US-China Relations - 133. page

According to a report by the Central News Agency (CNA) in Taiwan, the photos that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing posted showing Chen Guangcheng leaving the U.S. Embassy were removed shortly after they were posted on the Embassy’s official sina weibo (sina microblog), a popular Chinese blog website similar to twitter and facebook.

The U.S. Embassy released two photos on its official sina weibo at 11:30 pm Beijing time on May 2. One showed Chen leaving the Embassy with Ambassador Locke and State Department Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell. The other showed Chen in a wheelchair entering a Beijing Hospital with Ambassador Locke and State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh. Within six minutes of the posting, sina weibo removed the two photos. The reason given on sina weibo was, “This photo is not appropriate for public display.”

The CNA report said that, on the U.S. State Department website, there are several photos that show Chen and his family at a Beijing hospital, “but one cannot view these photos from inside China.”

Source: Central News Agency, May 3, 2012
http://www.cna.com.tw/News/FirstNews/201205030059.aspx

On May 2, 2012, Xinhua issued a brief report saying that Chen Guangcheng “entered the U.S. Embassy in China in late April. He left the U.S. Embassy of his own volition after staying there for 6 days.” No other information was mentioned regarding how Chen’s escaped last week from his village home in Linyi in Shandong Province. Chen had been under house arrest since his release from prison in September 2010, after serving his full sentence of four years and three months. The authorities said he "damaged property and organized a mob to disturb traffic." Since 2005 Chen has been receiving increased international attention because of what he actually did. Chen organized a class-action lawsuit against Chinese authorities in Shandong for excessive enforcement of China’s one-child policy (including forced abortions and sterilizations).

In a separate report on May 2, 2012, Xinhua quoted Liu Weimin, China’s foreign affairs spokesperson, who told the U.S. that China demanded an apology. “I would like to emphasize that the U.S. Embassy in China has the obligation to comply with international law and Chinese law and cannot engage in activities inconsistent with its function. China absolutely will not accept this U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs, and demands that the U.S. apologize over this, conduct a thorough investigation of the incident, discipline the personnel involved, and ensure that no similar events will ever occur again.” According to Xinhua, Liu further stated, “What the U.S. should do now is to stop continuing to confuse and to try in every way to quibble and to cover up its own responsibility in this matter. Moreover, it should not continue to interfere in China’s domestic affairs. It should, instead, responsibly and seriously learn from this incident, truly reflect on its policies and approaches, and adopt measures to safeguard the Sino-U.S. relationship.“

On the same day, U.S. Secretary State Clinton issued a statement saying that she was pleased that the U.S. “was able to facilitate Chen Guangcheng’s stay and departure from the U.S. Embassy in a way that reflected his choices and our values.” Her statement further stated that “the United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead.”

Sources:
Xinhua, May 2, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-05/02/c_111873571.htm
Xinhua, May 2, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2012-05/02/c_111875347.htm
U.S. Department of State, May 2, 2012
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/05/189090.htm

People’s Daily carried an article covering how Tsinghua University conducts training programs for U.S. officials. According to Sun Zhe, director of the Center for China-US Relations under Tsinghua University, the training programs are part of the “World Leadership Training,” an advanced training program sponsored by the Federal Executive Institute based in Virginia. The participants are mainly senior administrative officials from U.S. government departments including the State Department, Department of Defense, and Homeland Security. “If we can continue (to hold this type of program), it can have a fundamental influence on the China U.S. relationship,” Sun told People’s Daily.

The program consists of courses that cover China’s Strategy and Political System, the 18th National Congress, the International Political Climate, the China U.S. Relationship, China’s Military Modernization, its Military and Defense Policy, Foreign Policy, Economic and Trade Policy, and its Energy and Policy Making Process. “These administrative officials are the foundation of the U.S. government. They often make various types of recommendations to top U.S. decision makers. We allow them to learn about China and about what is on our mind so that we can minimize misunderstandings between us. … We can be friends with them and we can thus have some influence on them,” Sun said.

The last time that Tsinghua held this type of training program was in April 2010.

Source: People’s Daily, April 28, 2012
http://world.people.com.cn/GB/17774822.html

Days before the 4th China US Strategic and Economic Dialog that was to be held on May 3 and 4 in Beijing, People’s Daily oversea’s edition published a commentary warning the U.S. not to send the wrong messages to certain other countries regarding the South China Sea dispute.

The article said that the timing of the dialog was important because it was coming before the upcoming presidential election and the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th National Congress. "China has been openly raising its concerns and making requests in certain areas: that the U.S. should stop its surveillance near China’s coasts; eliminate limitations on high tech exports to China; recognize China’s market economy; and provide a fair trade investment environment for China’s direct investments in the U.S." The article stated, "The U.S. has recently increased its involvement in the Asia Pacific region significantly. For example, the U.S. has been involved in military collaboration with the Philippians, Vietnam, and Australia; established a new military base; conducted military exercises that are growing in scale; has been selling weapons; and even plans to build a missile defense system."

The article said that the U.S. should put an end to its proclivity to challenge China in the South China Sea dispute, let the strategic and economic dialog minimize distrust between the two, and embrace the idea of “cooperation so both sides can benefit.”

Source: People’s Daily, May 2, 2012
http://opinion.people.com.cn/GB/40604/17784619.html

The International Herald Leader, under Xinhua News, recently published an article accusing the United States of applying its domestic laws to international affairs. For now, this is reflected in the Iranian sanction effort (banning U.S. banks from doing business with countries who keep buying oil from Iran). The article referred to a recent announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made on March 20, 2012. Clinton temporarily relaxed sanctions on the financial organizations of many countries that are U.S. allies. However, under Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act, sanctions remain for countries like China and India, who keep a normal oil trade relationship with Iran. The article claimed that U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan have “silent resentment” even though they have cooperated with the United States. The author expressed the belief that the U.S. is abusing its international superpower status to illegally use its domestic laws to regulate other countries. The author suggested that the U.S. approach is rude and that using normal channels to buy oil from Iran does not break any U.N. resolution. The article listed many other examples of how the U.S. uses domestic laws to serve its foreign policies.

Source: International Herald Leader, April 6, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2012-04/06/c_131508549.htm

Huanqiu published a commentary on March 29, 2012, on the testimony that Don Yamamoto, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, gave before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights, regarding China’s role and its influence in Africa. Yamamoto said, “China’s activities in Africa offer important opportunities for the continent, though there are major areas where our interests do not align.” The Huanqiu commentary was critical of this statement, among other things. “The biggest problem is that (China) moves the ‘cheese’ of the West (a sarcastic reference to U.S. inability to adjust to its loss of hegemony), thus violating the interests of the United States. Sino-African cooperation is in line with the interests of China and African countries. One should not ask China and Africa to reduce their cooperation for the benefit of U.S. interests. If the U.S. wants to protect its own interests, then the U.S. should first know what shame is and then have the courage to catch up by doing a better job, rather than being jealous of others and sabotaging or thwarting others.”

Sources: Huanqiu, April 16, 2012
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/roll/2012-04/2619402.html
Wikipedia: Who Moved My Cheese?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F

On April 10, 2012, Red Flag Manuscript, a core publication of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, published an article titled “The U.S. Internet Strategy Poses a Serious Challenge to China: Our Countermeasures.” According to the article, on May 15 and July 14, 2011, the U.S. government issued two documents, the “International Strategy for Cyberspace” and the “Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace.” According to the article, these two documents pose a potential long-term threat to China’s political safety and seriously challenge China’s cultural security.

The article suggested that China use the following countermeasures to deal with the U.S. strategy: protect China’s Internet sovereignty, continue to block and to ban any “harmful information at home and abroad” that “endangers national security and disrupts social stability,” recruit and train more Internet security experts, establish an Internet Security Management System led by the CCP Central Committee, and build multiple global Chinese websites to show the world the new socialist China with Chinese characteristics, which is democratic, civilized, and open.

Source: Red Flag Manuscript, April 10, 2012
http://www.qstheory.cn/hqwg/2012/201207/201204/t20120410_150350.htm

Beijing News recently reported that Zhong Shan, the Deputy Minister of Commerce, said at a conference that, in each of the last 17 years, China has had more trade conflicts than any other country in the world. China is having more types of conflicts in more industries with more countries. Trade protectionism against China is rapidly growing. Since the beginning of this year, 8 trade complaints have been filed against China and there have been 100 incidents in the past 12 months. Since 2008 there have been a total of 600. Zhong emphasized that China is focusing on responding to major cases and is establishing a conflict resolution mechanism that takes full advantage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules for self-protection. China has expressed the hope several times that the U.S. government will keep its promise to be against trade-protectionism.

Source: Beijing News, March 24, 2012
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/finance/2012/03/24/190129.html