Geo-Strategic Trend - 222. page

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

Xinhua republished an article from Guangzhou Daily about how, in the U.S.-Iran conflict, China should be prepared. The article stated, “From the perspective of oil supply, if China cooperates with the United States to sanction Iran, it will undoubtedly bring us a lot of trouble. Considering the direction in which the U.S.-Iran conflict is developing, we need to prepare for the worst case scenario, that the U.S. starts a war against Iran. That way we can make arrangements accordingly in advance to assure our domestic energy supply.”

The article also suggested, “At the same time, (in making decisions) we should not just consider the issue of Iran in the context of oil. We should also consider the geopolitical situation. Even if the U.S. were to use its armed forces to strike Iran, the war would eventually end. Many countries, including China, would still need to import oil from Iran.”

Source, Xinhua, January 25, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2012-01/25/c_122618892.htm

On January 12, 2012, People’s Daily published an article titled “It Is Impossible for China to Stop Buying Oil from Iran.” The article lists four reasons not to participate in the U.S. initiated economic sanctions against Iran: 1) it is the U.S. decision to step up the economic sanctions against Iran, not a UN Security Council resolution; 2)  tightening economic sanctions against Iran will only fuel tensions in the Gulf region; 3) participating in the economic sanctions against Iran will seriously damage China’s economic, strategic and other interests; 4) in the past, many U.S. initiated economic sanctions caused serious humanitarian disasters.

“Getting involved in sanctions against Iran would greatly undermine China’s economic, strategic, and other interests. With regard to economic interests, Iran is an important source of Chinese oil imports and an important market for Chinese consumer goods, capital, equipment exports, and overseas project contracts. Trade between the two countries reached US$29.4 billion in 2010 and jumped to US$41 billion in the first 11 months of 2011, representing a 55.8 percent increase.”

Source: People’s Daily, January 12, 2012
http://energy.people.com.cn/GB/16863152.html