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The National People's Congress last March approved outlays worth 514 billion yuan ($75.26 billion) for public-security departments this year, which are almost as big as the People's Liberation Army budget of 532 billion yuan ($77.89 billion). The regional Chinese media have disclosed that this year's wei-wen budget for provinces and cities including Liaoning, Guangdong, Beijing, Suzhou had jumped at least 15% over that of 2009.
At the same time, cadres responsible for ideology and the media are sparing no efforts to push forward President Hu's slogans about "Sinicizing and popularizing Marxism" as a means to ensuring socio-political stability and promoting national cohesiveness. At a recent forum on "Promoting Popular Contemporary Chinese Marxism", director of the CCP Propaganda Department Liu Yunshan urged cadres to "deeply grasp the laws of Marxist development, and to better arm the entire party - and educate the people - with the theoretical system of Chinese socialism". "We must take hold of the people through better