Geo-Strategic Trend - 178. page

On January 19, 2016, Ettoday, a media in Taiwan, published an article on Tsai Ing-wen’s possible TPP Strategy. Ms. Tsai is the new president-elect of the Republic of China (Taiwan). While China and Taiwan’s cross-strait trade negotiations are all temporarily on hold before Tsai takes office, some people are worried that Tsai’s government may hinder Taiwan’s economic integration with other regions.

However, one official from the National Development Council in Taiwan released the information that the United States might help Taiwan to “by-pass” China by supporting Taiwan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) so as to counterbalance China. The TPP is a US-led trade agreement that includes twelve Pacific Rim countries. The treaty was signed on October 5, 2015, after 7 years of negotiations in which China was absent. A Taiwanese official who did not give out his name explained, “For Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan will go to the world without going through China.” 

Source: Ettoday, January 19, 2016
http://www.ettoday.net/news/20160119/633874.htm  
http://travel.ettoday.net/article/633874.htm
http://一頁.com/detail/1MeOchYM

Xi Jinping published a signed article titled, "Work Together for a Bright Future for China-Iran Relations." It appeared in the Iranian newspaper Iran on January 21, 2016, during his state visit to the country.

In his article, Xi said, "Economically, our bilateral trade jumped from tens of millions of U.S. dollars in the 1970s to 51.8 billion dollars in 2014. China has been Iran’s largest trading partner for six years in a row."

"I think, the cooperation between China and Iran under the framework of the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative can focus on the following areas:

Xinhua recently published an article in which it made an express commentary on North Korea’s test of the hydrogen bomb, stating that Beijing authorities strongly oppose the North Korean test. The article commented, “The North Korean bomb test runs counter to the goal of denuclearization.”   

On December 18, 2015, Caixin (http://www.caixin.com/), a Mainland China media that is closely related to Xi Jinping’s leadership camp, published a commentary on the cancellation of a North Korean’s music performance in Beijing. This original article was removed from the online site, though the title of the article can still be found on Google.com (朝鲜演出事件与中朝关系_观点频道_财新网).  However, before the removal of the article, some overseas Chinese media had soon reprinted it and added their comments.

On December 18, 2015, creaders.net published an article titled, “Xi’s Camp hinted that the North Korea music troupe incident was a planned scheme.” Caixin’s article, according to creaders.net, implied that the cancellation of the North Korea concert was due to North Korea’s announcement of having developed a hydrogen bomb on the same day when the music troupe arrived in Beijing. This must be the scheme planned by the fraction of Jiang Zemin, who was the former top leader of China. Jiang’s faction attempted to tie up Xi Jinping’s authorities with the North Korean dictatorship.

Jiang’s faction is very close to North Korea’s Kim’s family. Inviting the North Korean troupe to China and announcing having H-bomb in the same period of time could be a scheme plotted by Liu Yunshan, who is Jiang’s follower. On October of 2015, Liu Yunshan, Head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department and a member of the Standing Committee of the CCP, attended North Korea’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Kim’s ruling party. Having Xi Jinping’s authorities and North Korea tied up would benefit North Korea on the one hand and attack Xi Jinping on the other hand. Liu Yunshan might have manipulated the Mainland Chinese media to promote the North Korean concert heavily when the troupe arrived.

Source: Creaders.net, December 18, 2015
http://news.creaders.net/china/2015/12/18/1619338.html