An unverified source recently disclosed that the CCP leadership has decided to adopt “three soft and three hardline policies” amid the contention between the US and China. “Three soft” means China needs to show a soft stance towards the U.S. and the west and take a soft approach on China’s own actions. “Three hardline policies” refers to displaying a hard grip domestically, continuing a hard propaganda campaign and holding a hard position against Hong Kong.
Recent signals from senior CCP officials and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appear to indicate that the CCP wants to take a soft stance against the U.S. On Wednesday August 12, in an interview with Chinese media, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said that the next few months will be critical for Sino-US relations and that the U.S. and China need to work with each other no matter how difficult and complicated the issues are. He said he wants China to “stay focused without being swayed by any extreme forces, to keep to the right direction of the bilateral relationship and to prevent it from spiraling out of control or getting derailed.” He said he is ready to have a dialog with the U.S. Earlier this month, Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of Foreign Affairs, published an article on Xinhua calling for a dialog between the U.S. and China and the expansion of a mutually beneficial cooperation in a number of fields. Hua Chunying, Spokesperson for China, stated the following on her twitter account on August 8, “Respect history, look to the future, and firmly safeguard and stabilize China-US relations.” As to the news related to U.S. sanctions of 11 Hong Kong officials, CCTV aired the news which lasted about 90 seconds. The People’s Daily used a corner space of a page to “strongly condemn” the sanctions that the U.S. imposed. This is in sharp contrast to CCTV ‘s airing 12 consecutive segments of counter-attacks after the U.S. Senate passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” in November of last year.
A Chinese official media reporter broke the news to Radio Free Asia that the Chinese media have received instructions to stop posting the attacks on the U.S. that have been going on for several months and to prohibit verbal abuse and attacks on the U.S., especially the use of rumors to attack the U.S., so as not to trigger a greater backlash. If they violate the order, the Publicity Department could strip them of their salary and bonus pay.
Source: Secret China, August 14, 2020
https://www.secretchina.com/news/b5/2020/08/14/942894.html