Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged all Party committees to advance reform, development and stability to create a sound environment for the upcoming 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northern Shanxi Province, calling the congress a significant event for the Party and national political life.

During his inspection tour from Wednesday to Friday, Xi visited a revolutionary memorial museum, villages and enterprises in Shanxi Province.

At the revolutionary memorial museum in Xing County of Lyuliang city, Xi left a basket of flowers Wednesday morning to pay respect to the country’s war heroes.

The president said he was deeply moved after seeing pictures and old objects that reminded people of the old days of revolutionary struggle.

“Each part of the CPC’s revolutionary history is a vivid textbook of ideals and faith,” Xi said, urging Party members to forge ahead while staying true to the mission taken up by the CPC when it was founded in 1921.

He said that every Party member should remember the revolutionaries who devoted their lives to national independence and the people’s liberation, keep the mettle of the CPC members, be honest with the people, and create a better life for the people.

Xi met representatives of the old revolutionaries, spoke highly of their contribution and wished them good health.

On Wednesday afternoon, after over an hour’s drive, Xi visited three households in Zhaojiawa village in the destitute areas of Lyuliang Mountain region. He asked villagers the reasons for their poverty and the effects of anti-poverty measures.

After hearing that villager Liu Fuyou, his 71-year-old wife and 92-year-old mother were ill, Xi urged local officials to pay close attention to poverty caused by illness.

“In the past, I could not even dream that impoverished households could receive so much help from the Party and the government,” villager Cao Liuren told Xi.

“The Party and the government aim to serve the people, and it is our duty to let people live a better life,” Xi said.

Villager Wang Sannyu’s husband and son have passed away and her grandson and granddaughter are disabled. Xi urged local officials to arrange special education for her grandchildren.

To know drought-relief measures, Xi inspected a shallow well, the only water source for the village, as well as a cornfield. He also visited officials who were sent to help with poverty alleviation.

“It’s the Party’s solemn promise to let poverty-stricken people and areas enter a ‘moderately prosperous society’ along with the rest of the nation,” said Xi. He said efforts must be made to deliver on the promise no matter how arduous the process.

He called on poverty relief staff to stay humble, improve their abilities and realize their value by solving problems for the poor.

All the villagers came to see Xi off, applauding and cheering.

Xi visited Songjiagou New Village in Kelan county, where new houses have been built for people relocated from poor areas. Xi visited the home of impoverished villager Zhang Guiming, chatting with him about subsidies for resettlement as well as his new life and current troubles.

Xi said a major issue was to solve abject poverty. He said resettlement projects must respect the people’s will, taking relocation sites, investment, income, environmental protection and village management into consideration.

The president called on the villagers to “roll up sleeves and work harder together with the CPC Central Committee.”

Xi stressed technological innovation while visiting a rail transit equipment producer and a carbon materials company Thursday.

He inspected innovations in equipment manufacturing, electronic information, energy conservation and environmental protection, as well new materials and the coal chemical industry.

“Enterprises should play a major role in promoting industrial upgrading which is market-oriented. Breakthroughs should be made in technological transformation and innovation,” he said.

He called on the rail transit equipment company to grasp the opportunities of China’s transport development and the building of the Belt and Road to promote technological innovation and brand building.

“The creativity of enterprises, research institutes and researchers should be mobilized,” said Xi while inspecting the carbon materials company, adding they should get both a sense of achievement in innovation as well a sense of gains from the transformation of their achievements.

After hearing reports of Shanxi provincial officials, Xi praised their achievements in social and economic development, calling on local authorities and people to be bold in reform and innovation, and in tackling challenges.

Xi asked local authorities to enhance economic transformation by creating a good business environment and deepening supply-side structural reform.

Stating that issues of farmers, agriculture and the countryside are key priorities of the whole Party, Xi urged speeding up agricultural modernization and raising income of farmers via means ranging from better training to better basic public services.

Xi called for more efforts to improve people’s livelihoods by offering them better education and healthcare services.

Xi stressed green development, saying that stronger measures should be taken in economic transformation, environmental pollution control, ecological protection and restoration, as well as resource saving.

He called for strict intra-Party life, asking all Party organizations and Party members to follow rules on intra-Party political life and observe regulations and discipline.

“Officials who are both clean and willing to work deserve more opportunities of development,” Xi said.

Torrential rain lashed parts of central China’s Hunan and Hubei provinces over the past two days, with flooding affecting at least 390,000 people.

In western and northern Hunan, heavy rain triggered flash floods, damaging mountain roads and raising the risk of landslides, the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said Friday.

The storms, the heaviest this summer, brought over 160 mm of rainfall in some areas in just one day. In Yueyang, 47 small and medium-sized reservoirs overflowed.

Floods have affected 334,000 people in 13 counties and districts, toppling 46 houses and forcing the evacuation of 9,100 people.

Heavy rain is forecast to continue in Hunan in the next five days.

In Xianning of Hubei, rain-triggered power outages affected 30,000 households. But by Friday evening, power have been restored to 87 percent of the households.

In Chongyang county of Xianning, floods affected over 50,000 people and damaged around 4,660 hectares of crops. Meanwhile, 26 small reservoirs overflowed.

In Puge county of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, rain-triggered landslides left two villagers dead and one missing early Friday morning. Four more were injured but were in stable condition after emergency treatment.

The draft law on national supervision was submitted for review at the ongoing bi-monthly session of the top legislature, according to a statement issued after a plenary meeting of the session Friday.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, attended Friday’s meeting.

“The legislation is aimed at deepening the national supervision system and forming a unified, authoritative and efficient supervision system,” said Li Jianguo, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, while making an explanation of the draft at the meeting.

China has begun to pilot the supervisory system reform in Beijing Municipality and the provinces of Shanxi and Zhejiang.

The pilot sees the establishment of local supervisory commissions at three levels — provincial, municipal and county — in order to form an integrated supervision system.

The draft was formulated based on pilot experience and in-depth research by the NPC Standing Committee and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, Li said.

A chairpersons’ meeting decided to submit the draft to lawmakers for review at the ongoing session, Li said.

John McDonnell MP,
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, has today written to the Chancellor, Philip
Hammond MP, calling on him to
make public the cost of any secret deals the Government are making with the
DUP.

Calling it
“essential” that the details of any agreement are made public, the Shadow
Chancellor lays out a number of questions that Hammond must answer around
additional spending as well as the Barnett Formula implications of any
potential deal.

Ends

Letter
from Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP to Chancellor Philip Hammond MP:

Dear
Chancellor

I
am writing to call on you, in the interests of transparency, to publish the
financial consequences of any electoral deal reached between the Conservative
Party and the Democratic Unionist Party.

There
has been speculation in the media about possible additional infrastructure and
NHS spending for Northern Ireland, or reductions in Northern Ireland rates of
corporation tax, VAT and/or Air Passenger Duty.

It
is essential that the details of any agreement are made public, including any
costing calculations and evidence for measures which are agreed, and how
additional spending or reduced tax revenue will be affected by Barnett Formula
considerations.

Specifically,
will any additional spending or tax cuts offered to Northern Ireland be offset
through reductions in the Northern Ireland block grant and if not how will
additional spending be paid for?

Can
you clarify whether any additional spending will be funded from general UK-wide
taxation, or by increased borrowing, or by some other means?

Since
your Spring Budget there has already emerged a ‘black hole’ of £2bn as a result
of the Government’s U-turn on increasing Class 4 National Insurance
contributions. Can you inform us how you are planning to plug this gap: with
further spending cuts, tax rises, or additional borrowing? I note that this
comes in the context of Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts for an
increase in Public Sector Net Borrowing this year.

I
look forward to receiving your reply,

John
McDonnell MP

Shadow Chancellor