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US-China Relations - 102. page

China Warns GOP May Block Climate Negotiation

Well known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that, soon after Chinese President Xi Jinping reached the agreement with U.S. President Obama on carbon dioxide reduction goals, the U.S. Republican Party immediately took a stand against Obama’s promises. China’s Chief Climate Negotiator Xie Zhenghua expressed his low confidence in the 2015 deal because it will be blocked due to “U.S. domestic politics” just like the Kyoto Protocol was. China used to be described as the troublemaker in climate negotiations. However now, with strong support from the new Chinese leadership, China is highly motivated by the need to solve its own severe pollution problems. The host of the 2015 Paris Negotiation expressed the belief that, this time, China has a much stronger willingness – the joint announcement of Xi and Obama changed things.
Source: Sina, November 26, 2014
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-11-26/114631205409.shtml
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

National Defense Reference: The True Intention of the U.S. in Handling the Islamic State”

National Defense Reference, a magazine under the PLA Daily, published a commentary talking about the U.S.’s intention in handling the "Islamic State." Below is an excerpt from the article: 

“More and more facts prove that, for the ‘Islamic State’s organization to be able to develop to where it is today is inseparable from the United States’ indirect support.” 
“Why has ‘Islamic State,’ an extremist organization, been able to grow so rapidly in recent years? In fact, the rise of the "Islamic State" is mainly due to the following four factors. First, the years of war and unrest in Syria and Iraq, that the United States supported and plotted provided the soil for its religious extremist ideology. Second, the ‘Islamic State’s new generation of leaders in the ‘base’ organization have a higher IQ. Most of them received their education in the United States and Europe. The U.S. and its allies trained the key members. Third, the U.S. and its allies have been supporting Syrian opposition groups all along. Many of the personnel and weapons have flown into the ‘Islamic State’ organization. Fourth, many members from foreign countries joined the organization, including European and U.S. citizens.” 
“In fact, as early as 2003, when the U.S. launched the Iraq war, it already anticipated the rise of terrorist forces more dangerous than the ‘base’ organization in the region. Because the U.S. was too eager to overthrow Saddam, it did not develop effective countermeasures to prevent and suppress the terrorist forces, which allowed the ‘Islamic State’ organization to flourish and grow.” 
“In the current situation, despite the fact that the ‘Islamic State’ poses a huge threat to the United States and other Western countries, the United States will not use all of its forces to deal with the ‘Islamic State’ and slow down its ‘Eastward Strategy.’ Its eyes are still on the Eastern part of the world. There is reason to believe that, regardless of the past, present, or future, the United States will not really want to completely eliminate the ‘Islamic State.’ Its real purpose is to break up the extremist groups through air strikes and let the members of the extremist organizations further flock to Syria and Turkey and to return to Europe, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, which serves its "strategic Eastward" and ‘Asia-Pacific rebalancing.’” 

Source: National Defense Reference, November 15, 2011 
http://reader.chinamil.com.cn/gfck/2014-11/15/content_6224730.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

People’s Daily: New York Times’ Editorial Was Off Base, Inappropriate, and Dishonest

People’s Daily published an article commenting on a recent editorial that the New York Times published on China’s visa restrictions on foreign journalists. People’s Daily stated that the editorial was off base, inappropriate and dishonest. The article countered that foreign journalists are allowed in China including at the recent APEC Summit, the World Economic Forum in September, and the Youth Olympic events in August. It also declared that foreign media must follow the laws in China; otherwise they will receive a warning or have their licenses suspended. The article continued to list a number of incidents in which the New York Times was dishonest in its reporting. The article concluded with a warning that foreign media should learn how to respect the rights of other countries while also obeying the laws there.

Source: People’s Daily, November 17, 2014
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2014/1117/c1002-26035484.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

People’s Daily: What Does China Expect to Get from Xi-Obama Meeting during APEC?

Ahead of the meeting between the Sino-U.S. heads, Chairman Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, during the APEC meeting in Beijing, People’s Daily (overseas edition) published an opinion article commenting on what China would like to see from the meeting. The article was titled, “What Does the World Expect from Xi Jinping and Obama’s Meeting [during APEC]?” 

The article stated that the first Xi and Obama meeting last June in California set the tone for the development of Sino-U.S. relations. One year later, both countries have made new progress in Sino-U.S. cooperation in a number of fields. At the same time, there is no denying that the U.S. has digressed from the direction set in the first meeting. Some remarks that the U.S. made have not had the right tone. The road leading to great power relations between the two countries has hit some bumps. Pragmatic cooperation between the two countries has increased. However, there are danger signs that mutual strategic trust is decreasing instead of increasing. 

The article stressed that during the remainder of Obama’s term as President, Sino-U.S. relations need to adjust to ensure that both sides have better control of their differences and make big efforts to allow the two sides to have more sincere cooperation and less suspicion. 

The article also stressed that the international community looks forward to Sino-U.S. relations continuing to improve and develop. Because China and the United States are countries with huge body masses, not only will cooperation benefit them while confrontation will hurt both countries, but also, regarding other countries, better Sino-U.S. cooperation will be a booster and stabilizer for world peace; otherwise the world will not have peace. 

Source: People’s Daily, November 7, 2014 
http://cpc.people.com.cn/pinglun/n/2014/1105/c78779-25977571.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

The U.S. Again not Satisfied with China’s RMB Exchange Rate

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that the United States government once again expressed to China that it was dissatisfied with the Chinese currency exchange rate, saying the RMB to U.S. Dollar exchange rate was lowered artificially. In a recent meeting in Beijing, the U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin asked the Chinese Finance Minister Lo Jiwei and the Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan to have the market determine the RMB exchange rate. The Chinese government tightly controls the RMB exchange rate. Every morning the Chinese central bank sets the central parity of the RMB against the U.S. dollar. However some analysts suggested that China’s purpose in artificially pushing down the Chinese currency is to raise the bar for speculators, not to use it as a weapon in trade.
Source: Sina, October 22, 2014
http://finance.sina.cn/?sa=t74d13992368v39&pos=108&vt=4
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua: How Many More Dirty Tricks Does the U.S. Have to Manipulate International Public Opinion?

After the former editor of the German "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," Ulf Cote, was interviewed on Russia Today, China’s state media Xinhua published a commentary to further “disclose” how the U.S. controls public opinion using “dirty tricks.” The article quoted Ulf Cote’s statement in the interview that, in the past, the CIA had actually published many articles under his name, although the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the U.S. had actually written them. Their purpose was to guide international public opinion to support the United States.” 

The article commented, “If Snowden had blown the whistle on the ‘prism gate’ scandal involving information gathering and monitoring of the United States, then Ulf Cote had disclosed the ‘black hand’ of the U.S. behind the manipulation of international public opinion.” 
The article further said, “The United States has powerful economic and technological strength, and has established a media ‘empire’ on the basis of such power, extending its reach to every corner of the world. With all this power, the U.S. government has built up strong discourse rights to control the international voice. What’s more, the United States has also developed a detailed strategy for external communication and a complex propaganda system. The government and NGOs work co-operatively, using both public and secret operations, for the purpose of shaping international public opinion in order to serve U.S. strategic interests.” 
 “From the various practices that the United States uses to ‘guide’ international public opinion, we can see that the United States would like to show the world that its foreign policies and actions are politically ‘correct,’ morally ‘noble,’ legally ‘defensible,’ and of the ‘mainstream’ in public opinion. To this end, the United States not only makes full use of various ‘open tricks,’ but also uses a variety of ‘dirty tricks.’ What Ulf Cote has disclosed about how the United States manipulates international opinion is probably only the ‘tip of the iceberg.’” 
Source: Xinhua, October 21, 2014 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2014-10/21/c_127122056.htm
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

People’s Daily: The U.S. Must Adapt to The New Norm in International Relations

People’s Daily recently published an article discussing the position the United States should take in the new world order. The author started by suggesting that the United States does not like to hear people say the U.S. is suffering a decline in power. President Obama has already repeated numerous times that the United States is the only super power and will continue to lead the world for another century. However, the article expressed the belief that U.S. power, at least “relatively,” has declined. Although it has largely maintained the global allied structure, the U.S. has shown weaknesses when defending its power on too many fronts across the world. President Obama’s strategies have not worked out domestically in the partisan fights. They have not worked out in the Asia-Pacific with regard to “rebalancing.” They have not worked out in Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. With China, the U.S. did not handle things well either, such as with the classic “Taiwan issue.” The author concluded that the world order has changed in the new century and the U.S. needs to learn to be an “equal player” that must adapt to “The New Norm.”
Source: People’s Daily, October 18, 2014
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2014/1018/c1002-25859142.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua: Obama Is in Trouble, but the China Card Can Save Him

Xinhua published an article stating that, in the upcoming mid-term election in the U.S., Obama is in trouble. The article suggested that playing the China card can help him get out of trouble. It reported that recent polls, conducted one month before the mid-term election, showed that Obama’s public support was 43 percent, far below the 75-year average of 53 percent. "According to a New York Times report, Obama’s low public support makes him a ‘negative asset’ for the Democrats. Many Democratic candidates in swing states have clearly rejected his help in their campaigns, including Iowa, where Obama started his political life."

The article predicted that Republicans will continue to hold the majority of the House but Democrats may lose the Senate. If that happens, "President Obama will become a complete ‘lame duck.’" Then Obama will not be able to achieve much in the next two years, which is likely to burst the Democrats’ dream of keeping the White House in 2016.

Obama’s domestic challenges include the fact that the living standard for the average American has gone down and he has only done a lot of talking about the immigration reform issue. In international affairs, such as the Ukraine crisis, the wars in the Islamic world, and the outbreak of Ebola, Obama’s reaction has been "slow, weak, and ineffective." "His actions have also given the international community a reason to talk about the ‘Decline of the U.S.’"

The article claimed that Sino-U.S. relations are something that Obama can use to improve his international performance.

Source: Xinhua, October 14, 2014
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2014-10/14/c_1112809159.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations