Skip to main content

German firms may pull out of China over Communist Party pressure, group says

[ad_1]


The party has been trying to make inroads into foreign-funded companies since President Xi Jinping came to power and began pushing to increase its role in all aspects of life in China.



"As far as I know, some foreign-funded companies have been required to offer full pay for at least one party branch member who would deal with the company's party branch issues," said Liu Kaiming, head of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a think tank based in Shenzhen.



"Operators of foreign firms usually see a Communist Party branch in their company as something set up by staff to help promote goodwill and communication with the party. But now they feel these branches are trying to extend the party's influence within company operations," Liu said.



"Members of these branches often meet and hold activities – it's not a positive influence on staff. So far, the effects have been limited, but many companies are worried about whether this situation will escalate."



More from the South China Morning Post:
 China's Communist Party makes big inroads into foreign-funded firms
Why a Chinese Communist Party branch at the University of California, Davis, was disbanded
Let a thousand trees bloom: Chinese officials start drive to give Xi Jinping's dream city a greener look



About 106,000 foreign-invested companies had set up party units by the end of last year, Qi Yu, deputy head of the Central Organisation Department, said in a media briefing last month. That figure has more than doubled since 2011, when it was 47,000.



Meanwhile, 70 per cent of foreign-funded firms in China – or 750,000 – have set up party branches, Qi said. That is similar to the proportion of the country's 2.73 million private businesses that have set up branches – it was 67.9 per cent at the end of last year.



"Some senior executives at foreign-invested companies say party organisations can help them understand China's policies in a timely manner, resolve labour disputes and provide positive energy for their companies' development. The majority of them welcome and support party organisations carrying out activities in their companies," Qi said at the briefing.



Last week, a group of visiting Chinese academics raised eyebrows after they were reported to have founded a party branch at the University of California, Davis.



The branch, which planned to meet every two weeks, had tasked its members with promoting the organisation to their colleagues or neighbours who were coming to the United States, it said, and to absorb party members into the organisation. The branch was shut down after the academics realised they had founded it illegally.



The US Foreign Agents Registration Act requires all individuals and groups acting under the direction or control of a foreign government or political party to register with the Department of Justice in advance and regularly report their activities.





[ad_2]

Share & Written By CNBC

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ice technicians are the secret stars of the Winter Olympics

[ad_1] The emphasis of this year's two-week-long Winter Olympic Games has been placed squarely on the Olympians themselves. After all, the stated purpose of the international competition is to bring together the world’s greatest athletes in a nail-biting competition across fifteen different winter sports. But before the curlers, skiers, and skaters even arrived in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Olympians of the ice technician world were already a few weeks deep in a competition of their own. Mark Callan of the World Curling Federation and Markus Aschauer of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation both say they’re hoping to make the best ice the Winter Olympics have ever seen. To transform the barren concrete jungle of existing tracks and arenas into an ice- and snow-covered wonderland is an enormous undertaking. And it takes a keen understanding of the physics and chemistry that keeps frozen precipitation pristine. Curling Callan has been making and maintaining ic...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to avoid the mid-movie bathroom break

[ad_1] Long movies and the urge to pee have been linked since the early days of cinema. Sixty-three years before Avengers: Endgame and its three-hour runtime, moviegoers settled in for nearly four hours of The Ten Commandments . “There will be an intermission,” director Cecil B. DeMille announced during the movie’s introduction. And audiences’ bladders were relieved. On average, movies aren’t getting longer, but they also don’t come with a predetermined bathroom break. That means when nature calls, you’ve got to either sit in growing discomfort or gamble on the best time to run to the restroom. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and for most people, setting your body to “do not disturb” is fairly simple. Go before the show The first piece of advice is also the easiest: pee before the movie starts. Generally, healthy adults urinate every 3-4 hours, so the longer a movie runs, the more urgent it becomes to reset your internal p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Charted: Here's how much your food waste hurts the environment

[ad_1] Our species is pretty good at wasting food. Some we discard at the farm for being undersized or oddly shaped. Others we allow to decay in their shipping containers, thrown away before they even reach shelves. We leave even more foodstuffs wasting away in grocery stores, often by letting it sit there until it reaches its sell-by date. As consumers, we don’t have much control over most of the process that brings our food to the grocery store, but we do have control over how much food we personally waste. Let's face it: We’ve all found liquified lettuce in our veggie drawers. Don't fret. It's arguably impossible to consume 100 percent of the food we buy. But a healthy reminder of the effect food waste has on the environment might help us all to be more conscious of the amount of food we eat—and don't eat. Consumer food waste varies extensively depending on the area. In South and Southeast Asia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that only around ...
Post a Comment
Read more