Recently, there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping’s policies within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including internal reports criticizing the military-civilian integration strategy and scholars criticizing the “war wolf diplomacy”. A few days ago, former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao posted an article remembering his mother. Analysis suggests that Wen is also implicitly criticizing Xi Jinping’s policies.
Internal Communist Party Report Criticizes Military-Civilian Integration Strategy
According to a report by the Shanghai Municipal Government Development Research Center, China’s civil-military integration strategy stifles creativity, while the state’s dominant role hinders efficiency and leaves China’s commercial aviation industry behind international competitors, according to the South China Morning Post.
Shanghai is home to the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), whose C919 airliner Communist Party authorities hope will compete with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.
The report says there is a “gap” in management and technology between Shanghai’s aerospace industry and those of the United States and Europe. The report also said that due to the “inadequacy of core technology and system development capabilities”, China can only do “low-end” aviation components, “in the short term, key technologies, such as engines, airborne equipment, and new composite materials In the short term, key technologies such as engines, airborne equipment, and new composite materials are difficult to reach the international advanced level, resulting in being stuck in the low-end industry chain, and the airworthiness verification capability is still weak and cannot be fully recognized internationally in the short term.
The CCP’s strategy of “military-civilian integration” has been reinforced since Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
The 14th Five-Year Plan of the CPC, which will be released after the “two sessions” of the CPC in 2021, includes a significant portion of references to civil-military integration. Compared with the 13th Five-Year Plan, the content of civil-military integration has been significantly enhanced.
On March 2, 2018, Xi presided over the first plenary session of the 19th Central Committee for Civil-Military Integration and Development and delivered a speech.
To implement Xi’s “strategy,” at least 50 universities in mainland China have joined the “civil-military integration strategy” program.
On January 22, 2017, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a meeting and decided to establish the Central Committee for the Integration of Military and Civilian Development, with Xi Jinping as the director.
On March 12, 2015, at the plenary session of the military delegation at the “two sessions”, Xi Jinping explicitly proposed for the first time to “elevate the development of civil-military integration to a national strategy”.
Scholars within the system openly criticize the “war wolf diplomacy” of Chinese Communist diplomats.
On April 11, Song Lu Zheng, a French pro-China scholar and current researcher at the Institute of Chinese Studies of Fudan University, published an op-ed in the mainland media, “‘War Wolf Diplomacy’ is one of the West’s means to contain China, we must not fall into the discourse trap”, arguing that the CCP’s “War Wolf Diplomacy” is an unwise diplomatic practice. In his view, the “war wolves” should not be diplomats, but rather the media or scholars.
According to Song Lu Zheng, once the voice of the diplomatic system makes the West feel very lethal and difficult to fight, they will also try to block it by all means.
The article argues that the problem of incompetence of one’s own media and scholars should be solved as soon as possible, and that the CCP’s diplomats should not be allowed to stand on the front line of encounters with Western media and scholars all the time. After all, even if scholars and media are wrong or overly aggressive, the outside world will not make a fuss and will not rise to the national level.
Recently, the “wolf diplomacy” of Chinese diplomats has sparked public outrage.
On March 19, Yang Jiechi, secretary-general and head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made an outrageous remark at an Alaska meeting with senior U.S. officials. Recently, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has ignited another “war wolf diplomacy” in Europe. After the Chinese embassy in France called French academics and public opinion “hooligans” and “mad dogs,” the Chinese embassy in Sweden threatened a Swedish freelance journalist, prompting a backlash and calls for the expulsion of the Chinese ambassador.
Since Xi Jinping came to power, Beijing has gradually abandoned the “hiding behind the light” diplomatic strategy of previous leaders, which was advocated by Deng Xiaoping, and has become more assertive. The current foreign minister, Wang Yi, is a faithful promoter of this hard-line diplomacy.
Citing sources, Reuters reported last March that Chinese diplomats had assumed a “battle wolf” posture because Xi Jinping had earlier issued a foreign policy directive requiring diplomats to have a “fighting spirit.
The report also said that more than a dozen current and former government officials and official scholars within the CCP, who did not want to be named, said that the “battle wolf diplomacy” is the epitome of Xi Jinping’s politics, and that the increasingly tough “battle wolf” diplomatic attitude and rhetoric will lead to dangerous collisions between China and other major powers such as the United States. The increasingly assertive “battle wolf” diplomacy and rhetoric will lead to dangerous collisions between China and major powers such as the United States, and will intensify confrontation between the international community and China.
More than 60 Chinese diplomats and diplomatic missions have already set up social media accounts to forcefully counter criticism of the CCP. A typical example of the “war wolf” diplomats that have emerged in recent years is Zhao Lijian, who took up the post of Foreign Ministry spokesperson last February.
Speaking to VOA, Feng Chongyi, a China expert and professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, said Xi’s power base is to run a dictatorship in China, and he relies on these little pinkos and on this very fierce nationalism. It’s a logical part of domestic politics, at least on the surface, to show that you’re tough on foreign countries, a domestic political demand. So these diplomats abroad, and Zhao Lijian as well, this dictatorship politics from ancient times to the present has always been that if the top is good, the bottom will be even better. So they are desperately trying to show this “war wolf diplomacy” overseas, show is very tough.
Behind Wen Jiabao’s article remembering his mother
Recently, former Chinese Communist Party Premier Wen Jiabao wrote an article in the Macau Herald to remember his mother Yang Zhiyun, who passed away last year. The article not only recounts his mother’s difficult and simple life, but also uses it as a way to express his ambition.
The end of Wen Jiabao’s article remembering his mother is very meaningful. He wrote: “I sympathize with the poor and the weak, and oppose bullying and oppression. The China I have in mind should be a country full of fairness and justice, where there will always be respect for the human heart, humanity and human nature, and where there will always be the temperament of youth, freedom and struggle. I have shouted and fought for this. This is the truth that life has taught me and that my mother has given me.”
According to current affairs commentator Li Linyi, Wen’s article is, in fact, an implicit criticism of Xi Jinping’s approach. Wen’s article describes a “fair and just China,” a China that “has respect for the human heart, humanity and human nature,” and a China that “always has the temperament of youth, freedom and struggle. The China of “youth, freedom and struggle” is in sharp contrast to what Xi Jinping has done. What the Chinese people lack most now is freedom, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on. Under Xi’s rule, these are being tightened up more and more.
Li Linyi said someone on Weibo recently reported that his 28-year-old brother died on April 15 after receiving an inactivated vaccine from Sinopharm. But the Weibo posting was quickly deleted. The freedom of speech for Chinese people has now been tightened to an exaggerated degree.
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