US-China Relations - 131. page

Jia Xiudong, a distinguished Research Fellow from the China Institute of International Studies, wrote an article for China’s state-run media, People’s Daily. It was a commentary article that sent a message to the U.S. while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting China. 

The International Herald Leader, a publication under the state’s Xinhua News Agency, published an article on August 17, 2012, pointing to the expansion of U.S. military bases in the Asia Pacific region. The article said, “Over the past decade, the Pentagon has quietly transformed its overseas military bases. Compared to its military fortresses during the Cold War era, the new generation of small-scale bases and garrisons is limited in number, but like water lilies quietly surfacing in the pond, frogs can use them as a springboard to jump for prey in the distance. During its strategic shift to Asia, the Obama administration has been trying to multiply the Pentagon’s ‘water lilies’ throughout the whole region.”

The article mentioned a few hot spots where the “water lilies” will be grown or strengthened: Thailand’s U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Vietnam’s Cam Rahn Bay, the Philippines’s Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, Tinian Island in the Northern Mariana Islands, South Korea’s Jeju Island, and Australia’s Cocos Islands and the port of Darwin, as well as small-size military bases in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.

The article concluded that the goal of establishing these mushrooming military bases around Asia and the Pacific is to isolate and contain China.

Source: International Herald Leader, August 17, 2012
http://ihl.cankaoxiaoxi.com/2012/0817/79780.shtml

The state media, the International Herald Leader, published a commentary in response to a statement that the U.S. State Department issued on August 3, 2012, regarding the South China Sea. The commentary accused the U.S. of attempting to sow discord in the region. “We are clear that the U.S. statement on the South China Sea sends out two messages: The first is to tell the Philippines and Vietnam that the U.S. is their back up and that they should not be afraid of confronting China; the second is to tell the ASEAN countries that, on the South China Sea issue, the U.S. has publicly come forward to speak out for them and that these countries should not hesitate; they should join together to face China without any fears or concerns about China."

The commentary further stated that the U.S. will very likely issue threats specific to those companies that may be interested in submitting bids to the state’s China National Petroleum Corporation for exploration in the South China Sea.

Source: International Herald Leader, August 17, 2012
http://ihl.cankaoxiaoxi.com/2012/0816/79199.shtml

Xinhua published a commentary following the public statement that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made on the balcony of Ecuadorean Embassy in London on August 19, 2012. The article started with Assange’s statement that "he did not commit any crime; his suffering from persecution was due solely to his publicizing U.S. government documents on the Internet."

The article commented, “Why do the British police refuse to let go of this political asylum seeker who leaked secret (government documents) on the Internet? Digging deeper, there is actually a mystery here. Assange did not mention the United Kingdom, nor did he mention Sweden in his speech. Instead, he chose to talk at great length about the United States.”

“It appears Assange is clear-minded. He knows it is the enormous pressure from the United States that makes the United Kingdom and Sweden go after him so tenaciously.”

“It seems that (the application of) the so-called human rights and the rule of law varies from ‘person to person’ in countries such as the U.S. and Britain. The so-called ‘freedom of speech’ is not applicable to Assange.”

The article concluded that “Assange’s tragedy is that he has revealed U.S. secrets and exposed the ugly side of the United States. The mighty, powerful United States has always been tyrannous, so how can it swallow such a humiliation? The U.S. government wants to tell the world: Whoever dares to go against the United States, will be punished, even if he runs to the farthest corner of the earth. The United States is determined to declare war against those who dare to uncover the shady façade of the United States, to silence them and ‘disappear’ them. This probably is the root cause for Assange now being trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy.”

Source: Xinhua, August 20, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2012-08/20/c_112785505.htm

Huanqiu published a commentary on the U.S. policy to contain China. It stated that this policy has motivated China’s neighboring countries, because of their own conflicts with China, to participate in the campaign to contain China. This is the geopolitical security challenge that China faces now. According to the commentary, the containment policy is a strategy of intimidation against China. It will harm both the United States and China and may lead to internal rifts within the camp that the United States leads. The containment strategy will exhaust the U.S. allies. China should use economic means to break the weak links among them and tire them out more quickly so that the allies will eventually abandon the United States. The containment strategy also increases the burden China faces when it has border disputes, trade disputes, and litigation. This, in turn, encourages political dissidents to create chaos and incites extremist forces, especially the ethnic separatists who make trouble by attacking China for its human rights abuses. All of this is done for the goal of derailing China’s development. “We should clearly recognize the essence of the problem so that, strategically, we remain stable; tactically, we are always able to handle the problem from the perspective of national security; and we finally hit the nail on the head.”

Source: Huanqiu, August 16, 2012
http://ihl.cankaoxiaoxi.com/2012/0814/78050.shtml

Major General Yin Zhuo, Director of the Experts Committee on Naval Information, made a guest appearance at the Powerful Nation Forum sponsored by People’s Daily. He exchanged ideas with Chinese Internet users about the plan that Japan and the United States have for their joint defense and how the plan relates to China’s national security. In talking about the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that Japan and the U.S. use to monitor China’s marine activities, Yin said that the United States and Japan’s reconnaissance activities are a big threat to China during peacetime, but, when they come close to China during wartime, they will be vulnerable.

Source: People’s Daily, August 8, 2012
http://military.people.com.cn/n/2012/0808/c1011-18698296.html