CiCM 27th February 2024

NEWS IN CHINA

Chinese National legislative body enforces reorganization and removal of senior officials from key posts: China’s top legislative body has been moving ahead with its reorganization of members since last year. Amidst this chain of events, Qin Gang, China’s former foreign minister, has resigned as a member of the national legislature according to an official statement issued after a meeting of the standing committee of the National People’s congress. Qin had been missing from public view since June 2023 and had created widespread media speculations and rumors about his whereabouts. The statement of the Standing committee of the National People’s Congress clarified that Qin had neither been dismissed nor expelled from the national people’s congress. His resignation as the deputy has been accepted by the Tianjin People’s congress. Similarly, Former Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu has been removed from a key military command body, the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, as per the defense ministry's website. His removal comes after being ousted as defense minister and state councilor without explanation in October 2023, after only a few months in the role. Li, who had not been seen in public since late August, had his name removed from the commission's list without any public announcements or explanations from Beijing. The exact timing of his removal still remains unclear. Such resignations and removals of officers from the key governmental posts ahead of the national meeting of the legislative body, raises questions about the timing and reasons behind these decisions fueling further speculations.
Carbon-trading regulations to accelerate China’s green transitions: The Chinese Ministry on the ecology and environment on 26^th February released a provincial regulation on the administration of carbon emissions trading with an aim to reduce carbon emissions and accelerate China’s journey towards green transition. Carbon trading provides a two-way advantage of generating economic benefits as well as achieving considerable reduction in carbon emission. The national market of china emerged as world’s largest in terms of carbon trading with annual carbon-dioxide emission of 5.1 billion tonnes from 2257 key emitters generating a trading turnover of 24.9 billion Yuan at the end of 2023. The regulation entails the rules on mechanisms, transactions, data quality management and also provides for a strong legal framework for the development of China’s carbon market. The regulation also looks at encouraging financial support services for low-carbon transformation of various enterprises. In the words of Zhao Yingming, the vice-minister of ecology and environment, it is China’s first regulatory mechanism in the field of carbon trading and will contribute widely in developing the carbon market whilst fostering a low-carbon green economy.
China gallops ahead for a green-transition of its courier system: China's courier industry has experienced a significant surge, with monthly parcel deliveries reaching 10 billion. Despite this rapid growth, the country has prioritized its green-transformation, particularly in promoting environmentally friendly packaging practices. Data from the State Post Bureau (SPB) reveals that in 2023, over 95% of e-commerce parcels were no longer over packaged. Additionally, more than 1 billion express mail and parcels utilized reusable packages, while over 820 million corrugated boxes were deemed suitable for recycling and reuse. To ensure standards across the green packaging chain, China has established 26 national and industry standards related to green packaging in the courier sector. China recently issued a mandatory national standard on limits of heavy metals and other specific substances in express packaging. This standard specifies requirements and test methods for heavy metals and harmful substances in express packaging made of paper, plastics, and textiles. According to Li Aixian, vice president of the China National Institute of Standardization, this mandatory national standard is crucial for reducing the adverse impact of express packaging on human health and the environment, as well as promoting the green transformation and upgrading of the courier industry. Furthermore, a new version of the national standard on express service will come into effect on April 1, 2024.

The supreme people’s court officially launches its People’s court database: The Supreme people’s court of China officially launched its people’s court database publicly on 27^th February. After 7 months of construction and internal trial operation, the database is officially launched and is also a step ahead in improving the judicial system in China. The People's Court case database acts a valuable tool for enhancing and optimising judicial disclosure and a means of strengthening the judicial skills of the judges. The Supreme People's Court is also set to introduce a collection of reference cases from December 2023 in an effort to increase the diversity of reference case sources and enhance the resources available in the case library. The database currently contains 3,711 cases and invites Law schools, the National Lawyers Association, experts and scholars, fellow lawyers, and even middle school teachers and other non-legal persons to actively recommend cases to the People's Court case database. The database has an excellent mechanism of “case Recommendation” channel opened to the public which would generate wider amount of resource materials stored in the database accessible to all. In addition to this, there is also a User evaluation and feedback module enhancing collective cooperation and creating an inclusive Legal-Service product.
Construction of World’s highest pumped storage power station begins in China: The construction of the world’s highest-altitude pumped storage power station on the Yalong River in the Daofu country recently began, creating a landmark in the art of power-generation through renewable and sustainable means. It is the biggest pumped storage power plant in Sichuan, with six reversible units having a capacity of 350000 kilowatt each. The station is also facilitated with a surface switchyard, an underground powerhouse system, an upper reservoir, a lower reservoir and a water conveyance system to enhance its functioning. It is located at a height of 4300 meters and is specifically designed to generate over 2994 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and store 12.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each day which is enough to supply 2 million families in Sichuan with their daily energy needs. Zhang Peng, the deputy General Manager of the Yalong River Hydropower Development Company has reportedly stated that apart from harnessing huge energy resources, this project would also move ahead to supplement solar and wind power output in the region.

SOCIAL MEDIA CHATTER IN CHINA

Chinese Tourists Denied Entry Causes Social Media Uproar: A recent incident involving Chinese tourists being denied entry to an Airbus A400M transport aircraft belonging to the German air force has sparked outrage on Chinese social media platform Weibo. The incident, which went viral, took place in the air show in Singapore. A video showed the Chinese visitors complaining that they were turned away from the aircraft, with staff allegedly singling out individuals who appeared Chinese. In a video circulating on Weibo, a staff member can be heard asking a Chinese blogger for his nationality and subsequently denying him entry due to "military restrictions”. The incident has caused a stir on social media, with many expressing outrage at the perceived discrimination against Chinese visitors. Following this incident, Airbus issued an apology and revised its visiting process to ensure that the aircraft was accessible to all its visitors. Chinese visitors were reportedly able to visit the A400M aircraft freely from Saturday afternoon onwards.

INDIA WATCH

The recent initiative of the Supreme People’s Court of China to digitize and open access to its judicial proceedings is a landmark step in enhancing the public’s access to legal services and matters. In this regard the Indian judiciary and its public governance mechanism had been exceptional in manifesting its principles of an independent judiciary as well as ensuring free flow of legal information to its citizens with some key initiatives in this field. The public governance mechanism in India had been religiously following its e-courts mission mode project as part of its national e-governance initiatives. It is a project aimed at creating an ICT enabled judicial system, open access to its proceedings, providing transparent on-line flow of information on cases and their judgements to the judiciary, the litigants, lawyers and other stakeholders. Under this initiative, the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), a flagship project had been launched in India. It is portal consisting of repository data relating to pending, disposed cases in all districts courts of the country. All These efforts come at the backdrop of enhancing a democratic, feasible, transparent and a well-dedicated public governance system that facilitates the service-delivery mechanism of the government. Both India and China, with their newer initiatives aimed at strengthening its judicial mechanism as well as ensuring free flow of information, are contributing largely in educating its masses and also in generating a considerable amount of legal awareness. These initiatives also display the importance of leveraging technology for better governance in the era of digitization and rapid growth of technological prowess.

Prepared By

Agniva Ray

Agniva Ray is an M.A, 2nd year, 4th semester student pursuing Political Science with International Relations in the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University. He holds a deep interest in Socio-economic (Non-Traditional Security) as well as Traditional security issues concerning South Asia and aims to pursue research work in this very field.