XI, PUTIN STRESS CHINA-RUSSIA PARTNERSHIP

President Xi Jinping reaffirmed on Wednesday China's stance toward Russia of supporting each other, opposing external interference and safeguarding both countries' national sovereignty, security and development interests.

Xi made the remark in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. It is the two leaders' fourth phone conversation since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Russia sent a signal to the world in hosting its Victory Day parade last month of its firm will to remember history and safeguard peace, Xi said.

Russian voters' recent overwhelming approval of the nation's constitutional amendments fully demonstrates the support of the Russian people for the government, Xi said.

Xi said China will always support a development path for Russia that fits its own national situation and also support Russia's efforts to achieve development and vitalization.

Adding that the international situation is changing rapidly, Xi said China and Russia, as comprehensive strategic partners of coordination, have a great need to enhance strategic communication.

China and Russia have supported and helped each other at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has injected new elements to China-Russia relations in the new era, Xi said.

The two nations should take flexible measures to speed up the resumption of work and production in all areas while making long-term efforts to fight pandemics, he added.

Xi said the two countries should enhance cooperation in such areas as high technology, research on the development of vaccines and other medicines and biological security.

China would like to strengthen coordination with Russia under multilateral frameworks including the United Nations, maintain multilateralism, oppose hegemony and unilateralism, safeguard global justice and make more contributions to improving global governance and building a community with a shared future for mankind, Xi said.

Putin said that the adoption of Russia's constitutional amendments by a large percentage of the vote is good for maintaining the political stability of Russia in the long run, safeguarding national sovereignty and opposing foreign interference.

Both Russia and China cherish their national sovereignty and security and the two countries have always supported each other, he said, adding that their mutual support during the pandemic and China's participation in Russia's Victory Day parade attested to their close relations.

Affirming that Russia-China relations are experiencing their best time in history, Putin said that Russia firmly supports China's efforts to safeguard its national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and opposes all provocations that undermine China's national sovereignty. Russia believes that China is fully capable of achieving long-term prosperity and stability in Hong Kong, he added.

Russia-China relations are the highest priority in Russia's diplomacy, Putin said, adding that Russia would like to make joint efforts with China to promote practical cooperation, strengthen coordination under multilateral frameworks and safeguard global strategic stability and security.

Putin also expressed his sympathies for damaging floods that have occurred in many parts of southern China, and Xi thanked Putin for the sympathy.

COLLEGE GRADUATES CALLED ON TO MAKE NEW CONTRIBUTIONS

President Xi Jinping encouraged college graduates across the country to make more contributions for the Communist Party of China, the country and the people on Tuesday.

In a letter of reply to graduates who studied at the Karamay campus of China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Xi said that going through the COVID-19 outbreak this year will help the graduates better understand that those who work hard to overcome difficulties will make progress.

Xi said he supports the choices made by 118 of the graduates to take jobs with grassroots organizations in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and work with people of all ethnic groups to build the country's western region.

The 118 graduates wrote a letter to Xi recently and expressed their firm resolution to work in the country's western region and build up the border. The satellite campus of China University of Petroleum-Beijing in Karamay, Xinjiang, started to enroll college students in 2016. About 85 percent of the total of 435 graduates at the campus this year have already gotten jobs, and 118 of them chose to work for grassroots organizations.

Xi told the graduates that the road ahead is never smooth, and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation could only be fulfilled by the hard work of generations of young people.

Saying that the graduates have great responsibilities in striving for national rejuvenation, Xi encouraged them to set lofty ideals and work hard to integrate their personal beliefs with the cause of the Party and the country.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that the CPC committees and governments at all levels should take effective measures to overcome the difficulties created by COVID-19 and help college graduates obtain employment.

Party committees and governments at all levels should support college graduates in making achievements for the Party and the people, he said.

The number of new university graduates nationwide will reach 8.74 million this year, an increase of 400,000 from last year, according to the Ministry of Education.

CHINA'S CONSUMER PRICE INDEX UP 2.5% IN JUNE

China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, grew 2.5 percent year-on-year in June, with the increase mainly driven by rising food prices, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

The rebound of new COVID-19 cases in Beijing and severe floods in some provinces have led to the rise of vegetable prices due to the temporary supply shortage while the reduced imports of pork as a result of stricter epidemic control measures have also caused a slight increase in pork prices, the NBS said.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.9 percent year-on-year last month, 0.2 percentage points lower than the previous month.

The country's producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, declined by 3 percent year-on-year in June, narrowing from a 3.7 percent decline in May. Looking at the month-on-month change, the PPI turned positive, up by 0.4 percent, contrasting with a 0.4 percent decline in the previous month.

The month-on-month rise of the producer prices reflected a rebound of international commodities prices, steady recovery in the domestic manufacturing sector and improved domestic demand, the NBS said.

DIGITAL ECONOMY DRIVING FORCE IN CHINA'S GROWTH

The economic value added of China's digital economy reached 35.8 trillion yuan ($5.11 trillion) in 2019, accounting for 36.2 percent of gross domestic product according to the White Paper on the Development of China's Digital Economy (2020), Economic Information Daily reported on Thursday.

Experts say the digital economy has become a new development mode for economic society, after the agricultural and industrial economies. It reduces barriers for information flow and accelerates transmission of resources across industries and regions. Digitalizing the country's economy not only creates huge investment opportunities and boosts domestic demand, but also promotes technology innovation and industrial revolution.

"The scale of digital economy in 2019 increased 15.6 percent in China, a relatively high growth. It reflected that real economy sectors in China are accelerating their digital transformation," said Yu Xiaohui, deputy director of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the institution that composed the white paper.

The digital economy, with its sustained high-speed growth, has become pivotal in countering economic downward pressure for China. The white paper showed China's digital economy growth in 2019 was about 7.85 percent higher than the GDP growth rate over the same period, 6.8 percent higher than primary industries, 9.79 percent higher than secondary industries and 6.54 percent higher than the tertiary industries.

Economic Information Daily said the digital economy has become a driving force for sustained and stable growth. According to the white paper, China's digital economic scale in 2019 expanded 12.7 times compared 2005, while GDP over the same period increased 4.3 times. From 2014 to 2019, the contribution to GDP growth rate from digital economy was kept above 50 percent. In 2019, the contribution rate stood at 67.7 percent.

MORE RURAL WORKERS FINDING JOBS IN CITIES

The number of rural workers finding jobs in urban areas−a significant bench mark tracking rural income−reached 28.3 million by the end of June, outnumbering the tally from last year, according to poverty relief authorities.

In addition, the projects aimed at promoting rural access to safe drinking water and housing−two key indexes tied to poverty reduction efforts−have almost been completed, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development said on Tuesday on its website.

The poverty relief office said about 2.81 million of the employed workers were from the 52 counties still labeled as poverty-stricken, up 10.6 percent of the 2019 level.

The developments have cemented success for China's sweeping campaign to end domestic poverty before 2021 despite the impact of the earlier COVID-19 outbreak and the more recent floods wreaking havoc in southern provinces.

Migrant workers contribute two-thirds of many rural families' earnings, poverty relief officials have said.

Widespread travel bans and production stoppages triggered by the novel coronavirus outbreak earlier this year left many migrant workers without income and threatened to push many rural residents into poverty.

The floods caused by heavy rains in regions south of the Yangtze River have ruined local businesses and left many people homeless.

To pull vulnerable families through the difficulties, the central authorities expanded the coverage of State benefits and other relief packages and introduced programs to boost employment.

The office said more than 4.33 million rural poor were employed by welfare jobs in the middle and western parts of the country. Such jobs were created to provide basic income for the jobless in the countryside.

Authorities gave early approval to the reopening of "poverty relief businesses and workshops", which employ a large percentage of impoverished migrant workers. More than 28,000 such businesses and 30,000 workshops have resumed work, the office said.

Meanwhile, nine eastern provinces have bought farm products worth more than 22 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) from impoverished areas since February as part of a broader effort to help western regions eliminate poverty through the promotion of rural specialties, the office said.

The central authorities also ordered better monitoring of vulnerable families affected by the geological disasters in China's south.

The poverty alleviation office said they have rolled out assistance measures to help rural families impoverished due to the floods, and the situation was detected only in a small number of regions.

The elimination of absolute poverty nationwide is the basic requirement for establishing the politically important "moderately prosperous society in all aspects", known as Xiaokang Shehui.

QUALITIES WILL BE BASIS FOR SELECTION OF JUDGES

Under Article 44 of Hong Kong's National Security Law, the chief executive is required to designate a number of judges at all levels of court, "to handle cases concerning offenses endangering national security".

Before designating the judges, the chief executive may consult the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, as well as the chief justice, and this can be done expeditiously. Whereas the law was enacted on June 30, the first group of six judicial officers, all magistrates, was appointed on July 3 to handle initial arrest cases.

Although some people have questioned the propriety of this arrangement, this is misconceived, and smacks of criticism for criticism's sake. Every designated judge will come from existing judicial ranks and will already have established his or her credentials.

According to Article 88 of the Basic Law, the chief executive appoints judges on the recommendation of an independent commission, the Judicial Officers Recommendation Committee, chaired by the chief justice.

The Basic Law stipulates in Article 92 that judges and other members of the judiciary shall be−"chosen on the basis of their judicial and professional qualities".

The committee has listed the qualities required for judicial appointment. These include honesty, integrity, industry, independence and intellectual capacity, outstanding competence as a lawyer and professional excellence, mastery of facts and law, vision, drive and leadership qualities, and an ability to work with others and command respect.

Once a judge has passed through all these processes, he or she will be qualified to undertake whatever cases are assigned.

Judges are selected without regard to politics, and on the basis of their character. When judges are, as in Hong Kong, selected by an independent mechanism, it helps to promote respect for judicial authority.

All judges designated to handle national security law cases will have been carefully vetted by the committee before they are appointed to the judiciary.

Upon appointment, judges have to take the oath by which they undertake to "conscientiously, dutifully, in full accordance with the law, honestly and with full integrity, safeguard the law and advance justice without fear or favor", according to Section 17 of the Oaths and Declarations Ordinance.

Judicial officers may be chosen to handle particular types of cases, as where a particular expertise is required. Some judges, for example, handle criminal cases, and are not usually chosen to try other matters.

Sometimes judges are chosen to handle specialized legal areas, such as those involving admiralty issues, family law questions or judicial review.

There is nothing new in choosing "horses for courses". If the chief executive, having consulted with the chief justice, selects particular judicial officers to handle national security cases because of their track record in conducting criminal cases, there can be no legitimate objections.

Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Geoffrey Ma Tao-li said that the only criteria for the appointment of designated judges are their judicial and professional qualities, and this means that "judges should not be designated on the basis of any political considerations".

Judges of foreign nationality, he said, are not excluded from being designated judges. Once the one-year term of a designated judge comes to an end, other suitable judges may then be designated.

Before a judge can be designated, any legal objections will have to be taken into account, including, said Ma, "any objections based on bias or reasonable perceptions of bias".

If a judge "has made any statement or behaved in any manner endangering national security "according to Article 44, this will be an impediment to the appointment.

Once the list of designated judges has been compiled, it will be for the judiciary itself, and not the chief executive, to decide which judges should handle which cases.

These procedures are transparent and fair. Indeed, the Basic Law states in Article 85 that the courts "shall exercise judicial power independently, free from any interference", and this constitutional guarantee will undoubtedly be fully respected at all times.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Success is not owned, it is rented, and that rent is due every day. - Rory Vaden