A meeting jointly held by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Ministry of Education emphasized the Party’s authority over centrally-administered universities.

Higher education should be a nurturing environment for the inheritors of the socialist cause, adhere to the socialist orientation, and uphold CPC’s leadership, according to a statement released Friday.

Universities should be governed by the rule of law and regulations, and their teachers are encouraged to join the Party, said the statement.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC has launched inspections of centrally-administered universities, including China’s prestigious Peking and Tsinghua universities, in the first half of this year.

The CCDI has found problems such as weakened Party leadership and corruption risks, saying that CPC committees in these universities have not done sufficient work to act as the core in leading their universities.

Discipline inspectors also found that Party committees in some universities did not carry out serious intra-Party political life and their Party building activities have also been weakened.

A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has stressed the importance of publicity work in preparation for the upcoming national congress of the CPC.

Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks Friday at the end of a five-day seminar.

Newly appointed ministers of publicity departments of the Party committees at provincial, district, city and sub-provincial levels attended the seminar.

Liu said that publicity heads should be aware of their great responsibilities and work hard to prevent the spread of erroneous ideas.

He also pledged more support for creative work to guarantee the vitality and vigor of publicity work.

President Xi Jinping said China will strive to provide the world with better products and services in a congratulatory letter to the China Quality Conference, which opened on Friday in Shanghai.

In the letter, Xi said he hoped attendees from different countries would share their insights on international trends and experiences in quality management.

First held in Beijing three years ago, the two-day conference aims to promote quality cooperation.

“Thousands of years ago, Chinese quality goods including silk and porcelain went to the global stage, which facilitated exchanges between civilizations,” Xi said. “China pays high attention to quality and will strive to provide the world with better products and services.”

Quality authorities in China have made great efforts in quality supervision in recent years and have established mechanisms for cooperation and exchanges with more than 100 countries and regions, with 1,366 agreements of cooperation signed, said Zhi Shuping, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China’s top quality watchdog.

In the past five years, Chinese exit-entry inspection and quarantine authorities have approved the importation of 2,186 kinds of quality foods from 178 countries and regions, he said at the conference.

Watchdogs also have continued to battle violations of the law involving quality in the past five years and punished more than 23,000 production enterprises. Authorities have used recalls of defective goods to improve quality on the market. Last year alone more than 11 million cars with quality and safety risks were recalled on the Chinese mainland, Zhi said.

Guo Chongqing, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, who attended the conference, suggested that authorities make use of the latest technological developments to promote quality of products and services in China.

“Internet technologies can be better applied in healthcare services so patients do not have to go to big hospitals and wait in long lines each time a prescription is needed for chronic diseases,” he said.

According to an outline released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council on Tuesday, government at all levels in China is urged to make the “utmost efforts” to improve all products and services in China, so that the overall quality of products and services will be improved to a great extent by 2020.