KEY MEETING FOCUSES ON CPC RULES

A key Party meeting on Monday stressed the need to improve the quality of intraparty elections and come up with higher criteria for candidates to ensure that highly qualified delegates are elected.

The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee reviewed two sets of regulations on Party building in the military and elections in primary-level Party organizations.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.

The creation and implementation of the regulation on primary-level Party elections is to ensure that the Party exercises effective self-supervision and practices strict self-governance in every respect, according to a statement released after the meeting.

It is also a concrete measure to promote intraparty democracy, respect the democratic rights of Party members and standardize elections at primary-level organizations, the statement said.

The meeting emphasized the need to stringently follow Party election regulations and improve the quality of elections, saying that the rights of Party members as stipulated in the Party Constitution must be protected.

The quota of delegates must be distributed reasonably among different sectors, and the structure of delegates must be refined to ensure that front-line members can be elected, it added.

The meeting called for steps to educate and offer warning messages to Party members and to adopt precautionary measures in strengthening the enforcement of political, organizational and electoral discipline to ensure that elections are conducted in a healthy atmosphere.

The regulation will help bolster the political functions and organizing capacity of primary-level Party organizations and enable the organizations to play a key role in communicating the Party's propositions, carrying out the Party's decisions, overseeing community-level social governance, uniting and mobilizing the people and promoting reform and development, the statement said.

It is also of major importance in consolidating the organizational foundation for the Party's long-term governance, it said.

The regulation on Party building in the People's Liberation Army will help ensure that the armed forces will forever preserve their nature, purpose and character as the military of the people and will develop the PLA into a world-class military, the statement said.

It is important to uphold the Party's absolute leadership over the PLA, strictly implement the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the chair of the Central Military Commission and continuously move forward with political training.

The meeting underscored that combat capacity is the sole and fundamental standard that must be applied throughout the course of Party building within the PLA so that the Party's political and organizational edge can be transformed into battle superiority.

The requirements to exercise strict governance over the Party must be carried out to improve Party conduct and enforce Party discipline, the statement said, adding that the practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism will be resolutely targeted.

CHINA'S FACTORY, SERVICE SECTORS EXPAND IN JUNE

China's factory and service sector activities expanded in June as the economy continued to recover from the shocks generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

The country's purchasing managers index for the manufacturing sector stood at 50.9 in June, up from 50.6 in May. The PMI for the non-manufacturing sector came at 54.4 in June, rising from 53.6 in the previous month, according to the NBS.

Zhao Qinghe, a senior NBS statistician, said that the data indicated that the country's economic recovery continues to gather momentum as supportive government policies have helped the economy overcome difficulties amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The expansion of the country's manufacturing sector in June was mainly supported by the improving market supply and demand, price rebound and the recovery of external orders, Zhao said.

But uncertainties still remain as the sub-index for new export and import orders were still in the contraction territory below 50 despite the rebound in the past two months, the NBS official said.

Meanwhile, smaller firms continued to face greater production and operation difficulties than their larger counterparts as the PMI for small manufacturers stood at 48.9 in June, edging down by 1.9 percentage points from the previous month, according to the NBS.

CHINA WARNS OF RETALIATORY US VISA CURBS

China will impose visa restrictions on US citizens who have "behaved egregiously" over Hong Kong-related issues, in response to visa restrictions from the United States, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday.

Zhao made the announcement at a daily news conference. He said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region national security legislation is purely China's domestic affair, and no foreign country has the right to interfere in it.

The announcement came one day after the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress opened its 20th session, at which a report was made on the draft national security law for Hong Kong.

The US, which has threatened sanctions on China over the legislation, announced on Friday visa restrictions on Chinese officials over the HKSAR affairs.

"The US will never succeed in its attempt to obstruct, through so-called sanctions, China's efforts to push forward the national security law for Hong Kong," Zhao said.

The central government is firmly determined to safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, carrying out the "one country, two systems" principle and opposing any foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs, Zhao added.

He also dismissed the "Hong Kong Autonomy Act" and a resolution passed by the US Senate that threatened sanctions on Chinese individuals, entities and financial institutions and criticized the national security legislation for Hong Kong.

China is firmly opposed to and has lodged solemn representations with the US over the passage of the bill and the resolution, Zhao said.

By passing the bill and the resolution, the US Senate has denigrated the Hong Kong national security legislation, interfered seriously in Hong Kong affairs and China's domestic affairs and violated international law and the basic norms guiding international relations, he said.

The bill and the resolution are only "a piece of wastepaper", Zhao said, urging the US not to go ahead with them, or even use them as an excuse for imposing so-called sanctions on China.

"Otherwise China will take resolute and powerful response and countermeasures, and the US will take all the consequences," Zhao added.

The Hong Kong national security legislation aims to protect China's sovereignty, security and development interests, guarantee long-term stability and prosperity in the SAR and ensure the steady implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle, he said.

PBOC STEPS TO EASE WOES OF SMALL FIRMS

Monetary authorities are expected to deploy more targeted measures and innovative policy tools to ensure direct credit flows to small enterprises, based on updated projections of the current domestic economic situation, analysts said on Monday.

Signals of economic recovery and moderate inflation in April and May might have driven the monetary policy toward a more flexible and targeted status, preventing large-scale stimulus that may lift financial leverages in the post-pandemic period, they said following a statement released by the central bank on Sunday.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said it will continually leverage the 1 trillion yuan ($141.3 billion) quota of relending and re-discounting facilities for inclusive financing, to implement the newly-created monetary tools and make sure that the credit directly reaches the real economy, said the statement.

Structural policy tools will help channel the liquidity to sectors that really need the funds, according to the statement, which also pledged to maintain liquidity at a reasonably ample level.

The policy stance was revealed after the PBOC Monetary Policy Committee held a quarterly meeting on June 24 which was chaired by PBOC Governor Yi Gang.

"Achievements have been made in epidemic control and production resumption in China, and major economic indicators have shown marginal improvements," the committee said.

"But the global pandemic and economic situations are grim and complex. The task of preventing a rebound in infections is still arduous and poses risks and challenges to China's economic development."

The committee highlighted the need to innovate and improve macroeconomic policies, to make prudent monetary policy more flexible and appropriate. Supporting the real economy's recovery and sustainable development will be more prominent.

The monetary policy will strive to address liquidity strains and boost market sentiment, which in turn will help stabilize investment, analysts said.

"The central bank took very active monetary measures in the first half of this year, doing everything it can to support firms and households," Yu Yongding, an academic counselor of China Finance 40 Forum and an academic council member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said on Monday.

The major measure of the central bank is to conduct reverse repurchase operations in the open market and maintain low interest rates in the interbank money market. Another way is to reduce the rates of medium-term lending facility to guide down the benchmark lending rate−the loan prime rate.

These tools aim to support flow of credit, at lower financing costs, to spur economic growth, according to Yu, who is a former member of PBOC's Monetary Policy Committee.

FLOOD'S DEATH TOLL HITS 12; 10 MISSING

The death toll from a rainstorm in Mianning county in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province rose to 12 on Monday, with 10 people reported missing, the county government information office said.

The rainstorm started at 6 pm on Friday and continued until 1 am on Saturday, causing floods and wreaking havoc in many villages.

Dide Keyizi, a Yi resident of Damawu village in Yihai town, rode a sanlunche−a large, motorized tricycle−with eight family members to flee the flood on Friday night.

The vehicle was overturned by the flood. He and his mother survived, and his 11-year-old daughter was rescued by a neighbor after she clung to a cherry tree in the neighbor's courtyard. But the other five family members were swept away by the water, said Lu Zheng, Party chief of Yihai.

Caogu village in Yihai was one of the areas hardest hit by the flood, which washed out road sections, collapsed houses, cut telecommunication signals and destroyed crops.

Search and rescue personnel paid a house call to each of the more than 600 families in the village. More than 3,000 people from those families will be relocated to three centralized resettlement sites, Lu said.

Floods in southern China have affected more than 12 million people, with 78 people killed or missing and 729,000 evacuated, as well as more than 8,000 houses toppled and 97,000 houses damaged since the beginning of this month, with direct economic losses of nearly 26 billion yuan ($3.7 billion), according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

China's National Meteorological Center on Monday issued a blue alert for rainstorms as heavy downpours continue to inundate vast stretches of the country.

From Monday morning to Tuesday morning, heavy rain and rainstorms are expected in the provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hebei and Shandong, the National Meteorological Center said.

Some of these regions will see up to 7 centimeters of hourly precipitation accompanied by thunderstorms and strong winds, the center said.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

On Saturday and Sunday, Hubei witnessed its largest rainfall this year, and water swelled in its rivers, according to the Hubei provincial government information office.

At 8 am on Monday, the water level of the Yichang section of the Yangtze River rose by 2.62 meters. The water level of 1,081 reservoirs in the province exceed the flood limit.

As part of the aftermath of the rainstorm-induced floods, the Mulan Great Lake, a famous 5-A level scenic area in Wuhan, was closed on Sunday and Monday.

Wuhan, which lies on the Yangtze, was hit by the country's last major floods in 1998, which killed more than 3,000 people and left 14 million displaced.

ALL BEIJING DELIVERY WORKERS TEST NEGATIVE FOR VIRUS

All delivery workers in Beijing, who regularly traverse the city, tested negative for the novel coronavirus, according to State Post Bureau.

Starting June 19, the Beijing municipal post regulator had been carrying out nucleic acid tests to detect traces of coronavirus on all parcel delivery workers. A total of 104,807 couriers have been tested as of June 27, with all the results coming back negative, the bureau said.

Li Jie, a deliveryman from ZTO Express, said the test is not just for their own health, but also for the safety of the residents. The outlet screened their body temperature on a daily basis and provided protective gear.

"We also have hand sanitizer, disposable gloves and masks in the vehicles to ensure the safety of ourselves and our customers," he said.

The authorities will step up the epidemic control and prevention measures for all the couriers and enhance disinfection of all warehouses and vehicles, it said.

HUNAN PUNISHES DEFENDANTS FOR MAFIA-STYLE CRIMES

Seventeen defendants were given sentences, ranging from the death penalty to prison terms, for mafia-style crimes in Central China's Hunan province on Monday, according to a local court.

The intermediate people's court in Loudi city said Zeng Dehong, the gang leader, committed dozens of crimes, including creating mafia-style organizations, selling and transporting drugs, and intentional homicide and rape. He was sentenced to death, deprived of political rights for life, and had all his personal property confiscated.

The court investigation found Zeng had been recruiting drug users to gain illegal economic benefits through criminal activities such as drug trafficking, setting up gambling and game rooms, and running online gambling and fraud platforms since 2017. Besides selling over 30 kg of drugs, the gang also conducted unlawful detentions, affrays, and intentional homicides.

The other 16 gang members in court received sentences ranging from death, death with reprieve, life imprisonment, and fixed-term imprisonment from 12 to 25 years.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. - Richard M. Devos