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Briefings - 1070. page

Xi Jinping Speaks at Russia’s Chinese Year

While visiting Russia on March 23, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping joined Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for the opening ceremony of Russia’s “Chinese Year.” 

“The current Sino-Russia strategic partnership has become a mature, stable, and healthy bilateral relationship. The recent year’s humanitarian and cultural exchanges have played big roles in facilitating the strategic cooperation.” said Xi, who is also a member of Politburo Standing Committee. The opening ceremony marks the beginning of Russia’s “Chinese Year,”  while 2009 was China’s “Russian Year,” when over 260 cultural events were held. 
During the visit, Xi also stopped by the Confucius Institute at the Russian State University for the Humanities.
Source: China News Service, March 24, 2010
 http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2010/03-24/2186458.shtml
Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Hu Jintao Ordered Military to Fight Drought

On March 24, the PLA’s General Staff Department and General Political Department issued a joint directive, requiring the army and armed police force to “resolutely implement the important instructions from President Hu Jintao to spare no effort to support local governments in winning the tough battle over drought relief.” 

One day before, Hu Jintao, President of China and also Chair of Central Military Commission, instructed, “The local garrisons must think what people think, help people meet their needs, and solve people’s difficulties. (They should) closely cooperate with the local party committees and governments to actively join the fight against drought in order to make greater contributions to winning the tough battle.” 
Source: Guangming Daily, March 25, 2010
http://www.gmw.cn/content/2010-03/25/content_1078851.htm
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Ministry of Public Security’s Great Intelligence System

At a recent training session for chiefs of nationwide Public Security Bureaus, the Deputy Minister of Public Security, Zhang Xinfeng, called for a “deep understanding of the significance of the ‘great intelligence’ system for facilitating the reform and innovation of public security work.” He instructed to “speed up developing a ‘great intelligence’ system, and comprehensively improving the capabilities to defend national security and social stability.” 

Zhang pointed out that “a variety of information and communication infrastructures have been built. By storing rich information on the Internet, the police authorities have adopted information technologies in most key areas.”The “great intelligence” system, part of the “Golden Shield Project,” is an integrated nationwide intelligence sharing platform for all public security workers. 
Source: www.gov.cn, March 25, 2010
http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2010-03/25/content_1564794.htm
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Xinhua Editorial: Yuan Appreciation Will Not Help

Xinhua published an editorial on international affairs addressing yuan appreciation. It stated that trade deficits that some countries have with China are caused by their domestic structural and policy factors, not the exchange rate with China. The editorial questioned the magnitude of the reported trade deficits, suggesting the increase in Chinese exports may be attributed to the foreign companies in China exporting back to their own home countries.

“From whatever angle, to pressure a substantial appreciation of the yuan within a short time is unwarranted, unfounded and even, it is more useless. Some Western politicians have tirelessly speculated a ‘yuan appreciation’ theory. Its underlying motive is questionable. The financial crisis has brought people to see that the current world economic imbalance is mainly attributed to excess consumption in some developed countries, and to the economic contraction. To pressure for yuan appreciation does not help resolve these issues. In fact, it is developed countries that should make positive policy adjustments to reform their economic structure in order to fulfill their international responsibilities.”

Source: Xinhua, March 18, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2010-03/18/content_13197957.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China and US: Friend or Foe?

China and the U.S. are more foes than friends, says Yan Xuetong, a Chinese international relations scholar. In an interview with the State’s International Herald Leader, Yan stated that while the two do share some economic interests, they have much greater conflicting strategic interests in term of security. While the U.S. continues to support the Dalai Lama, Taiwan independence and East Turkistan independence, China will not allow these groups to succeed. Thus, on the political front, conflicts dominate the Sino-US relationship with few common interests. He expressed that cooperation does not mean China and the U.S. are friends and that the two will continue to pretend to be friends during the Obama administration.

Yan received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992.

Source: Xinhua, March 22, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010-03/22/content_13221096.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Party Building: Public Security Officials Under Intensive Training

March 20 saw the opening of boot camp training for 472 regional and municipal public security directors at the People’s Public Security University in Beijing. The Minister of Public Security taught the first lecture. The 10 day training will address social stability, the rule of law, and corruption, among other topics. The training was touted as the first since the Communist Party came to power as an important endeavor to safeguard national security and social stability. In 2009, the Ministry of Public Security held similar training for county public security directors to implement a new directive from the Communist leaders to improve party building.

Source: Xinhua, March 22, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2010-03/22/content_13220070.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Global Times: Currency Exchange Rate Fight Is an Informational War

The Global Times published an article by a professor from the National Defense University titled, “Currency Exchange Rate Fight Is an Informational War.” The author argued that the U.S. pressure on China to appreciate the Renminbi is an information war with China in a broader sense. U.S. war tactics include information control and system integration. Its goal is to devalue the US dollar so as to pay less to China. The U.S. has set and controlled the tone of the information. It also tries to enlist allies to jointly fight China. China needs to improve its informational war capability by disclosing more true information on the Renminbi exchange rate and increasing China’s “speaking power” with international society.

The author also pointed out that every 1% appreciation of the Renminbi eats 1% of the profit for Chinese companies. Since Chinese export factories live on the average on a 3-5% profit margin, the currency exchange rate battle is critical to China’s economy.

Source: Global Times, March 23, 2010
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/roll/2010-03/753215.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China Facing Serious Land Supply Shortage

Beginning on March 5, the Ministry of Land and Resources sent 30 research groups, led by nearly 100 bureau-level senior officials, to 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities to research land usage by local governments. Their reports showed that the local governments have a strong desire to take farm land for urbanization. There is a great land supply shortage. For example, Anhui Province has a need for 83,000 acres of land for construction, but its land usage quota from the central government was only half of that amount. It’s a common problem among other provinces. There are also tough issues in land management, mineral resource integration, and farmland management system reform.

Source: China News Service, March 23, 2010
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/estate/estate-tdxw/news/2010/03-23/2185501.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources