The Party recently released a revised version of the 2004 CCP Regulations on Safeguarding Party Member Rights 中共中央印发《中国共产党党员权利保障条例》. At the time I commented in the newsletter that: They are long, and I have only scanned them and the comparison chart the CCDI released. They look to be yet another step towards strengthening Xi as the core and effectively limiting intra-Party Democracy.
This is Xi molding the party to fit into his vision of the Chinese Communist Party as a vanguard party, not just for Chinese in China, but to expand into influencing non-Chinese outside China.
This vision stresses top-down, centralization management, with clear delineation of responsibilities. It also makes it easier to punish for infractions of discipline, because Xi sees purges as a feature, not a bug, for the party. As the party becomes more powerful, there is greater temptation for corruption and abuse of power, so the stress is on discipline.
What is most interesting is the extension of discipline tactics which are common in China being used for the first time outside China to control criticism of China in the US and the west. This is tightly tied into the idea of getting westerners used to the management style of the party, by threatening their business opportunities in China. I am really fascinated by how this will affect Steve Schwartzman, because he has been a strong supporter of Trump on Wall Street, and has also been very generous in building his China ties. Even after the Capitol assault on January 6, he has kept quiet about criticizing Trump.
I take the bans on Trump associates Party Central considers to be hostile to China to have been put on notice: they will have to decide between funding and supporting far-right groups which are against China, or potentially losing their China investments. Basically, they are getting the Jack Ma treatment.
Chinese security services have been closely following postings on Facebook and Twitter since at least 2008, and they keep track of postings of a political nature, even when they have nothing to do with China. I know that this database with shared with the Myanmar government (pre-democratic) in 2008, and then with the Iranian government during their June 2008 elections, so they have a good idea of people who are politically active and have posted either on Twitter and Facebook. The only missing link is connecting online IDs with real names, but in many cases this is not hard to do.
In 2012, the Chinese security services got their hands on the US Office of Personnel Management database, which included the Social Security numbers, private financial information, and security clearance levels for all US Federal Government employees. Long story short, there is not a lot of information which the Chinese do not already know, since most of the work is just about connecting databases together. If the Chinese want to block people from doing China business because of their anti-China activities, chances are the Chinese government already has that information. Many people are likely to be edge cases, which means that they might complain about the Chinese government, but are not outright hostile. In that case, it makes more sense for the Chinese security services to let them travel to China, and follow the people they meet in China.
It really isn't hard to connect the dots from there.
This is Xi molding the party to fit into his vision of the Chinese Communist Party as a vanguard party, not just for Chinese in China, but to expand into influencing non-Chinese outside China.
This vision stresses top-down, centralization management, with clear delineation of responsibilities. It also makes it easier to punish for infractions of discipline, because Xi sees purges as a feature, not a bug, for the party. As the party becomes more powerful, there is greater temptation for corruption and abuse of power, so the stress is on discipline.
What is most interesting is the extension of discipline tactics which are common in China being used for the first time outside China to control criticism of China in the US and the west. This is tightly tied into the idea of getting westerners used to the management style of the party, by threatening their business opportunities in China. I am really fascinated by how this will affect Steve Schwartzman, because he has been a strong supporter of Trump on Wall Street, and has also been very generous in building his China ties. Even after the Capitol assault on January 6, he has kept quiet about criticizing Trump.
I take the bans on Trump associates Party Central considers to be hostile to China to have been put on notice: they will have to decide between funding and supporting far-right groups which are against China, or potentially losing their China investments. Basically, they are getting the Jack Ma treatment.
Chinese security services have been closely following postings on Facebook and Twitter since at least 2008, and they keep track of postings of a political nature, even when they have nothing to do with China. I know that this database with shared with the Myanmar government (pre-democratic) in 2008, and then with the Iranian government during their June 2008 elections, so they have a good idea of people who are politically active and have posted either on Twitter and Facebook. The only missing link is connecting online IDs with real names, but in many cases this is not hard to do.
In 2012, the Chinese security services got their hands on the US Office of Personnel Management database, which included the Social Security numbers, private financial information, and security clearance levels for all US Federal Government employees. Long story short, there is not a lot of information which the Chinese do not already know, since most of the work is just about connecting databases together. If the Chinese want to block people from doing China business because of their anti-China activities, chances are the Chinese government already has that information. Many people are likely to be edge cases, which means that they might complain about the Chinese government, but are not outright hostile. In that case, it makes more sense for the Chinese security services to let them travel to China, and follow the people they meet in China.
It really isn't hard to connect the dots from there.