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Briefings - 781. page

Beijing City to Implement Real Name Registration for Mobile Phone Users

Xinhua reported that the Beijing municipal government is considering a new policy measure requiring real name registration for cell phone users. Once the provision is introduced, mobile phone users will be required to provide real and effective identity information when ordering a new service or transferring or changing an existing service.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber stamp legislature, recently approved an Internet regulation that states that providers of the Internet and land line telephone and mobile phone services should demand that users provide their real identity. The Beijing city government’s move is in accordance with the NPC regulation.

The requirement for real name registration for cell phone users is not new. In 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice requiring real name registration for phone users. However, it was not fully implemented due to the lack of support from relevant laws and regulations. The NPC’s new regulation, Xinhua believes, will give local governments and telecomm companies a strong push to effectively implement mobile phone users real name registration.
 
Source: Xinhua, December 30, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2012-12/30/c_114207168.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Military Official Calls for a Powerful Chinese Air Force to Counter the U.S. and Japan at Sea

Senior Colonel Dai Xu, Director of the Marine Security and Cooperation Research Institute and a Professor a the National Defense University of the PLA China, recently published a commentary in Global Times (a division of People’s Daily). Dai recommended that China should develop a powerful air force to deal with the crisis in the open sea. He pointed out that "Japan has continuously dispatched F-15 fighters to intercept Chinese maritime surveillance aircraft and has deployed anti-submarine aircraft to harass China’s ocean surveillance ships.” “For Japan to send fighter jets is a qualitative change in diplomatic moves. … The Chinese Air Force has no choice but to come forward with equivalent or even greater efforts. The Chinese Air Force should develop a plan as soon as possible, have targeted training and deployment, make sure China is able to take immediate action when needed, and be able to win the war when in the fight.”

 “In the numerous exercises the United States and Japan have held, they not only directly targeted the Diaoyu Islands or the South China Sea waters, but also aimed at attacking China’s economically developed coastal regions. This requires that the Chinese Air Force cannot just be satisfied with having influence within its territorial waters and airspace; it must also have an awareness of the crisis and the ability to cope with it, to suppress the opponent’s intentions in a war on the high seas, and to suppress its adventures; it must even be able to intercept the enemy and destroy the enemy when going to war.” 
Source: Huanqiu, December 29, 2012 
http://mil.huanqiu.com/observation/2012-12/3430991.html
Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xinhua: Hong Kong Protest Called for Leung Chun Ying to Step Down

The state media Xinhua reported through its news wire that a protest was held in Hong Kong calling for the resignation of Leung Chun Ying. Leung, the pro-China Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, assumed office on July 1, 2012, with the endorsement of the Chinese Communist leaders. The Xinhua article said, “The protesters demanded that Leung Chun Ying step down, that all of the people receive full implementation of their retirement protection, and that freedom of speech be safeguarded.” A search of Xinhuanet.com did not return the report. No Xinhua report was available in English.

[Editor’s note: A Washington Post article stated, "Tens of thousands of people marched in Hong Kong to call for the city’s Beijing-backed leader to step down over allegations he was untruthful about illegal renovations at his mansion and to press for full democracy."]           

Sources:
Sina.com, January 2, 2013
http://news.sina.com.hk/news/20130102/-1-2861954/1.html
Epoch Times, January 2, 2013
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/13/1/3/n3767293.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Chinese Scholar Suggests a Strong Geopolitical Response to the U.S. Strategic Shift to Asia

On December 26, 2012, People’s Daily Overseas Edition published an article by a Chinese scholar from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) on why China must give a strong geopolitical response to the U.S. strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region. The following is a quote from the article.

“The shift of the U.S. strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region means that the United State has targeted China as the main objective of its current global strategy. This pushes China into a position where it has nowhere to retreat or hide; it can  only give tit for tat. It is worth being vigilant over the fact that the United States will not just contain China, that is, prevent the expansion of China’s influence. From the historical experience of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, there must also be murders accompanying the containment. In Africa, the United States excludes China’s economic interests and political influence; in the Middle East, it grips China’s energy throat; and in the countries neighboring China, it seeks and supports forces to contain China. It even directly ruins the key to China’s security and its development in East Asia. Together with its strategies to internally penetrate, evolve, and divide China, the U.S. does not simply contain China for the purpose of stopping our expansion, but chokes China for the purpose of manipulation and even suffocation.”

Source: People’s Daily Overseas Edition, December 26, 2012
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2012-12/26/content_1165465.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua Foresees a Big Leap in China’s Military Power over the Next 10 Years

On December 28, 2012, Xinhua published an article predicting a big leap in China’s military power over the next 10 years. By 2020, China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, as one of the world’s four major satellite navigation systems, will completely cover the world. Large quantities of modernized conventional weapons such as aircraft carriers, fighters, and missiles will be made in China. China’s new anti-ship missiles can accurately hit U.S. aircraft carriers that are thousands of kilometers away. China’s Second Artillery Corps Electronic Warfare troops have a powerful self-protection ability; they can hide from the U.S. and Japan’s radio monitoring systems through electronic deception.

Source: Xinhua, December 28, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2012-12/28/c_124159555.htm

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

China Develops Large Military Transport Aircraft

On December 27, 2012, China’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed  that China is developing a large military transport aircraft to improve its military’s air transportation. Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said, "Research and development are proceeding as planned."

Source: Huanqiu, December 27, 2012
http://mil.huanqiu.com/observation/2012-12/3425508.html

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

People’s Daily: China Can and Must Withstand the Pressure

On December 26, 2012, the People’s Daily (Overseas Edition) published an article authored by a researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a government think tank. The author observed that, since the U.S. global strategic adjustment, or its return to the Asia-Pacific, historical and significant changes have taken place in Sino-US strategic relations and in China’s own security environment. "These changes are by no means a single U.S. President’s personal preference or a so-called strategic misjudgment between two sides; rather, they stem from an inevitable strategic reason, which is the new phase of the U.S. global strategy."

The article pointed out that from a geopolitical perspective, since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. global strategy has gone through two major historical stages. "In the 10 years of the 1990s, the strategic focus was to absorb Eastern Europe through the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU; in the first 10 years of the new century, the focus was to expand in the Middle East and Central Asia by launching two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, instigating color revolutions in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, and implementing a plan for the democratization of the Greater Middle East region. The overall objective of the U.S. was to take full control of the Eurasian continent and pave the way for finally overpowering China and Russia."

"The U.S.’s shifting strategic focus from Central Asia and the Middle East to East Asia is the implementation of strategic steps that are in complete accord with its established plan. It was just the momentum of China’s rise that further strengthened the necessity and urgency of the move."

"Out of its hegemonic geopolitical needs, the U.S. will never allow a unified geopolitical bloc that it cannot control to appear on the other side of the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. After World War II and the Cold War, the U.S. succeeded in achieving this on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Now it is trying to achieve the same goal through a new Cold War on the other side of the Pacific Ocean."

"The historical experience of the Cold War indicates that this containment must be accompanied by murder. The U.S. has been crowding out China’s economic interests and political influence in Africa, holding a tight grip on China’s energy throat in the Middle East, finding and supporting the forces of containment around China, and interfering with issues vital to China’s security and development in East Asia, as well as penetrating and dividing China from within. This is more than a mere containment to stop expansion; it is a stranglehold for the purpose of manipulation and even suffocation."

The author pointed out that there is a fundamental difference between the transpacific and transatlantic relationships, as it is impossible for China to become an ally of the U.S. "There are only two ways out for China: either to independently win a place in the future multi-polar world’s political landscape by withstanding the external pressure, or to follow the steps of the former Soviet Union and experience the ravages."

Source: People’s Daily, December 26, 2012
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2012-12/26/content_1165465.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Young Man Jailed for Calling on Hu Jintao to Disclose Assets

Earlier this year, a young man, Yang Chong, held a placard in front of the Guangzhou Municipal Government office, calling on Chinese leader Hu Jintao to publicly disclose his personal assets. The authorities reportedly sentenced him to a year in prison on charges of "illegal logging," because of a previous case.

During the gathering at the end of March in 2012, Yang and more than 10 other young people called on Hu Jintao to initiate political reform.

Overseas Chinese media reported that the Guangzhou authorities put the young people in detention on charges of “illegal gathering.” They suddenly disappeared overnight. Some were secretly escorted back to their place of origin; some were sentenced to a labor camp; some simply went missing.

Hong Kong based Apple Daily reported on December 29, 2012, that Yang’s family was informed that the Jiangxi Hukou County Court had sentenced him to one year for “illegal logging.” His term began on April 28, 2012. Yang had been involved in a deforestation case three years ago. The authorities reopened the case, even though it had already been settled. Yang has entered his second appeal. Yang’s lawyer said that Yang Chong firmly claimed he was innocent.

Source: VOA Chinese, December 28, 2012
http://www.voachinese.com/content/hu-jintao-20121228/1574269.html

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics