12 Feb 88
FE/0073 B2/4
shows election in China is no longer a nominal democracy but an important criterion for the promotion and demotion of government officials," said Liu Xin, an official from the provincial commission of the legislative affairs.
To most local voters, the criterion for competency is how well an official can lead people on the road for prosperity, not on how well he manages to avoid offending anyone.
A township head in the Sujiatun district worked diligently and conscientiously for many years. He used to travel 50 km on his bicycle to attend meetings to save the state money. But he failed to help the people out of their poverty and so lost the election last year.
The electorate is pressing its rights to have a greater say in the election process. No longer can the party committee simply nominate a list of candidates and expect them to win office. That is a violation of the election law.
When Zhang Cunlin of Dandong city complained that government officials were agitating local voters to elect candidate nominated by the party committee, an investigating committee agreed and annulled the vote, forcing a re-election. "Election which fully respect voters' opinions is real democracy," Zhang said later.
TASKS FOR WORKERS IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
Xinhua in Chinese (i) 1157 gmt 5 Feb and (ii) 0715 gmt 8 Feb 88
Excerpts from reports
(i) In a work report delivered today [5th February] at the third plenary meeting of the third national committee of the China Association for Science and Technology, Qian Xuesen, chairman of the association, stressed that in the initial stage of socialism, the association's basic task should be centred on economic construction and aimed at promoting the advance of science and technology. This should be its most important goal. It should help link science and technology with economic and social development and serve the purpose of revitalising the national economy, he said.
To promote the advance of science and technology, Qian Xuesen set forth four main tasks for the China Association for Science and Technology.
First, continued efforts should be made to invigorate the activities of the association's academic societies. It is necessary to give full play to the association's multidiscipline and multifield characteristics, further implement the principle of "letting a hundred schools of thought contend", and encourage creative ideas. All-out support should be given to young and middle-aged scientists and technicians who arc innovative and talented in giving academic lectures. Favourable conditions should be created for outstanding personnel to come to the fore. Efforts should be made to strengthen interdiscipline ties and to conduct comprehensive and advanced academic activities connected with major projects in economic, scientific, technological and social development. Academic exchanges, domestic and international alike, should be carried out on a wider scale...
SWB
The second task is to step up the work with regard to engineering and technical personnel of industrial and mining enterprises so as to bring into fuller play their role in promoting the technological upgrading and advance of their enterprises...
Third, the work of spreading scientific and technological knowledge in rural areas should be further improved on the basis of developing the rural commodity economy. For quite a long period from now on, great efforts should be made to establish a network for spreading scientific knowledge with attention centred on consolidating and developing specialised peasant technological research institutes. Village and town popular science associations should also be invigorated. . .
Last, science associations in higher education institutions should extend their work to the students. They should promote the exchange of, and dialogue on, new knowledge and improve the school curricula. Students of physical science, engineering, medicine and agriculture should learn something about liberal arts, while students of liberal arts should take in some knowledge of modern science...
(ii) Hu Qili, Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, emphatically pointed out: The various organisations under the China Association for Science and Technology are not only a major force in spreading scientific and technical knowledge, promoting scientific and technical progress and developing socialist material civilisation, but also a vital force in raising the level of the people's ideological awareness and building socialist spiritual civilisation. We must pay full attention to bringing into full play the role of the China Association for Science and Technology in developing spiritual civilisation.
Hu Qili made this remark when he met members of the China Association for Science and Technology who were attending the third session of the Association's third national committee meeting held here [Peking] on the afternoon of 6th February.
Hu Qili said: I completely agree with Comrade Qian Xuesen's view that modern science and technology is an important component part of modern culture. Science and culture cannot be separated from each other. We must continuously give full attention to the question of how to raise the scientific and cultural level of the whole nation in order to overcome backwardness and ignorance.
He said: Over the past few years, the Association for Science and Technology has done a great deal of work in developing education and in promoting the two types of civilisation. We must fully affirm these achievements. In developing spiritual civilisation, the Association for Science and Technology is faced with two tasks: One, it should strengthen itself ideologically by helping scientific workers to understand and improve their ethic and professional work standards; two, it should offer education to the whole of society, including enterprises, schools, urban and rural people. It must deal with people of all walks of life, therefore it must adopt different forms in doing its work. It must carry out work at different levels, and deal with different things and people in different ways.