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China's Secrecy System Reset The Bottom Line

2008/10/11 17:17:00 41846

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When the spokesman Shen Yong Club appeared in front of a crowd of reporters, his identity was news.

This is an official from the State Secrets Bureau.

On the morning of September 12th, the Ministry of civil affairs and the secret service jointly held a news conference in Beijing, the latter being the first to face the public with the role of News Publisher.

The news released by sensitive departments is also striking. Since August, the total number of deaths caused by natural disasters and related information is no longer a state secret matter.

Four days after the press conference, the Ministry of civil affairs website announced: as at 16 o'clock in September 14, 2005, statistics showed that 1626 people died and 426 people were displaced in various natural disasters this year. 13 million 161 thousand people were evacuated immediately, 1 million 452 thousand houses collapsed, and the direct economic loss caused by disasters was 157 billion 140 million yuan.

"Similar cooperation is certainly not just the Ministry of civil affairs, but we will also introduce some new initiatives in the future."

The official information office of the state secret Bureau recently told reporters.

As early as the beginning of this year, the information office official of the State Council once revealed that the revision of the "confidentiality law", "the implementation of the confidentiality law" and the formulation of the "Regulations on the disclosure of government information" are in the process of deliberation.

"Keeping state secrets and promoting information disclosure is complementary to each other."

Shen Yongshe, deputy director of the State Secrets Bureau, stressed.

Six characters were deleted.

This press conference involving two ministries and bureaus of the State Council has been implemented in documents, but only six words have been deleted.

The document was drawn up by the general office of the Ministry of civil affairs. The Ministry of civil affairs and the state secret Bureau jointly issued the notice on the decryption of deaths caused by natural disasters and related information declassified in August 8th this year. (min FA [2005]116, hereinafter referred to as "Document No. 116").

Document No. 116 revised the 71 surgical document 5 years ago.

The fourth entry in Document No. 71 "secret level" stipulates that "the total number of people who fled, beggars and deaths due to natural disasters and related information in the whole country and provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government".

Document No. 116 deleted the total number of dead persons in the entry.

Document No. 71 was issued jointly by the Ministry of civil affairs and the state secret Bureau in February 29, 2000. It is known as the "Regulations on the specific scope of state secrets and their classified levels in civil affairs" (Civil FA [2000]71). The state secrets matters in the civil affairs system are classified into "top secret", "secret level" and "secret level".

"If we take the number of deaths caused by natural disasters as state secrets, we will be quite passive in responding to disaster relief work, and it will not conform to international practice."

An official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs relief and disaster relief introduced.

"Decryption began in June of this year."

An official familiar with the Ministry of Civil Affairs recalled that the secret office took the lead in submitting applications to the general office of the Ministry of civil affairs and was directly presented to Vice Minister Jia Zhibang after widely soliciting opinions from the relief and disaster relief department and the Financial Secretary (responsible for preparing the Yearbook).

Subsequently, the Ministry of Civil Affairs officially sent a letter to the state secret Bureau.

"After receiving the letter from the Ministry of civil affairs, we attach great importance to it."

A state secret Bureau said.

According to its introduction, the state secret Bureau replies to the Ministry of Civil Affairs on the one hand, and sends the Commissioner to communicate with him regularly. On the other hand, he asks the office of the CPC Central Committee to take a higher level of support.

"According to the needs of disaster relief work, the death toll of major natural disasters in recent years has been gradually disclosed."

Zou Ming, deputy director of the relief and disaster relief Department of the Ministry of civil affairs, said the two department issued the document in a systematic and standardized way.

However, Document No. 116 does not define natural disasters or man-made disasters.

"If there is a flood disaster and a mine collapse, there may be double factors of natural calamities and human disasters. There is undoubtedly the institutional flexibility of information disclosure."

An expert from the Institute of law of the Academy of Social Sciences told reporters.

New China's secrecy history

"The selection of Document No. 116 was released in August 8th and has a special meaning."

An official from the State Secrets Bureau said that in August 8th it was the 30th anniversary dam break incident in Zhumadian, Henan. The decryption actually stems from a new attitude towards disaster history and disaster relief work.

According to public information, from August 8, 1975 to September 5th, many dams of Banqiao reservoir and other dams in Zhumadian, Henan, were crashing, and 150 kilometers east and West, and 75 kilometers north and south.

So far, data on the deaths of the disaster have not been released publicly.

In May of this year, the "ten major technological disasters in the world" featured by the US Discovery Channel took the first place. This was followed by the India Bhopal chemical plant poison discharge incident and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in the former Soviet Union. The theme of this film is that its death toll is similar to that of Hebei Tangshan earthquake.

In September 16th, Zhao Yongshan, director of the Information Office of the State Secrets Bureau, said that the publication of Document No. 116 was related to the frequent occurrence of natural disasters.

In a telephone interview, the confidentiality officer cited a series of natural disasters in the first half of this year.

According to a research material formed by the state secret Bureau, the history of China's government information disclosure and secrecy can be divided into two periods, the first period is the end of the founding of new China and the end of the "Cultural Revolution".

In June 8, 1951, the Provisional Regulations on Guarding State secrets issued by the former State Administration of state affairs, which contain 17 aspects of state secrets, have a wide range of practical work. "All information that is not disclosed is regarded as a state secret, and the information on public exchanges is relatively small".

During this period, there were two serious natural disasters, namely, the Tangshan earthquake and the Yunnan Tonghai earthquake.

On the following day in July 29, 1976, the Tangshan people's Daily published the Xinhua News Agency's report, which focused on the fight against disasters, and only mentioned the loss of the epicenter area to varying degrees.

The Yunnan Tonghai earthquake occurred in January 5, 1970. Details are still unknown.

The second period listed in the research materials refers to the the third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee after the Communist Party of China.

In 1988, the "secret law", which was formally implemented in the following year, was completed and reduced the scope of state secrets to seven major aspects: major decisions in national affairs, national defense, foreign affairs, military affairs, public security and national security.

The death toll of the two major earthquakes in Tonghai and Tangshan was also disclosed during this period.

At the founding meeting of the Seismological Society of China in November 17, 1979, more than 240 thousand people were killed in the Tangshan earthquake, and the death toll was 15621 until the 30th anniversary session of the great earthquake until January 5, 2000.

The third period

"The two ministries and commissions are jointly led by the state secret Bureau."

In September 15th, Wang Yanbing, director of the secret office of the Ministry of civil affairs, told reporters.

Zhao Yongshan, director of the Information Office of the State Secrets Bureau, said that the initiative to hold a news conference is the first time for the state secret Bureau.

The state secret Bureau has no official website, and 114 can not query its office phone.

Although it is one of the 10 national bureaus managed by the ministries and commissions under the State Council, the State Secrets Bureau and the central secret Committee, directly under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, are two brands of an institution.

In this way, the provincial Party committee and the government have set up the State Secrets Bureau and the secrecy Committee.

According to the briefing, the main responsibilities of the state secret Bureau include three major parts: first, the drafting, revision and reporting of the laws and regulations in charge of confidentiality; the implementation of the "confidentiality law" and its corresponding regulations; two, the major inspection and decryption work for the national secrecy work; and three, the development plan for the confidentiality technology and the organization and implementation thereof.

On September 12th, Shen Yongshe, deputy director of the State Secrets Bureau, said at the press conference that the secret bureau started late in communication with the media and the public.

An official who has worked in the state secret Bureau for more than 10 years, according to the current new situation, is obviously developing the "third period".

In his view, the initiative of the State Secrets Bureau has become increasingly evident with Xia Yong's new performance.

In June 7th this year, Xia Yong, the famous legal expert and director of the Institute of law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, took over the post of director of the State Secrets Bureau.

At the end of June, the investigation of secrecy concerning foreign affairs in some provinces and cities has been carried out.

Xia Yong, a jurist, was admitted to the State Secrets Bureau.

An official of the State Secrets Bureau told Xia Yong that he was "very strong and very high". "He is a good news from his state secret Bureau."

"Similar to this is headed by a jurist, and there are two or three in the country."

Zhao Yongshan, director of the Information Office of the State Secrets Bureau, told reporters.

Xia Yong, born in 1961, was born in Jingzhou, Hubei.

The personal resume shows that Xia Yong enrolled in the Southwest Institute of political science and law in 1978 (now Southwest University of Political Science and Law) for 10 months, and studied in July 1982. He served as a teaching assistant and lecturer.

It was introduced by a colleague of the Institute of law of the Academy of social sciences. After obtaining his master's degree from his alma mater, Xia Yong was admitted to Ph. D. in Law School of Peking University in 1989. After graduation, he served as an associate researcher and researcher of the Institute of law, and was appointed director in March 2002.

Xia Yong served as a visiting scholar at the Law School of Harvard University during the service of the Institute of law of the Academy of social sciences.

In 1995, he was awarded the first "China's ten outstanding young and middle-aged jurists" by the Chinese law society.

In the past 20 years, Xia Yong has studied the theory of human rights and the rule of law.

Its famous name is the historical philosophy of the origin of human rights - the right. It has been reprinted four times.

In recent two years, he has continuously published several works on the theme of "political law", "civil rights philosophy", "running the country according to law" and "constitutional construction".

In the "Chinese civil rights philosophy" published in September 2004, Xia Yong put forward the theory of "new people based theory". The main idea is: the people should be the foundation of the state, but the power should be the foundation of the people.

It is believed that "people oriented and civil rights must be correctly positioned under the rule of law and constitutional system. The core value of the rule of law is human dignity and freedom".

Thus, he is called "human rights expert" in the academic circles.

According to an expert of the Institute of law of the Academy of Social Sciences, there are two main points in the innovation of "new people-oriented theory": one is to fulfill the people's foundation with the procedural rules of civil rights, and to construct the noumenon of the people with the help of the concept of rights; the two is to put forward the concept of "moral rights", so as to enable scholars to go deep into the Chinese people.