海龟浮上海面

What we have today does not mean we have forever, only by completing the historical mission of national revival can we have everything forever.

[Parts of a talk at an internal forum of the Communist Party of China]


Today, I am entrusted by the Political Bureau to discuss with you ten issues. These are all big issues. These issues are:

1. Why must we hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought;

2. The relationship between the goal of national revival and the Party's maximum program;

3. Why do we not change the party's name and flag;

4. Comrade Xiaoping’s emphasis on the word "tolerance" and keeping a low profile are important developments of Mao Zedong Thought;

5. Enemies and friends in the new era;

6. The guidelines and slogans "peaceful development" and "harmonious world" are important developments to Mao Zedong's struggle philosophy;

7. During this period of Sino-US cooperation, we should focus on avoiding right deviationist capitulationism, we must carry forward our party's tradition of daring to struggle and daring to win;

8. To achieve national revival, we can not do without the three magic weapons summed up by Comrade Mao Zedong;

9. Nurture our comrades’ fighting spirit through the spirit of "fearing neither hardship nor death" advocated by Comrade Mao Zedong;

10. Straighten out the relationship between the party and the people according to the principle of "talk politics", and the correct use of cadres who have been made to step down.

Let’s turn to the first issue: Why must we hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought.

Since the death of Chairman Mao, and comrade Deng Xiaoping took charge, we no longer shout "Mao Zedong Thought" with deafening sound as in the past; this is due to many considerations. Western countries secretly congratulate themselves; some of our comrades have also miscalculated the

situation, incorrectly thinking that we are really undergoing "peaceful

evolution". They only see us shaking hands and having meetings with Western countries every day, nodding and bowing, so some people are encouraging us to "boldly go forward" on the road of westernization, and some see us as the object of revolution, who have betrayed Chairman Mao. They do not see that

we precisely are approaching step by step the dream of Comrade Mao Zedong's strategic goals, based on Comrade Mao Zedong's visionary strategic thinking, and in accordance with the "three magic weapons" summed up by Comrade Mao Zedong.

On the eve of the victorious founding of our country under the leadership of Comrade Mao Zedong, he said that this is only the first step in a long march. Well, what was his central idea? Later he said: "As long as there is still imperialism, capitalism and reactionaries in various countries in the world ..., sinister winds of capitalism will always from time to time blow into the socialist countries. Thus, in the socialist countries, the question of which side shall win the struggle between capitalism and socialism requires a very long time before it is finally resolved." This is a sense of distress and urgency. He believes that if the question of which side is victorious is not resolved worldwide, then we can not say that we have achieved the final victory of the revolution, what we have in our hand may all be lost. This is what we are now

emphasizing: what we have now does not mean we have forever! Where is the way out? It is to carry out the revolution to the end, to complete the great cause of reviving the Chinese nation in the world. Only after completing the great cause of revival can we call it the final victory of the revolution; we will then have everything, everything that belongs to the people.

Many of our comrades are not clear about this truth. Their minds are filled with just GDP, with wining, dining and enjoyment, with the little comfort nest that they already have. They do not understand: what we now have does not mean we have forever!

Recently, based on our domestic situation we emphasized that the party's advanced nature and the party's ruling position is not forever unchangeable once and for all; if we lose our advanced nature, we will certainly lose our ruling position. We must also consider this issue from the outside world; if we do not stand at the forefront of the Chinese nation, at the forefront of the world’s revolutionary people, if we cannot lead them to realize the great revival of the Chinese nation, to create a China century, we also will lose our ruling status; heads will roll; the Chinese people and the world revolutionary peoples will lose everything.

In this situation, we should re-emphasize Comrade Mao Zedong’s sense of distress and urgency, emphasize that Mao Zedong Thought is our soul; that is why in the sixtieth anniversary of the National Day parade, we set up a dedicated Mao Zedong Thought column. There was much talk about this column, but there is no one who can sum up our work of these recent years in accordance with Mao Zedong Thought.

Now, I want to, in accordance with the Chairman’s thought, focusing on our party's relationship with the outside world, review our work from eight aspects.

First of all, the banner of national revival that we are holding high, is it the banner of Mao Zedong? What is its relationship with the party's maximum program? Although during Mao Zedong's era our Party did not formally publicize the slogan "national revival", but the spirit of struggle for national revival existed throughout all the work since the Party’s birth. Looking back through history, from relying on the Soviet Union and fighting for the independence of the Chinese nation, to breaking with the Soviet revisionists and holding high the banner of world revolution and leading the world revolution, to the third generation of collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at its core adding the finishing touch and putting forward the objective of striving for the "Chinese century", the direction that our Party is taking in world history is self-evident.

Now we are shouting "national revival" day in and day out, but what is the basic symbol of national revival? It is to achieve the Chinese century. That is why at the end of the last century, we built the China Millennium Monument in Beijing, which sounded the clarion call to the entire Chinese people to create a China century. But what can be counted as achieving the Chinese century? Talking frankly behind closed doors, that means the whole world will be led and arranged by our Party, not only ideologically, culturally, economically and politically, but also with organizational guarantees, to formulate a unified plan for the whole planet. Only then, can we say that what the Chinese nation and the world’s revolutionary peoples now have, they will always have.

Some people make irresponsible remarks to us, they ask us: according to Marxism, the maximum program of the Communist Party is to realize communism, the minimum program is national liberation; did it say anything about the revival of any nation? Their way of thinking is too narrow; can we not talk about things that Marx and Engels did not talk about? Can Marxism not be developed? Looking back at history, Marx and his contemporaries advocated simultaneous victory of world proletarian revolution in all the countries around the world, while Lenin and Stalin put forward the idea that the proletarian revolution needs to achieve victory first in the weakest link in the chain of world imperialism. This is called the development of Marxism. Therefore, we absolutely have the power to propose, before communism is realized in the entire world, there will necessarily be an intermediate period; this period is the Chinese century. Today when we look at the world, the world socialist movement has withstood the tremendous impact of the upheavals of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; it has come out of the lows and achieved a certain degree of recovery and development; Cuba, Vietnam, Korea and other socialist countries are like us, actively exploring the socialist path suited to their own conditions; Asia, Africa, especially some countries in Latin America admire our path, so left-wing governments have come to power one after another, while the U.S. government is also turning to socialist factors to overcome the difficulties of the economic crisis; wave after wave of "Marx fever" has appeared in the Western developed countries. These all reveal the vitality of socialism. And in this wave of world socialism, who is the mainstay? Who is the center and representative of the socialist movement? Of course, it is our Communist Party of China! Therefore, only through the Chinese century, can world socialism gain a firm foothold and advance further to communism. We did not follow the recommendation of some of our comrades and change the name of the Communist Party, because we adhere firmly to the direction of communism. And to achieve the goal of world communism, we must first achieve the Chinese century, so that socialism with Chinese characteristics will lead the world, with unified arrangements for the world ideologically, politically, and organizationally; and that is the great ideal that Comrade Mao Zedong dreamed of.

Some of our comrades object to the proposition of “Chinese century”. They say, didn’t Chairman Mao say long ago "never seek hegemony"? In fact, these comrades do not understand history. During the Cultural Revolution, this is how Chairman Mao put it: "dig deep holes, save more grain, never seek hegemony." He put forward the slogan "never seek hegemony", based on the grandiose strategy and historical experience of the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. This fittingly shows Chairman Mao's global vision and long-term perspective. Of course, Chairman Mao is more daring and resolute than emperor Zhu Yuanzhang; he not only seeks the unique power of discourse in the world, his goal is that the whole planet shall be placed under our Party’s unified planning and unified arrangement; in today's terms, this is the China century.

Struggle for the realization of the China century, this is our Party’s current minimum program. And what about the Party's maximum program? It is still the realization of communism in the world. Some comrades say: isn’t it true that we are not talking much about communism nowadays? We are always shouting socialism, why not change the name of the Communist Party to the Socialist Party?

Yes, we no longer cry out every day "run on the double into communism," like we did in 1958, but we cannot forget our great goal of communism. In particular, if “socialism” appears in the Party's name, it would be reminiscent of the Nazi Party in Germany, because their party was called the National Socialist German Workers Party. We are therefore very sensitive to this issue, because we are in many ways similar to Hitler's Germany, in particular, like Hitler’s Germany, we have risen rapidly, causing many to panic. If we have a similar name as theirs, wouldn’t we be destroying our own image and creating too many enemies! Hitler was extremely anti-communist, so it is important for us to retain the name Communist Party, whether we currently have anything to do with communism or not. Since the party's name cannot be changed, then our flag also cannot be changed. Even though the productive forces of that era represented by the hammer and sickle Party flag is so backward compared with today, the hammer and sickle is still the most classic symbol of communism; we cannot abandon that!

How to achieve the great ideal of the Chinese century? Comrade Xiaoping has significantly developed Chairman Mao's path. Chairman Mao did much research on regime change as recorded in old books; that is why he always champions the word "break", emphasizing the word "fight". He focused on the study of how to lead people of the world to carry out armed struggle to overthrow imperialism and its lackeys, but he did not take great efforts to study how to use all the fruits of human civilization to strengthen ourselves. Comrade Xiaoping went abroad to study in Western countries during his youth, so he paid more attention to how to use all the fruits of human civilization to strengthen our Party. That is to stand on the shoulders of giants to control the giant, and finally to overthrow and replace the Western giants.

Even so, Comrade Xiaoping, like Chairman Mao, paid attention to giving play to Chinese wisdom and strategy, so that we can, while surrounded and threatened by Western imperialism, strive for historic opportunity to strengthen our Party. This is Comrade Xiaoping's idea of keeping a low profile. This is another important development of our Party towards Mao Zedong Thought that I wanted to say today.

We all know that Comrade Xiaoping put forward the international policy of 32 characters; that is: "coolly observe, hold your ground, calmly deal with issues, keep a low profile, hide your shortcomings, never take the lead, seize the opportunity, get things done"; two of these are the core, which apply to two different historical periods. The first period is "keeping a low profile" and the second period is "get things done"; in the second period it is necessary to accomplish a great deal.

The first period of "keeping a low profile": the essence of these words is how to preserve and grow our own strength in a situation where the enemy is strong and we are weak. Many of our comrades do not understand history; in fact if we pay attention to compare and summarize our Party’s basic activities during the war period and the period of reform and opening up, many similarities can be found.

Although the words “keeping a low profile” did not appear in writing in Mao Zedong’s works, in fact they run through the history of our Party’s eight-year war of resistance. During the war of resistance, Chairman Mao's leadership of our party in fact all evolved around the words “keeping a low profile”.

Of course, the thirty odd years since the reform and opening up is much longer than the eight years of the war of resistance; and our combining alliance, cooperation and struggle with our opponents, our interpenetration with our opponents -- I have a piece of you, you have a piece of me -- has developed to an all new level. The epic of “keeping a low profile” staged by us now is much longer and much more spectacular than the epic during the eight-year war of resistance. I will not talk about the specifics; that is the specific work of the various functional departments, it’s up to them to conclude, up to later historians to sum up. I just want to emphasize our soft posture, wisdom and strategy. We all know that the most classic example of keeping a low profile is in the story "Cao Cao heating wine while discussing heroism". Liu Bei, cherishing great ambition, found himself in a period where he could be swallowed up by his strong enemy Cao Cao. He especially paid attention to attempt to hide his ambition of becoming a power in the world, and pretended to do nothing but watering vegetables. He showed his weakness in front of Cao Cao -- in the Beijing vernacular we call it “pretending to be a grandson” -- thus showing his superb political wisdom. Chairman Mao did the same during the war of resistance, intentionally not exposing the fighting power of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies against the enemy, while vigorously reclaiming waste land and farming in Nanniwan, so that the strong opponent felt that the Communist Party knew only how to fill their stomachs and could not get anywhere. Comrade Xiaoping inherited and carried forward Chairman Mao's political wisdom, and further developed the wisdom of “a needle hidden in cotton wool” of Chairman Mao and the Chinese nation to a new stage. Comrade Xiaoping always paid attention to correcting the revolutionary impetuosity of some of our comrades, and has repeatedly advocated the word "tolerance". Only by relying on this word
"tolerance”, can we have good relations with Western countries, can we cause Western countries to let down their guard against us and accept us, can we obtain their technical and financial resources, can we get the core staff of their key enterprises to come to China and serve us. Only by going through this stage, could we reach today’s situation where we have wealth and a loud voice that is being heard.

A prominent problem during the period when we are keeping a low profile is that many comrades are confused as to who today in the world are our enemies and who our friends. Chairman Mao repeatedly said: "Who are our enemies and who are our friends, this is a question of the first importance for the revolution." Some comrades see that unlike us, North Korea, Cuba and Iran constantly oppose the United States measure for measure, and admire them, thinking that we have incorrectly treated our enemies as friends and teamed up with the wrong side. These comrades are too simple minded. The differentiation between friend and foe should be based not only on our historic mission, but also based on historical conditions and our needs. In the past, Chairman Mao said we should distinguish the U.S. government from the American people, we should overthrow U.S. imperialism and liberate the American people. If today we shouted the same words, would we be able to obtain the West's advanced things? As we all know, during the first period of Nationalist-Communist cooperation, the Kuomintang was an ally of the Communist Party, but after the April 12 massacre of 1927, the KMT became the enemy of the Communist Party. Later when Japan invaded China, the KMT and the CCP united to fight the Japanese; the Nationalist forces became a friendly force of the Communist Party. After the victory over Japan, the KMT and the CCP competed for control of the nation, Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang again became the object of our revolution. Does this mean that our Party lacks foresight, and have only muddled ideas of the changes and evolution of the relations between enemy and friend? Of course not. During the war of resistance we allied with the KMT, our most fundamental enemy; we flew the "National Revolutionary Army" flag of the KMT, put on the unified military uniform of the KMT, bore the KMT's blue sky and white sun emblem. Our important goal was to keep a low profile, to accumulate strength, to prepare for the future decisive battle with the KMT. Of course we know what our Party's historic mission is. With this brief review of history, we can understand how to fundamentally determine our enemy and friend according to our historic mission, and according to the needs of reform and opening up, how to deal with the issue of friend or foe at the international level, including relations with the U.S., relations with other countries in the Western camp, relations with counties of the former socialist camp, relations with emerging anti-American countries such as Iran and Venezuela, relations with the majority of Asian, African and Latin American countries, relations with some so-called terrorist states and organizations. As for those countries who dare to confront the United States, for those fence-straddling countries who try to please both us and the United States, we have to be good at giving full play to their function as allies, but we can not fall out with the United States; this is a very high art of struggle.

Since the reform and opening up, what is our guiding thought for keeping a low profile? It is the struggle philosophy of Chairman Mao. If there is no struggle philosophy, keeping a low profile would be meaningless. The reason we need to keep a low profile, is to struggle. So I want to talk about our development of Chairman Mao’s struggle philosophy.

From Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin to Comrade Mao Zedong, they all placed utmost emphasis on revolutionary violence. The Communist Manifesto says, "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” In violent struggle, the proletarians shall have a world to win. Chairman Mao said, "Only with guns can the whole world be transformed.” During the Cultural Revolution, although I did not join the radical Red Guard organization, because the leaders of the school and department who nurtured me were under attack, but there were three things that left a deep impression on me. First, emphasis on behavior and against the theory of family lineage; I was not born into "the five red categories", so I had strong feelings. Second, the propaganda emphasizing that to seize political power and defend the regime depends on the gun and the pen. Third, the emphasis that although our Party has seized power in China, the issue of who won and who lost has not yet been finally resolved; only when the imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries are eradicated worldwide, can we say that our Party and the people's revolutionary cause has achieved final victory. In fact, long before the Cultural Revolution, during the Socialist Education campaign, through the debate with the Soviet revisionists, I made up my mind never to degenerate, and to dedicate myself to world revolution. At that time, the nine open letters criticizing the Soviet Union, drafted under the charge of Comrade Xiaoping, educated us profoundly, which I will never forget. Later, Chairman Mao's instructions were conveyed to us, saying, "Our generation of youth will personally participate in the fight to bury imperialism." After hearing that, I was so excited that I could not sleep for many days. Since then, I resolved to participate in this final struggle that will decide who wins over whom.

Although we uphold Chairman Mao’s struggle philosophy, still some of our comrades cannot correctly understand us. In their view, while we shake hands with the United States with our right hand, at the same time, we should raise our left hand shouting "Down with hegemony!" They think our slogan "peaceful development" and "harmonious society" is revisionism. They are really simple-minded.

The slogan "peaceful development" is in fact not entirely our invention; this formulation was precisely first proposed by Comrade Mao Zedong, and we are just inheriting Chairman Mao. In 1945, the National Political Assembly held a tea party to commemorate "9.18"; Comrade Mao Zedong made an address saying that from now on China will enter a new era of peaceful development and peaceful nation-building.

What was the historical background of that time? It was the preparatory period for the decisive battle between the KMT and the CCP after the victory of the anti-Japanese war. Stalin was pressuring us, forcibly wanting us to rule China together with the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek, and not letting us continue the revolution. At that time our Party was well aware that China's future depended upon the life and death struggle between the two roads, knowing that Chiang Kai-shek was sharpening his knives, knowing that we must also sharpen our knives, otherwise what’s the use of creating the Communist Party? In order to lull the Chiang Kai-shek reactionaries, also to deal with Stalin, Chairman Mao made the stance of "peaceful development". In military terms, this is called strategy of deception.

As for the slogan “harmonious society ", though it looks a bit like revisionism, like the "combining two into one" which we criticized in the sixties, in fact it is not the case. It depends on what is the guiding principle of thought. If we really are split and disintegrated by the Western countries and took the path of Westernization, then this "harmonious society" would of course be a society that is a vassal of imperialism, a restoration of the forces of imperialism and the reactionaries in China. But if under the guidance of Chairman Mao's struggle philosophy, then the role of this slogan is to stabilize our Party's ruling position in China, to increase our Party's influence in the world, also to lull the hostile forces; they will secretly congratulate themselves: see, Hu Jintao et al have finally become the opposite of Mao Zedong and picked up the stuff that Mao Zedong had criticized. This will then create favorable conditions for us to realize the China century.

Of course, today the decades of our "peaceful development" is much longer than the brief moment of "peaceful development" and "peaceful nation-building" after the war of resistance. The work we have done these decades around "peaceful development" is much more enriched and developed than what was done during the brief moment after the war of resistance, especially coupled with the idea of "harmonious society", making our Party move steadily closer to the final victory. If it can be said that Chairman Mao's call for "peaceful development" at the time guaranteed our Party’s victory throughout China, then today, we having inherited Chairman Mao's slogan of "peaceful development", also foretells that we will surely seize victory in the world and complete our historic mission of national rejuvenation.

The period of peaceful development since the reform and opening up is a period of our peaceful cooperation with Western countries rather than military confrontation; it is equivalent to the united front of Kuomintang-Communist cooperation during the period of the war of resistance. Today, our partnership with the West can also be seen as a united front – a united front to develop the economy -- for the same goal after all. In summing up the historical experience of our united front, Chairman Mao said that during the united front period of cooperation with our opponents, we must uphold our independence and guard against right deviation, oppose the kind of right capitulationism of "all through the united front," not seeking struggle, giving up the leadership; on the other hand, during the period of breakdown in relationship with the adversary, it is necessary to guard against leftist rash adventurism. Since reform and opening up, the mutual cooperative relationship with our opponents have developed to the highest level in our history, the right-wing tendencies in our Party have also been unparalleled. Of course, the capitulation we are talking about here is not really defecting to the enemy camp, but rather too much fantasy and too many concessions toward our opponents. According to the Chairman’s Thought, our general principle for handling the relationship with the West is both cooperation and struggle, to seek cooperation through struggle; of course, this struggle should be on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint. Politically, we emphasize independence, not only not to be their vassal, but to be inimitable and win over the masses in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Militarily, it is to diametrically oppose their provocations, yet not destroy the basic cooperative relationship. In retrospect, from our support for Yugoslavia against the NATO coalition, to NATO's embassy bombing incident, to the South China Sea airplane collision incident, to our submarine tracking of U.S. aircraft carriers, to the confrontation with U.S. warships in the South China Sea, we handled them all properly in accordance with the principle of giving tit for tat, and overcame tendencies of right capitulationism.

We must clearly realize that an environment where friend or foe is not easily distinguishable during the period of peaceful development is a kind of corrosive agent; it will greatly melt the fighting will of our cadres and the masses against the enemy. Therefore, we must pay close attention to the revolutionary tradition education, learn the dare-to-struggle, dare-to-win spirit of the revolutionary old-timers, so that our people will always maintain high fighting morale, be well prepared mentally for the struggle against the enemy. Otherwise, with a sudden reversal of the situation one morning, we will suffer great loss.

The next question is: how to win a great victory for the Chinese century under the banner of "peaceful development "? This is the most important work that we have done over the past few decades. In Mao Zedong's Thought, the most basic part of the idea of revolutionary victory is the "three magic weapons" summarized by Chairman Mao, which is our beacon for creating the Chinese century. Chairman Mao said, "The united front, armed struggle and Party building are the three magic weapons of the Chinese Communist Party for defeating the enemy in China's revolution; the three main magic weapons."

We can say that during these thirty years of reform and opening up, all of our work is centered around these three magic weapons. Of course, we have made important developments to these three magic weapons.

The first is to strengthen Party building, and firmly grasp the Party's leadership power.

In this regard, first of all is the correct handling of the political turmoil in 1989; together with people across the country, we crushed the attempt by domestic and foreign hostile forces to destroy us, and defended our Party's ruling position in the great land of China. Since then, from the Party's 14th Congress to the 17th Congress, our party has always given top priority to consolidating the Party's ruling position, and as a starting point, successively launched a series of measures.

In combination with anti-corruption, we have carried out in the Party the activity of three stresses:" stressing study, political awareness and integrity." People have talked a lot about the latter two. Here I will focus on the historical role of "stressing study". Our Party rose in the world through waging war; as for economic development, most people are amateurs, even more so in international finance, there is a lack of understanding of the world's new waves, new development, new trends. But by "stressing study" activities, we go abroad and invite others in, learning with an open mind from authorities in international economics and authorities in finance, learning from the merits of others; many of us have become experts, and posses a vision of mastering the world, thus laying the foundation for mastering the domestic and international situation.

We conducted education in the important thought of the "Three Represents". We conducted education in the Party's advanced nature. We conducted criticism of the Western so-called "universal values", and strengthened the consciousness of upholding the Party's unified leadership. The Party's high-ranking officials clearly understand that, while the stuff of Western democracy and freedom is conducive to invention and innovation, but our system of centralized leadership is more suited to cope with unexpected events, suitable for wars against the enemy, and the ability to respond to unexpected events may well determine a nation's life and death.

It is worth mentioning that since the founding of our State, we have for the first time explicitly linked closely the defending of our Party's ruling status with the People's Army's mission, with stepping up preparations for military struggle. In military education, we clearly point out: the military must provide the important power assurance for the Party to consolidate its ruling status.

These large-scale educational activities have enabled our Party, during the period of great transition in Chinese society, the period of keeping a low profile in our co-operation with the West, to avoid the self-corruption and collapse, to avoid being assimilated by the West, to avoid the intensification of conflicts with the people, and guided the Party, the government and the military to be aware of our Party's historic mission, improved our capacity to co-ordinate the overall domestic and international situation, enhanced our Party's capacity to respond to the Western forces. We must continue to deeply understand and apply the objective laws of the Party leading the people to seize power, consolidate power, and rule, and work steadily and surely for the great cause of national rejuvenation.

In order to strengthen the Party's leadership of the masses, we have been constantly improving the internet work, both through the active use of new technologies, and by bringing into play the positive role of internet police and online commentators. On the one hand we must curb bad information, on the other hand we must strengthen our guidance of public opinion. During these decades of cooperation between China and the West while keeping a low profile, the most important direction of public opinion guidance is to use patriotism to guide people not to forget our revolutionary tradition, not to be divided and westernized and deviate from the Party's leadership, not to forget that the great cause of national rejuvenation is a heavy burden and a long road, not to forget the aggressive nature of imperialism, so that people are always wary of Western imperialism. Some time ago, we published some articles reminding the people that the United States might launch a war against our country in order to shift their economic crisis.

Also worth mentioning is that we not only have to focus on maintaining the Party's ruling status, but also focus on cultivating reserve cadres and expand our influence throughout China and the world. We established three bases for training cadres in Yan'an, Jinggangshan and Shanghai; Party schools, colleges of administration and many universities are all providing services for the training of cadres. In particular, centered around the widespread establishment of Confucius Institutes, we are widely planting around the world all kinds of Chinese language schools, to strengthen our Party's influence, to identify and cultivate sympathizers of our Party and activists outside the Party among all countries and nations; they are all useful talents; and not because we suddenly come to love Confucius, not because we want to go back to the era of Confucius and Mencius before the May 4 movement. After years of effort, we have found a way to train reserve cadres: that is the Party schools and colleges of administration -- universities -- Chinese language schools forming a single coordinated process. Our contingent of cadres is the most important soft power. In the past, when our million-strong army occupied south of the Yangtze River, the cadres that followed the army were the most important soft power that took over the local governments. In the future, when the China century arrives, our Party's influence will spread all over the world, and of course, the world will need corresponding administrative personnel.

Second is economic development. In the final analysis its function includes two aspects.

The first is to enhance our Party’s influence throughout China and the entire world, that is, to strengthen our Party's leadership power. You have enabled China's peaceful rise in the span of a few decades, so that the Chinese people can eat well, wear good clothing and have good recreation, and enjoy the high-speed Internet access and high-speed travel, the Chinese people will support you and believe you; you have made the poor in the West enjoy your low-cost goods, people in the West will praise you; you put some of the large enterprises in the West out of business through competition; you begin your worldwide acquisitions, investing in their large enterprises, the Westerners cannot help but admire us Chinese Communists.

Secondly, of course, a major function of economic development is to enhance national strength; to put it directly, it is to develop the military force and the means of war without bloodshed under the leadership of our Party. This is the proletarian revolutionary violence mentioned in the Communist Manifesto.

Comrade Mao Zedong said that without the people's army, the people have nothing. Talking about the development of our army, over the years we have all seen and felt this. Through a variety of ways we have made it known openly or semi-openly that we possess the 094 nuclear missile submarines, the Dongfeng series nuclear missiles, mid-trajectory guided missile interceptors, satellite attack systems, fourth and fifth-generation fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, and shore-to-ship missiles. Of course, we have many and more powerful post-nuclear era killer weapons that we have not unveiled; in particular, the secret ultimate weapons which we have not and will not unveil, this is of course the basic principle.

Turning to the means of war without bloodshed, it is our important development to Comrade Mao Zedong's Thought on the people's army and the people’s war. These years, the world is talking a lot about financial war and economic war. People will naturally ask whether we are being beaten in this field? We can tell you that we are not weak at all in this field, and we have made considerable achievement. In Western financial and economic circles, in top levels of government, there are elements who sympathize with our Party; we have bound together with them, and thus promoted and accelerated the decline of hegemony. We rise, they fall, and the balance of power between China and the U.S. undergoes a gratifying change, which is an unprecedented change and achievement! This achievement is no less than the achievement of fighting to a draw with the U.S. in the Korean War. In the past, in this area we had almost nothing, only one Ji Chaoding, Harvard graduate; Comrade Zhou Enlai sent him into the KMT government as top adviser to Treasury Minister H.H. Kung; he raised havoc with the KMT regime on the economic front, and created important conditions for us to win military victory. At that time, we used only the simplest primitive methods: secretly collecting large amounts of the old currency which we had voided in the many newly liberated cities and rural areas, and then without anybody knowing it, taking large amounts of this currency to areas south of the Yangtze River still under KMT control, snapping up staple merchandise, suddenly raising the price of commodities in the KMT controlled areas, causing seething discontent among the people in the KMT controlled areas, which erupted like a volcano, and at once pushed the Chiang Kai-shek KMT to the mouth of the volcano. They were extremely corrupt, by the time they found out what was going on, the die had already been cast.

Another means of warfare without gun smoke is our network information warfare capability. Our strength in this regard is also among the best in the world. The Internet was created by the Americans. Although we started late, now we are on an equal footing with them, and in some ways even surpassing them.

I won’t talk too much about the specific achievements in the military field here. But one principle is very clear, that is, year after year, month after month, day after day, we talk about paying close attention to preparations for military struggle; this is not superfluous, not bureaucratic jargon, not empty talk, but a down to earth hard task. Why do we have this hard task? It is because, while Comrade Deng Xiaoping was still alive, our Political Bureau made a most basic estimate that war between China and the U.S., i.e., war between China and the West is ultimately inevitable. When Comrade Xiaoping said that world war is not possible, he was not saying that it is never possible; on the contrary, it is bound to happen. Due to the need for keeping a low profile, we do not publicly use the hat "imperialism", sometimes we call them by a different name "hegemony", "international monopoly capitalism", but this does not mean that their imperialist nature has disappeared. On the contrary, Comrade Xiaoping’s analysis and prediction is that: the last several decades, Western countries carried a delusion that we will undergo peaceful evolution, always thought we were China's Imre Nagy, so they treated us with a soft hand instead of facing us head on. This was a period of enormous opportunity for our great development. However, after several decades, when we have grown up, and there is no peaceful evolution, the West will be scared. When they fail to carry out color revolution in our country, like a cornered dog turning desperate, they will surely use military means to attempt to overthrow our Party's ruling position, because this a matter of life and death for international monopoly capitalism. This then is the second historical period, when it is our historic opportunity to fight back, our historic opportunity to promote the China century throughout the world. This is another of those important historical opportunities. In the past, if Hitler's Germany had not launched World War II, the Soviet Union would not have reason to send troops to battle it out and ending up creating a socialist camp in Eastern Europe. In the last century, Comrade Mao Zedong stressed that the imperialist war is both a bad thing and a good thing. He paid attention to study how to use the world war launched by the imperialists, to use this historical opportunity to wipe out the imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries, and unify the entire world. Of course, in future we must follow our strategic plan, and when the opportunity presents itself take preemptive action against the enemy, and not necessarily wait for them to first strike at Beijing, and us having to retreat to the west of Jinggangshan and Xi’an before we fight back. Therefore, we have repeatedly emphasized this period of several decades of historic opportunity, and we must cherish this historic opportunity, go all out to make good use of this historical opportunity to develop ourselves, while at the same time be ready, when the second period arrives, to use the opportunity of Western imperialism launching a war to advance the great cause of the revival of the Chinese nation.

This historic opportunity has gone through 30 years, how much longer will it last? We hope that it will continue, but should also prepare for its abrupt end. We are prepared in all aspects. Of course, we also have our basic estimates and long-term arrangements, we have our own initiative, but we are also prepared for the worst. After the victory of the war of resistance, on the eve of the decisive battle between the KMT and the CCP, Comrade Mao Zedong had said at a meeting of cadres, "Even if the war starts tomorrow, we are prepared." At that time our military preparations included emergency deployment of forces, using the U.S. Military Observer Group’s military aircraft to rush a number of senior military and political leading cadres from Yan'an to the various fronts. At that time the Americans were kept in the dark, unknowingly helping us deploy our troops

Our current preparations include various aspects; here we will focus on the issue of social stability. With the gradual development of the transformation of our society, various social contradictions crop up endlessly, threatening our Party's ruling position, and of course will threaten our country's future military showdown with the West. An important issue here is the so-called "color revolutions." In order to push us to take the road of Westernization and peaceful evolution, Western countries are using a variety of ways to support dissidents and reactionary elements in our country, and these dissidents and reactionary elements are their special detachments. Some of these people have been promoting Western values of democracy and freedom all along, promoting shaking off the Party's leadership, even encouraging federalism and self-government. After “June 4”, we banished most of their prominent figures overseas, in order to conform with our new relationship of both cooperation and struggle with the Western countries. For those who are still in the country, we have taken the approach of "sometimes tighten, sometimes loosen, a combination of tightening and loosening", in order to closely control them, yet at the same time not let contradictions intensify. This "tighten" and "loosen" contains two meanings; first, it is a tightening and loosening on their physical body. To "tighten" means under certain circumstances to arrest them and place them in detention centers and prisons for some time, or let them “drink tea” at home or in a hotel or in our offices, and not allow them to go out for some time. To "loosen" means to let them out so that they enjoy personal freedom of movement under surveillance. Second, it is a tightening and loosening of their fallacies. To "loosen" means to allow certain of their fallacies to circulate in the community during a certain period of time. Our objective is to first enable the masses to increase their immunity, their resistance; and second, to draw the snake out of its hole, to draw all sympathizers of these fallacies out of their holes so that we can classify and control them, so that we know exactly what’s going on; and third, to color ourselves slightly with a tint of peaceful evolution, thus helping to reduce the West's hostility and vigilance towards us. To "tighten" means under certain circumstances not allowing the spreading of certain fallacies, to filter and delete harmful information on the web, and to ban rallies and activities of certain dissidents. In short, with our “610” offices, anti-pornography offices and maintain-stability offices at all levels, in close integration with the work of receiving petitioners, and in close integration with Internet control departments and public security departments, we have a tight network of social control that can firmly control the whole of China’s society; we can cope with sudden changes in the situation and unexpected incidents. It is necessary to mention that our extent of "tightening" and "loosening" also changes with the situation; in the past we took our cue from Westerners to arrest and release people, but now that’s a bit outdated. Besides, some prominent figures have been jumping for quite some time, and their role has largely played out; it’s time to “tighten” them up.

Turning to the preparatory work for a military showdown, we must not fail to mention the understanding of the scientific concept of development. Over the years we have been emphasizing the scientific concept of development, stressing the importance of the ecological environment in order to support sustainable development; some comrades at once propose that we put management of the environment into top place, and economic development into second place. This is an incorrect bias. To be sure, as a price of economic development, during these thirty years of reform and opening up, environmental pollution across the country has become increasingly serious, from air pollution to groundwater pollution, from pollution of rivers and lakes to farmland pollution, from contaminated agricultural products derived from polluted farmland to contaminated livestock and aquatic products derived from polluted feedstock, the threat to people's lives and health have become greater than ever. But what is the way out? If we slow down our pace of economic development, and shift our focus to environmental improvement, it is bound to slow down the development of our national strength, and affect our preparations for military struggle. If we cannot win the military struggle, and we lose political power, we will lose everything, the people will lose everything. On the other hand, if we win the military struggle, we will have everything, and the whole world will be under our control.

The third is the vast united front work carried out by our Party.

Historically, if we do not count the relationship of both cooperation and struggle with our opponent, that is, the united front relationship in broad terms, then our Party's united front work includes two main areas. The first area is an open front, and the second front is a secret hidden front. The open front extends from our liberated areas to enemy-occupied areas, and even overseas, including the democratic movement, the labor movement, the peasant movement, the student movement, etc. in the enemy-occupied areas, under the leadership of the Party, including our open Party newspaper and a variety of newspapers and magazines operated by peripheral organizations in the KMT-administered areas. The hidden front is the secretly established Party organizations within the party, government, military and intelligence agencies of our enemy; these are the strong fortresses of our Party, steel knives inserted in the heart of the enemy. Comrade Mao Zedong laid out the working guidelines for the hidden front: "to have well-selected cadres working underground for a long period, to accumulate strength and bide our time." This hidden front extended all the way to close by Chiang Kai-shek’s side. Hidden front heroes, especially those underground Party heroes who infiltrated into the vital sectors of the enemy’s government, military and intelligence agencies, made key contributions to our final victory in the decisive battle between the KMT and the Communist Party. If we did not have the “former three heroes” lying low in the Investigation and Statistics Bureau of the Central Committee of the KMT, or the “latter three heroes” lying low beside Hu Tsung-nan, our Party Central organ would have long been destroyed by the enemy; if we did not recruit Fu Tso-yi's family member into the CCP, there would have been no peaceful liberation of Peking; if there were no Anna Shen, Guo Rugui and Liu Fei lying low right beside Chiang Kai-shek and his Department of Defense, there would have been no victory in the three major battles; if we did not have so many comrades infiltrate into the enemy’s headquarters to disintegrate the enemy’s troops, there would not have been so many enemy troops rise up and defect. Their contributions will forever be indelible.

The reason why I want to review in this way our Party's united front achievements in the past is to show that our current united front is in no way inferior to that of those days; it also includes two major parts: internal and external, open and covert. Over the past decades we have inherited and greatly developed the tradition of the Party's united front work; our achievements of these thirty years are no less than that of the thirty years of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi. Our scope of work of these thirty years far exceed that of their three decades; we have extended beyond China’s territory, beyond the scope of the Chinese people, beyond the imagination of friends and enemies. Our friends are all over the world; our work is all over the world. The overseas Chinese communities and media all have our people. Those anti-China elements that we have exiled overseas, although they jump up and down, it is impossible for them to escape our “Buddha’s palm”; their life and death is in our hands. We have developed the Americans’ information technology. Sitting in Beijing, we can obtain information about the United States on the other side of the ocean, influence and guide public opinion there, and even track and monitor the activities of some key figures. We can filter and screen bad information on Microsoft's web site. Of course, currently we have only been able to win over Microsoft; Bill Gates sympathizes and supports our censorship and filtering on the Internet. We must also strive to win over more people. In addition, we all watched "Lying Low" and other revolutionary tradition educational TV shows, and all revere to the utmost those named and unnamed war-time heroes. We are proud of the fact that: in today's times of peace, we also have many such heroes. Also, even the White House has a picture of our Chairman Mao, which would have been simply inconceivable in the past.

Here I would like to mention in particular our great foreign propaganda work. Over the years, as our national strength has grown by leaps and bounds, we started to bring the historical task of great foreign propaganda throughout the world onto our agenda. What is the historical significance of this work? We all see that it is to strengthen our soft power, to strive for our Party‘s power of discourse in the world, to occupy the high ground of propaganda and public opinion, to use our words to lead the world. However, is there some other meaning behind these significances? I think it is to lay the public opinion foundation for our Party's leadership position in the Chinese century. If we do not have this public opinion foundation, even if we defeat the Western armies and win the world, we will still encounter much resistance in the world, a lot of people are not used to us. When we liberated the Kuomintang-controlled areas, weren’t many local people dodging us? Our world-wide great propaganda work is to enable people around the world to understand China, understand our Party, so that they realize that our Party is the faithful representative of the people of the world, is the reliable representative of human civilization; even if one day hegemony did not hesitate at a nuclear war and destroyed human civilization, we will still be able to pass down human civilization to future generations. Over the many years of reform and opening up, we invite others in and go abroad, and with open arms learn every aspect of human civilization, and have obtained great achievements. Today, even if you do not go abroad, in China you can also see many aspects of the pearl of Western civilization. In some aspects, our level is even more foreign than the foreigners. The American movie "2012" hinted that China is the inheritor of human civilization. Some people say that we have made China into a Western colony, a Western hodgepodge. How can they understand our diligent intentions?

To do a good job of great foreign propaganda requires effort in two aspects. First, to spared no expense to build a world wide propaganda base and team. On the other hand, it is necessary to use various methods and to spare no expense to infiltrate into authoritative circles in the Western countries, including individuals and institutions; they have a certain power of discourse in the international community, they are the bellwether of world public opinion and emotions. When we do our work well on them and turn them into sympathizers of our Party, once they come out and speak for us, the effect will be much better. Recently, you may have sensed that a growing number of Western authorities are saying good things about us, are lashing against their own government, and some veteran anti-China hands are beginning to be assaulted on all sides by public opinion. This is a trend, a trend that accompanies China's rise.

We must follow Chairman Mao's three magic weapons to steadfastly prepare for national revival. We also need to pay attention to nurturing a spirit. What spirit? It is the fighting spirit of "fearing neither hardship nor death".

During the sixties of the last century, when Chairman Mao put forward the objective of "bury the imperialists, the revisionists and the reactionaries", he also called on the nation to develop and promote the spirit of "fearing neither hardship nor death". At that time, he said: "I am in favor of this slogan, called 'fearing neither hardship nor death'". Today, reviewing this teaching of Chairman Mao is of particularly important practical significance to the great cause of our national revival.

This idea of Chairman Mao is consistent; as early as during the war, Chairman Mao once said: "To struggle means there will be sacrifice, people die all the time." The most brilliant thing about Chairman Mao is his sense that it is necessary to have a far-sighted perspective of history, that he saw the iron laws of historical development: if society is to undergo major changes, if history is to experience great development, then it is likely that many will die. This happens independent of our subjective will. In order to liberate the Chinese people, many Chinese sacrificed their lives! In the battle of Changchun alone, one to two hundred thousand civilians were starved to death. Therefore Chairman Mao estimated that, if the imperialists wanted to launch a nuclear war, and we need to smash the imperialists and achieve global socialism, then 1 / 3 to 1 / 2 of the world's population may have to die, but we are not afraid. Chairman Mao said, "Bitter sacrifice strengthens bold resolve, which dares to make sun and moon shine in new skies. "!

Communist Party members must establish a correct view of life and death. Since the reactionary monopoly bourgeois class is always going to use counter-revolutionary violence to maintain its old world and stop the advance of history, since we can only overturn the old world and create a new century by means of revolutionary violence, then it is difficult to avoid deaths, even a large number of deaths. When fighting for the Chinese century, we must be mentally prepared for this. In the past, there was a song in Tsinghua University: "onto the battlefield, when the guns sound, I resolve to die on the battlefield today!" This is the kind of fighting spirit! We cannot on the one hand favor revolutionary violence, while on the other hand be afraid of a large number of deaths, and therefore dare not pay the price, dare not struggle, dare not win victory. We Communists cannot be like the character “Lord Ye who professed to love dragons”, on the one hand looking forward every day to the Chinese century, but runs away when the Chinese century really comes to look him up and wants him to prepare to pay the price of bloodshed and sacrifice. In this sense, Chairman Mao said that death is a good thing. He said, "Death is a good thing, without death, it would be terrible. If today we can still see Confucius, there would not be enough space to hold all the people on earth. I agree with Zhuangzi's approach. Zhuangzi's wife died; he banged a basin and sang. When someone dies, there should be a celebration, to celebrate the victory of dialectics, to celebrate the demise of old things." You see, even the ancients have such a mental stature! We Communist Party members should lead the masses into such a lofty mental realm. Chairman Mao said: People eventually die, their death can be as heavy as Mount Tai, or as light as a feather. We Party members and our people die for the coming of the Chinese century, then it will be heavier than Mount Tai. Sometimes, in scenes of prosperity, in scenes of feasting and revelry and in scenes where huge crowds of people celebrate with jubilation, sometimes in an instant, my mind could not help but flash with some very soul-stirring scenes of military exercises, those scenes of devastation. I could not help but think how miniscule is human life in comparison. I also often dream of those people of the future Chinese century, and my mind cannot help but recall a passage from the young Marx that I read during my secondary school days: "Our happiness will belong to millions of people, our cause will continue to exist quietly, forever fulfilling its role, and faced with our ashes, noble people will shed tears."

Over the years, witnessing the motherland changing with each passing day, I always have a sense of pride. Now I can tell you that the dawn of national revival of the Chinese nation is not far away. More than forty years ago, Chairman Mao had great foresight to predict: "The next few decades, how valuable and important are they for the motherland's future and destiny of humankind! Today’s youth who are twenty odd years old will be forty or fifty years of age in another two to three decades. Our young people of this generation with their own hands will build our poor and blank motherland into a great and strong socialist country. They will personally participate in the fight to bury imperialism. The task is heavy and the road is long. China's young people with determination and ambition must struggle for their entire lifetime for the completion of our great historic mission." Now we can say that our historic mission is upon us, therefore it is still a "heavy task", but the road is not long anymore, and dawn is right ahead.

Recalling history and looking into the future, I would often think of a poem that Comrade Wen Jiabao likes to quote: "I shall reach the top and hold all mountains in a single glance." When people of the future Chinese century look back and pay their respects to our achievements, in their eyes we will be but small hills, only a few steps in a journey of a thousand miles.

The final question is: we must always firmly treat correctly the relationship between the Party and the people; as for those comrades who were disciplined and stepped down because of corruption or mistakes in their work, we must analyze each case according to its merits, and treat them properly. Since Comrade Jiang Zemin put forward the "Three Represents" idea, from time to time we have been told that, since the Communist Party is the representative of the people, the people are the subject, the people come first, therefore our traditional wording "the Party and the people" should be changed to "the people and the Party", put the people first. This argument is specious. In accordance with Marxism, when the day of world communism, the day of universal brotherhood arrives, the state and political parties will all have disappeared, and of course, there will be no Communist Party, and the issue of which should be placed first, the people or the Party, will not exist. However, to realize communism, we must first realize the Chinese century, which cannot be done without struggle against the enemy, without our Communist Party's leadership. In this case, without the Communist Party, there can be no people's fundamental interests. So in this sense, the Party is more important than the people, and of course the Party must always be placed ahead of the people.

According to this principle of “talk politics", those cadres who stepped down and are subject to probation, as long as they are loyal to the Party, that means they are strong in Party spirit, they still belong to the vanguard of the proletariat; regardless of how much wealth they possess, they are still the Party’s valuable asset, we must make use of them again. For those comrades who stepped down in the fight against corruption, we must make a point of distinguishing between Yan'an and Xi'an: as long as they are loyal to the Party, even if there was corruption of the Yan'an kind, corruption amidst the revolutionary ranks, rather than corruption amidst the counter-revolutionary ranks in Xi'an, we should give them a way out, create conditions for them, and strive to make use of them again as early as possible.


[胡 锦 涛 内 部 讲 话 - 中 国 共 产 党 在 21 世 纪 的 历 史 地 位 和 历 史 使 命]

《纽约时报》著名专栏作家克里斯多福（汉名：纪思道，原纽约时报北京分社社长）指出：完全看不出美国有为钓鱼岛而与中国开战的理由，何况美国并没有承认钓鱼岛是属于日本的。

他还指出，日本人自己在227年前印行的地图上就标明钓台岛是中国（清朝）的。

曾获普立兹奖的尼古拉.克里斯多福（NICHOLAS KRISTOF）针对中、日渔船纠纷在博客撰文，说明纷争的来龙去脉、美国立场及个人观点。

文章说，就技术层面言，《美日安保条约》涵盖所有日本行使管辖权的地方，而钓鱼岛目前由日本管辖，因此如果中、日交火，美国有义务帮忙日本。然而，美国立场一向是“钓鱼岛的主权到底是谁的，美国没有意见”，因此美国将处于很荒谬的地位，因为“我们并没有同意钓鱼岛肯定是日本的，却要因为钓鱼岛而帮日本打仗”。

他指出，就事实层面言，“美国为了钓鱼岛这几个无人岩石而履行条约义务，机会是零”。
他说，美国没有理由为了几个“可能根本就是中国的岛屿”，而与中国发生可能的核子冲突。

但是他同时指出，如果不履行条约义务，则势必伤害美、日关系。 　　
究竟钓鱼岛的主权谁属？作者回答说：“我觉得应该是中国的，尽管答案不是那么明确”。 　　
他提出几点理由：
第一，中国的航海纪录显示钓鱼岛是中国的，“已有数世纪之久”。
第二，日本在1783年印行的航海地图，标明钓鱼岛是中国的。
第三，日本是在1884年假装“发现”了钓鱼岛，然后在1895年根据《马关条约》取得台湾时，一并把钓鱼台划入日本管辖区。


Further Reading:
1.NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Look Out for the Diaoyu Islands
2.NICHOLAS KRISTOF: More on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

When an entertainment celebrity takes a moral stand, it often goes beyond personal belief. That is why the moral crusade of a Chinese television star has turned into an eye-catching headline.

Sun Haiying, who achieved stardom with a popular drama series, told a reporter that homosexuality is "criminal in nature". That certainly goes against both common sense and the legal definition, because China long ago decriminalized the behavior. So there is little danger that Sun will send to prison any of his many gay peers in the entertainment industry.

Principle or prejudice? Raymond Zhou, China Daily (18 Aug, 2007)

I have no further knowledge about Sun's conviction against homosexuality, probably won't dig into it neither.

A flash just strikes me on the head. I am pondering...

Why are people coming and sticking together for the rest of their life? Is it for the ultimate aim of reproduction of their kins? Or, for the continuation of their particular spices?

To put it in a much wider and profound perspective: For the sake of a better evolution of the human kind, one has the obligation to contribute ones offspring into the making of a magical experiment of the Almighty Nature?

If not, what else?

Love? A bit too vague, maybe. Or, sex? Too provocative and straight forward, definitely. Most likely, both. One because of the other.

Does gender have anything to do with love and sex of the people concerned?


Further Reading:[list1]
[*]China Daily: Principle or prejudice?
[*]Love's not sex (Updated Sept 10)
Why romantic love isn't limited by a person's sexual orientation
[*]Sex and Social Order: The Transformation of Intimacy by Anthony Giddens (Updated Sept 10)[/list1]

That is the Beijing drinkable-tap-water question.

There have been different of opinions towards Beijing Waterworks' announcement of the drinkability of the city's tap water.

I suggest Beijing dwellers take water from their tap and go to a designated inspection laboratory (authorized agent like SGS) and run a test.

Some kind of organization (in collaboration with, say, SGS) will have to be in place for such data collection as what, who, where and when etc.

Well, it should actually be the job of the water authorities, before they make their too-good-to-be-true announcement.

Serious, anyone? I'm more than happy to put it into action.

There will plausibly be a couple of after-actions:

(1) Too good a result: We shall organize a mass gathering in praise of the hardwork done by the Beijing Waterworks, under the leadership of the Municipal Communist Party Committee of Beijing;

(2) A marginal result: We shall suggest certain waterpipe network refurnishing or building improvements, based on our tap-water collection database;

(3) Too bad a result: We shall of course put the Beijing Waterworks to the court and sue it for providing false information, and the possibility of endangering its citizenry's health, and the bad implementation of the party's line of upholding a scientific development viewpoint (Kexue Fazhan Guan).


Further Reading:[list1]
[*]At long last, drinkable tap water? (Danwei.org)[/list1]

Oh,
if only the noble and divine force rested forever upon my saddle,
and if only the mysterious will which wavers my steering gear contented in place forever:
then my pedals would swivel of themselves,
and never cease,
no dreadful brake should sever the perpetuity of my motions.

Then,
oh then I should be imperishable.
I should rove through the world forever,
spin to nowhere,
and riddle to infinity,
till I was identified with the giddy and timeless cycle-race of the sun and the stars....