China has recovered 141 officials suspected of misconduct or dereliction of duty since October 2015, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) said on Wednesday.
These include Li Huabo, a former local finance official accused of embezzling 94 million yuan (about $14 million), and Dai Xuemin, a former trust and investment company manager, suspected of embezzling 11 million yuan.
The “important achievement” is a great deterrent to other fugitives, the SPP said.
It has asked authorities to come up with more ways to uncover corruption and misconduct, and to take more measures to prevent officials from escaping. It also vowed to strengthen international judicial cooperation.
A man suspected of corruption, who has been at large for seven years, was deported by Spain to China in September 2015, the first Chinese fugitive Spain has deported.
The man, surnamed Ding, was on Fox Hunt 2015’s most wanted list, a campaign to catch economic fugitives. Ding was suspected of offenses in 2007 and 2008, including the mishandling of deposits of public funds, money laundering, contract fraud and extortion. Over 200 million yuan ($31 million) was involved.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/995584.shtml
Shanghai to keep eye out for labor union ‘infiltration’
By Leng Shumei and Wu Gang in Global Times, July 21, 2016
Shanghai will not allow “independent labor unions” or “civil labor unions,” which are considered illegal, and will watch out for “infiltration” in order to maintain stability, local media reported Wednesday, quoting the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU).
Hong Hao, head of the federation, announced in a plenary session in Shanghai on Tuesday that as frequent labor disputes have badly affected social stability, the federation would complete its early warning, discovery, reporting and mediating systems on major disputes, and help the Party and the government “eliminate any nascent disputes.”
“We must ensure the stability of labor unions and watch out for infiltration, and any type of independent labor union or civil labor union is not allowed,” Shanghai-based news website thepaper.com quoted Hong as saying.
Hong did not elaborate on the sources of the “infiltration,” or what kind of activities the federation is watching out for that could be seen as infiltration.
Wang Jiangsong, a professor at the Beijing-based China Institute of Industrial Relations, told the Global Times that it is not the first time a Chinese federation of labor unions has used this terminology, which stands for the influence of foreign organizations.
Li Yufu, vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, told Outlook Weekly magazine in February 2015 that foreign “hostile forces” had been increasing their “infiltration” as strikes and mass protests grew.
“They wanted to find the breaking point in labor relations, using some illegal labor rights organizations or individuals to compete for workers from the labor unions, damaging the workers’ ranks and the solidity of the labor unions,” Li said.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions and the local federations are semi-official organizations. The federation is under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, according to its official website.
Wang said the vigilance against unauthorized grass-roots labor unions comes from the authorities’ concern that overseas forces may instigate strikes, which will hurt social stability and the government’s reputation.
Outside instigation?
Local authorities have been carefully watching labor disputes suspected of having overseas connections.
Zhang Jun, a former Walmart worker and union rights advocate who now acts as spokesperson for the Walmart Chinese Workers’ Association, said when the association was established late last year, the Shenzhen civil affairs bureau summoned its members for an investigation into “illegal association.”
After workers from a few Walmart stores in several Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, staged strikes earlier in July to protest against a change to their pay hours, some non-governmental organizations offered to train the members of the association, although Zhang declined.
“But the Shenzhen police got wind of it and asked us for a talk, accusing me of being connected with overseas hostile forces,” Zhang told the Global Times on Wednesday. Zhang was not charged with any offense.
According to a Xinhua News Agency report, the Guangdong provincial public security bureau arrested seven members of an NGO that “received overseas funds, interfered in domestic labor disputes, disturbed social order and seriously trampled on workers’ rights.” Zeng Feiyang was believed to be the leader of the group.
Zeng, the director of the Panyu Workers Service Center and a labor rights activist, was detained on December 3, 2015 in Guangzhou.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions said the country has been trying to strengthen its efforts to protect workers’ rights through an improvement in legislation. The federation participated in the amendment and draft of more than 20 laws concerning workers’ rights in the past few years, said Li.
Hong, of the Shanghai Federation of Labor Unions, said on Tuesday the federation will help more migrant workers to join labor unions and push companies to establish their labor unions.
“We will invigorate the grass-roots labor unions and solve the problems that grass-roots labor unions are not willing or are afraid of protecting workers’ rights,” Hong said.http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/995586.shtml
Comments are closed.