Geo-Strategic Trend - 221. page

A Xinhua article reported on the recent visit of Chinese Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhai Jun  to Syria and on China’s position on the Syria issue.

The article declared that China is a responsible peace mediator in Syria. China is not like the Western countries, which “support one side while attacking the other side.” Zhai visited both the current top government officials of Syria, including the president and the foreign minister, and the leaders of opposing factions.

As for what China will do if the UN votes again on a resolution on the Syria issue, Qu Xin, the Director of the China Institute of International Studies, said, “As a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, China needs to take a clear stand on the Syria issue. In the next step, China will continue to promote a dialogue among the differing factions in Syria. ‘The UN cannot become a voting machine for launching another war.’ China opposes using exterior armed forces to interfere with the ‘change of power’ in a country.”
 
Source: Xinhua, February 24, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2012-02/24/c_131427092.htm

According to a Xinhua article published on February 21, 2012, state owned China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), along with Anglo-Irish Tullow Oil, and France’s Total, will invest in an oil refinery in the Lake Albert rift basin in western Uganda. The projected cost is $1.5 billion. The report said that the three companies investing in the refinery will have a one-third interest in each of the basin’s three blocks. Tullow said Tuesday that it had finalized a long-delayed $2.9 billion sale of two-thirds of its Uganda oil licenses to Total and CNOOC. The group will now focus on a $10 billion plan to start pumping oil from huge reserves discovered on the shores of Lake Albert. Early production is scheduled to start in 2013 before ramping up to a major production phase in 2016.

Source: Xinhua, February 21, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2012-02/21/c_122734986.htm

On February 6, 2012, Huanqiu (the Chinese edition of Global Times) published an article about China’s UN Veto on Syria titled, “China Should Vote Whatever Is on Our Mind.” According to the article, China has acted “tough” in the last two years because China, as a rising nation, has a sense of crisis. U.S. Senator John McCain recently said in Munich (on February 4, 2012, at the 48th Munich Security Conference, to Zhang Zhijun, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs) that the Arab Spring will spread to China. China is now worried that the U.S. may adopt “Overthrowing the Chinese Regime” as America’s No. 1 goal and fundamental diplomatic policy. In the UN Council, as all parties were forcing China to speak out, and China did have something to say, China just voted according to what was on our mind. If China did not speak out what was on our mind, there might be more trouble.

Source: Huanqiu, February 6, 2012
http://blog.huanqiu.com/blog-89545-2385705.html

People’s Daily recently reported that the 138th Confucius Institute started classes on January 24 in Ottawa, Canada. The report indicated that the purpose of opening this new Confucius Institute was decided on as a reaction to filling students’ needs to face the challenges of globalization and to be more prepared for the future job market. In the opening ceremony, the mayor of Ottawa suggested that the number of Chinese tourists already surpassed those from Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. China is now Canada’s second largest trading partner after the United States. The trade volume is expected to double within the next four years. In addition to teaching the Chinese language, this new Confucius Institute also offers business consulting and training services to government agencies, private enterprises, and chambers of commerce.

Source: People’s Daily, January 30, 2012
http://world.people.com.cn/BIG5/16949815.html

The 2012 China-EU Year of Intercultural Dialogue opened recently in Brussels. Cai Wu, China’s Minister of Culture, spoke at the opening. “China and Europe both influence international affairs. Although there are differences in their political systems and cultures, dialogues and communication between different civilizations are conducive to removing misunderstanding and promoting convergence. China has held the China Culture Year in France, Italy, and other countries in the past."  Cai stated that for 2012 China planned to hold the China Culture Year in Germany and the China-EU Year of Intercultural Dialogue in Brussels. 

Source: Xinhua, February 2, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2012-02/02/c_122643361.htm

An opinion article published in People’s Daily asks that European leaders consider offering China what China needs in exchange for economic help from China. The article states, "Immediately after the Chinese New Year, European leaders started visiting China one after the other. The first was German Chancellor Merkel, then Herman Van Rompuy, President of the Council of the European Union. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission will follow. The speculation is that the suitcases they bring will contain long lists of requests for China’s help."  

The article suggests that "European leaders coming to China should not simply ask for China’s help; they should also think more about what China needs, what Europe can offer China, and what can they do for the long-term stability and development of Sino-European relations. As compared to Europe’s request for ‘economic’ help from China, China hopes to gain political respect from Europe. Even now, Europe still maintains an arms embargo on China and is not willing to admit China’s position as a market economy. On the one hand, the E.U. welcomes China to increase its investments in Europe. On the other hand, it also follows the media to politicize China’s investments. The ‘China economic threat’ theory is quite popular within the E.U. There are still many obstacles keeping Chinese enterprises from investing in Europe."
 
In closing, the author asks, "After all, what image does the E.U. want to have among the Chinese people? We hope European leaders will think again and give a wise answer with far-reaching impact."

Source: People’s Daily, February, 2, 2012
http://world.people.com.cn/GB/14549/16999697.html

Li Xiguang, a professor and director of the Tsinghua University International Center for Communication (TICC), published an article in the Chinese Communist Party’s Qiushi journal, warning of “long term and serious challenges” due to public opinion from the West creating an unfavorable environment for China.

Li quotes reports from the U.S. based Rand Corporation that laid out the U.S. strategies on cyberwars and global information infiltration. Li’s article said, “We must see that, after China became the world’s second largest economy with its comprehensive national strength continuously growing, the United States and other Western countries found out that when the growth of their hard power was insufficient, they needed to implement their soft power to make up for the relative weakness of their national power.” “They (western media) often hold a strange fear of a heterogeneous and powerful China. They often jeer at certain unavoidable incidents in China’s development and fault them as being the unavoidable consequences of China’s social system. Western media, with their deep-rooted ideological bias, plus their ‘loud voice’ in international communication, has seriously damaged China’s international image and harms China’s peaceful development.”

Source: Qiushi, February 1, 2012
http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2012/201203/201201/t20120129_135976.htm

China Review News published a special commentary stating that China should not join the United States in sanctioning Iran unless Iran openly opposes the resolution of the Security Council of the United Nation. The poor economy in the United States has made its Secretary of the Treasury (Timothy F. Geithner, who recently visited China) seek China’s support for an increase in sanctions against Iran. If that is the case, “The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury will leave China empty handed. Sanctions are a double-edged sword. For decades the sanctions that Western countries have taken against Iran have not caused the collapse of the Iranian economy. In fact the Western countries have lost a lot of business interests. The Chinese government will absolutely not agree to join the camp that is taking sanctions against Iran unless Iran openly opposes the resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council and moves further and further away on the issue of nuclear weaponry."

Source: China Review News, January 25, 2012
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1019/7/5/4/101975417.html?coluid=136&kindid=4710&docid=101975417&mdate=0125000148