Timing, Background, and Considerations for the CCP to Strengthen ‘Own People’s’ United Front Management in Private Business-BBC News

The CCP’s latest united front working document for private companies should strengthen the leadership and management of the heads of private companies, raising concern.

The “Opinions on Strengthening the Work of the United Front of Private Economy in the New Era” were released by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The growing weight of China also reflects the need to integrate the power of private companies and strengthen management and control in the confrontation between China and the United States.

In 1951, the newly created CCP issued instructions to strengthen the work of the united front, laying the foundation for the public-private partnership policy introduced in 1954.

The “private economic persons” in this United Front working document include private company investors, controllers, shareholders, private intermediary partners, as well as entrepreneurs and sole proprietorships from Hong Kong and Macau investing in the mainland.

How to join the battle?

According to this United Front document, the private economy is China’s “important economic foundation”, the private economic people are “our own people” and has always been “an important force that the CCP should unite with and trust in governance. long-term”.

The document requires that private economic activists “always be politically sensitive,” to guide them to continually increase their “political, ideological and emotional identity” with the CCP.

In addition, private economic activists should deepen the “Chinese dream” and “establish a sense of family and country, and serve the country with the industry as their own duty to strengthen the country.” The CCP must actively recruit party members from private economic activists and absorb qualified party members.

The CCP should also insist on “party talent management”, establish a database and talent pool of private economic representatives, and “train private economic personnel who will firmly follow the party.”

Encourage private companies to participate in major national strategies and the “Belt and Road” initiative, and consciously safeguard national interests.

Private entrepreneurs cannot participate in activities such as forums, seminars, classrooms, halls, etc., without registering associations.

Time and background?

According to this document, the united front of the private economy aims to help them and their companies to be more regulated. The important mentioned is helping your next generation and guiding the younger generation of private economic figures to “hear the party.”

The head of the Department of Labor of the United Front of the Communist Party of China also explained that the background of the publication of this document also includes “profound changes in the international and domestic situation.”

In recent years, since the beginning of the trade war between the United States and China, the confrontation between China, the world’s second-largest economy, and the United States, the world’s largest country, has expanded from trade to science. and technology, personnel, diplomacy, and the military.

Huawei and ByteDance, both on the cusp of US sanctions, are giants among Chinese private companies.

The Bloomburg (Bloomburg) news agency reported that the CCP’s united front on private companies aims to address the challenges brought about by the upscaling of the private economy, and private bosses “have different values ​​and interests.” .

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What is the scale of China’s private economy?

Since China’s economic reform and opening up for 40 years, there have been many world-renowned large companies in the private economy, such as Huawei, ByteDance, Tencent, Alibaba, etc., from scratch. As for the proportion of private companies in the Chinese economy today, there is the so-called “56,789”, namely:

• More than 50% of government taxes are paid by private companies
• 60% of the investment comes from private companies
• 70% of invention patents come from private companies.
• 80% of urban employment is solved by private companies
• More than 90% of companies in China are private companies

Private company “own people”

After the CCP established its government, it implemented a publicly owned economy. In the 1950s, private companies were fully state-owned through a “public-private partnership.”

In the late 1970s, the economic reform and openness policy led by Deng Xiaoping revived the private economy. Terms like “self-employed” and “ten billion households” seemed to describe private operators. They have also gone from being a small salesman and freelancers to a situation where they now represent “half the economy.”

China’s emphasis on private economic figures began 20 years ago when Jiang Zemin was in power. In 2002, the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the “Three Representations” argument, stipulating in euphemism that private business owners can join the Communist Party of China; In 2004, the National People’s Congress of China also revised the constitution to clearly protect private property from infringement.

However, neither the party constitution nor the constitution seem to be able to guarantee that private economic persons are free from political discrimination. The appearance of comments such as “the withdrawal of private companies” and “new public-private partnerships” will definitely cause panic.

To appease the hearts of the people, Xi Jinping, the top leader of the Communist Party of China, held a symposium of private entrepreneurs on November 1, 2018 with a high-profile call: Private companies and private entrepreneurs are ours.

The latest Beijing United Front documents seem to be quite indifferent to the “owners”, saying that the values ​​and interests demands of private economic people are becoming more and more diverse, so it is necessary for the party to run it. strictly.