Apparently, timing is everything. Just a few weeks ago, China was
excoriating one or more members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) on a daily basis for challenging Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims
in the South China Sea.
But this week China’s top leaders
laid out the red carpet in an enthusiastic welcome for a contingent of ASEAN
prime ministers and presidents who visited China for a trade summit.
“China has always been a stalwart
for maintaining regional and global peace and stability,” said an ebullient
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, heir apparent to the presidency who recently
emerged from an unexplained public absence.
Mr. Xi flew to the southern
border city of Nanning for the opening ceremony.
“We are resolute in safeguarding
our nation’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” he said, adding
that “China is devoted to resolving territorial land, sovereign water and ocean
disputes through friendly and peaceful negotiations with our neighbors.”
That may not be what Vietnam and
the Philippines have in mind. Two of ASEAN’s 10 members, Vietnam and the
Philippines in recent weeks have been under constant military threats from
China over disputed maritime territories.
China repeatedly has resorted to
military conflicts with the Vietnamese since the late 1970s. As recently as
late July, Chinese warships were involved in brinksmanship with the Philippines
forces near the South China Sea’s Scarborough Shoal in a three-month naval
standoff.
China’s major strategy for
fending off multiple sources of resistance in the region to its hegemony is to
prevent all challengers from forming a coalition. When Japan attempted to ally
with ASEAN nations to challenge China this past summer, Japan became the chief
target of China’s wrath, as shown in recent weeks by its bellicose stance
toward the Japanese across China.
Known as the China-ASEAN Expo,
the current gathering includes 42 heads of states and political leaders, 1,500
government officials, and some 300,000 businessmen and guests.
This is the eighth trade summit,
but the first time leaders from China’s top echelon have placed such importance
on the meeting.
China ups cash for national martyrs
To reward military personnel who
died for the motherland and the Chinese Communist Party, China’s government
recently announced it has drastically raised the amount of cash awarded to the
families of so-called “martyrs,” according to an announcement by the
government’s State Council on Sept. 21.
The new national martyr award
regulations were hailed as a landmark step in standardizing criterion for
rewarding families of those People’s Liberation Army soldiers who died or
officials killed in “righteous” actions” in the defense of the nation.
China’s practice of using a reward
system for “revolutionary martyrs” has been in place for decades as a method of
promoting selfless sacrifice for the communist cause.
The cash awards to the families
of martyrs, however, generally are meager and administered by various local
bureaucracies, and have been the target of reductions in amounts and even
embezzlement by local officials.
Complaints and protests by
relatives of many martyrs greatly watered down the effectiveness of the
Communist Party of China propaganda about revolutionary devotion and selfless
sacrifice for the noble communist cause.
In announcing the new
regulations, Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Jiang Li assured the nation of the
need for the rules. He elaborated on two key regulations.
According to the regulations,
families of all “martyrs” will receive a standardized cash award in the amount
of 30 times the National Average Disposable Income Index, plus 40 times the
martyr’s salary at the time of his death.
This year’s National Average
Disposable Income Index is set at 21,810 yuan, or $3,461. This will set this
year’s cash award at $103,847, plus 40 times the salary, for being a martyr in
China.
Another new regulation is the
amount of survivor’s pension for the martyr’s family that will involve a
lump-sum payment.
Previously, the one-time pension
payment was 80 times the martyr’s salary, relatively small considering Chinese
soldiers’ salaries are low. The new regulation raises that amount to 20 times
the National Average Disposable Income Index, plus 40 times the martyr’s salary
at the time of death.
The regulation also sets
preferable terms to help the survivors of the martyrs in employment, housing
and retirement.
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