Investors’ legal rights in Hong Kong. The promulgation and implementation of the National Security Law of Hong Kong also heralds that those outside forces who support anti-China chaotic Hong Kong elements will be cut off. Because of this, some politicians in the United States are restless and anxiously corrupted, which just shows that what they want is just a “freedom” to do whatever they want to undermine Hong Kong’s long-term peace and stability and long-term prosperity and stability. It is just a “freedom” that maliciously restrains and restrains China’s development.”

Some data in this piece about China’s pandemic aid to Brazil. And this piece Javid Husain, former Deputy head of mission in the Pakistan embassy in Beijing, writing on Xinjiang. He basically repeats everything that you’ve ever heard from Beijing on Xinjiang, accusing the West of undermining the global fight against terrorism by being critical of China’s policies in Xinjiang.

Page 4: Here’s what’s noteworthy:

• A piece on the flooding in the country.
• A piece that talks about Carrie Lam and 16 HKSAR government officials publishing articles on the front page of Wen Wei Po, pledging to support the implementation of the natsec law.

Page 5: On the commentaries page, this is one that I found worth spending time on. It’s written by the director of Jinan Radio and TV Station. This is how he describes the role of the media: “It is an important social responsibility of the media to be a bridge and link to connect with the people, strive to serve the needs of the people for a better life, and help resolve various social contradictions and disputes.” He further adds: “Practice has proved that the media provides difficulties-relief services to the people, which not only enhances the credibility and influence of the media, but also broadens the channels for the media to participate in the construction of a social governance pattern of co-construction, co-governance and sharing.”

Page 16: The international page has a few stories to note:

First, a report on the opening that’s taking place in different countries across Europe. Second, a sharp commentary attacking the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic through a human rights lens. Here’s an excerpt:

“The right to life is in a fundamental position among all human rights and is the basic prerequisite for enjoying all other human rights. If the right to life cannot be guaranteed equally, then no other equal human rights can be discussed. The proud human rights view of the United States holds that the right to life is an inalienable right granted to people by the creator. However, the performance of the US government in the fight against the epidemic has caused people to wonder whether the Trump administration has not effectively guaranteed the people’s equal right to life…In this pandemic, we did not see how the US government implemented the doctrine of gifted human rights, but instead saw the US government maximize the social Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest. Some politicians preached “the elderly are willing to sacrifice themselves to save the country”, allowing the epidemic to ravage the old and weak patients naturally.”

The piece then goes on to talk about minority rights in the US and unilateralism. Another excerpt: “The Trump administration not only resisted international cooperation to fight the epidemic, but also remembered to engage in “American first” hegemony, putting American interests above the destiny of mankind. “Natural human rights” are nothing but “natural American human rights.” Here, we can’t see the United States’ upholding of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “equal in dignity and rights”, but what he sees is hegemonism that puts American interests above the destiny of mankind.”

Page 19: Finally, do check out this story on the progress that “intelligent” vehicles have made in China. “The unmanned logistics vehicle developed by Yushi Technology steadily drove at the SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun base. This is the first unmanned logistics project in China. 80 unmanned logistics vehicles have been put into operation, without safety personnel. The overall logistics capacity and efficiency of the base have been fully improved to help customers reduce costs and increase efficiency. My country’s first ‘smart highway’ that supports the application of autonomous driving technology, the Hangzhou-Shaoyong Expressway, is also in progress.”

But here’s a realistic view of the future: “At present, many closed scenarios of domestic intelligent driving are gradually being implemented, and a certain degree of commercialization has been achieved. But experts say that the road to be achieved is still a long way from commercializing large-scale open roads…On April 16, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the Key Points for the Standardization of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in 2020, which pointed out that this year, China will form an intelligent connected vehicle standard system that supports driving assistance and low-level autonomous driving, and establish an intelligent connected vehicle standard formulation and implementation evaluation mechanism.”