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Top 10 Largest Chinese Enterprises All State Owned

Lianhe Zaobao reported that, in a recently published list of the 500 largest Chinese enterprises, state-owned enterprises occupied all of the top 10 positions. With 1.39 trillion Yuan ($207 billion dollars) in revenue, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation continued to hold the top position for the sixth year in a row. State owned companies dwarfed their privately owned counterparts. Among the 60 largest companies with over 100 billion Yuan ($15 billion dollar) in revenue, only five were privately-held, while all others were state-owned.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao, September 5, 2010
http://www.zaobao.com/zg/zg100905_001.shtml

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Cai Wu: China’s Soft Power Is Still Weak

China News Net reported that Cai Wu, the Chinese Minister of Culture, recently suggested there has been no fundamental change in China’s weak position in the “Soft Power Competition.” He believes that cultural soft power is becoming an important aspect of international competition. Western culture is aggressively penetrating developing countries. The recent world financial crisis is introducing more thoughts on development models, and China’s soft power position does not live up to China’s international status as a world power. He suggested that the Chinese government should push for a change.

Source: China News Net, August 30, 2010
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2010/08-30/2499702.shtml

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Xinhua: The Compass Navigation Satellite System Is Unique

Sun Jiadong, an Academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, recently gave a speech at the Shanghai Expo. Sun is the Chief Architect and Designer of China’s self-developed GPS system – the Compass Navigation Satellite System (CNSS). Sun emphasized a unique feature that all other GPS systems do not have: CNSS allows ground devices to transmit short text messages to the satellites, thus establishing two-way communication. Sun also mentioned that although the CNSS is being built rapidly, the real world usage, or even preparation for usage, is minimal. Other than some central government branches, the entire domestic market is still asleep. The Chinese market is still dominated by foreign technologies and products. He believed that the general public needs to be educated about the Chinese space industry’s achievements.

Source: China Review News, September 2, 2010
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1014/3/4/0/101434065.html?coluid=45&kindid=0&docid=101434065&mdate=0902093423

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

CRN: New Cold War between China and the U.S. at Sea

China Review News (CRN) published a review of an analysis on the recent frequent naval exercises that the U.S., South Korea, and China have been conducting. The author expressed the belief that the U.S. has an obvious intent to contain the Chinese military within the “first chain of islands.” China has tried to respond to the situation with a series of escalated exercises to demonstrate its capabilities to break the blockade. The analysis cited “the West,” using the name of “A Cold War at Sea.” The U.S. was blamed as the troublemaker, since the U.S. has significantly heightened its participation in military activities around China, especially on the east and south sides. However, at the end of the analysis, the author softened his tone by suggesting that a “serious confrontation” was very unlikely.

Source: China Review News, August 28, 2010
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1014/2/8/0/101428094.html?coluid=148&kindid=0&docid=101428094&mdate=0828005921

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

China Review News: The U.S. Is the Black Hand Stopping Normal Cross-Strait Military Communications

China Review News published a commentary on August 31, 2010, titled "The U.S. Is the Black Hand Stopping Normal Cross-Strait Military Communications." According to the article, the fact that retired Taiwanese high-ranking military officials have frequently visited Mainland China in recent years has attracted much U.S. attention. The United States has expressed its concerns through Taiwan’s representative in the U.S., Yuan Jiansheng, and wanted Taiwan to provide an explanation.

“As we understand it, the largest third hand (interfering with) cross-strait military relations is the United States. … Therefore, calling the U.S. a black hand is not wrong.”

Source: China Review News, August 31, 2010　　
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1014/3/0/4/101430474.html?coluid=111&kindid=0&docid=101430474&mdate=0831000959

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Overseas Chinese Media Executives Trained in Beijing on Tibetan & Xinjiang History and Culture

According to China News Service,the sixth training seminar for overseas media executives started in Beijing on August 28. Forty Chinese-language media executives and representatives from 23 countries attended the two-day training class, which was on Tibetan & Xinjiang history and culture, and then went to Xinjiang for a visit. 

Zhao Yang, deputy director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, said at the class opening ceremony that Chinese media must strive for the right to have a voice internationally. They play a unique role in increasing China’s capacity for external communication. 

Source: China News Service, August 28, 2010
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/hr/2010/08-28/2497639.shtml

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Chinese People Do Not Really Own the Property They Purchase

According to an article published on Southern Metropolis Daily (www.nfdaily.com) on August 31, 2010, “The Chinese people do not really own the property they purchase; the biggest owner is the government.”

“Since the nineties of the last century, the Chinese people have been purchasing their own property. As housing prices have risen, private real estate has become the largest asset for many ordinary families, but the concept of real estate in China is different from the concept in international society. Theoretically, all the land for urban residential properties belongs to the country. Although the law allows a homeowner to enjoy the property (he purchaed) for 70 years, … the biggest property owner is the government. It can take back residential land at any time in the name of ‘public interest’ and let the home owner’s wealth, which accumulated for years, go with the wind.”

The article gave two examples of forced evictions in China.

Source: Southern Metropolis Daily, August 31, 2010
http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/201008/news-gb2312-1154785.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Falun Gong Lawsuit against Jiang Zemin Appears on Baidu

Chinascope has been informed that on Baidu, the heavily censored Internet search engine, users can find extensive information about Falun Gong practitioners’ lawsuits against Jiang Zemin. When searching regarding the Spanish National Court’s indictment of Jiang Zemin and other CCP officials for persecuting Falun Gong, internet surfers used the search terms "the lawsuit against Jiang in Spain" (西班牙诉江); Baidu returned 450,000 results. When searching for “the lawsuit against Jiang in Argentina" (阿根廷诉江), a lawsuit which resulted in an arrest warrant for Jiang Zemin sent through INTERPOL by an Argentine judge, Baidu returned 179,000 results. In an initial scan of the articles, many were found to have quotes directly from Falun Gong practitioners.

With an extremely tightly controlled media, Baidu’s loosening up of information on lawsuits against Jiang is very likely to have complicated political maneuvering behind it.

Source: Reader’s feedback. September 3, 2010

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics