US-China Relations - 146. page

In response to Google’s accusations of recent attacks from China’s Jinan City against Gmail users in the U.S. government and elsewhere, the state-run China Daily published an opinion article, “Google’s Political Farce.”

The people’s Liberation Army Daily published an article that comments on U.S. Defense Secretary Gates’ recent speech. The article states that during the speech, Secretary Gates held that dealing with a complex and unpredictable international security environment needs size, steel, and strength. It marks a change from President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s earlier remarks that the new administration would adopt “smart power” diplomacy. “In short, to maintain its world hegemony, the normal practice of the U.S. is to use both hard and soft power; put figuratively, it is the ‘carrot and stick’ approach. In the future, the U.S. may still insist on building its soft power, but when it comes to maintaining its global hegemony, it will never give up or relax the use of hard power. In this regard, one should not have any wishful thinking or unrealistic expectations.”

Source: Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, reprinted from People’s Liberation Army Daily, May 29, 2011
http://www.mod.gov.cn/gflt/2011-05/29/content_4244191.htm

According to a Voice of America report, Nanjing Military Region and Wuxi Giant Network Science and Technology Corporation developed China’s first military game, which is called “mission of honor.” The introductory video shows Chinese soldiers firing at the imaginary “enemy” using obvious images of American soldiers. Then they shoot down an American military “Apache” helicopter. The article points out that using games translated from foreign languages “is not good for the military’s educational training; it may misguide the soldiers” because the contents, values, and military ideals are quite different from (China’s). PLA Daily says, “’mission of honor’ is completely our own intellectual property. It has filled a blank in China’s military games. The improved version of the software will be distributed to the army for application.”

Source: Voice of America, May 20, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/20110520-Chinese-Army-Video-Game-122359839.html

Professor and Major General Zhu Chenghu of China’s National Defense University believes that the U.S. is responsible for the vicious cycle in the current U.S.- China relationship, i.e., interrupt, start over, interrupt again and start over again. Zhu states that the U.S.-China military relationship faces three obstacles: arms sales to Taiwan, the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and U.S. reconnaissance of China’s coastal areas. Zhu does not expect that the recent visit to the United States of Chief of the PLA, General Staff Chen Bingde, will put the relationship on a healthy path. Although the U.S. State Department opposes the sale of the F-16CD to Taiwan, the U.S. Defense Department, which proposed the sale, will eventually prevail, thus creating another crisis in the U.S.-China relationship. Zhu holds that the 2000 NDAA is unfair in that it prohibits military exchanges with China in 12 categories. 

China News Service republished an article by Hong Kong’s Wenweipo, citing the economic cost of the U.S. fight against bin Laden. “According to the Washington Post, since 9.11, the U.S. has spared no effort to pursue bin Laden. More than 263 intelligence agencies were rebuilt or reorganized. 1,271 government agencies, nearly 2,000 private companies, and a total of 200,000 people in 10,000 locations are carrying out anti-terrorism related intelligence work. Bin Laden is the first Arab in U.S. history that it has spent so much energy and resources to pursue. For 10 years, the U.S. has spent at least $100 million a day to catch him.” 

China’s official Huanqiu newspaper published an editorial on May 14, 2011, commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent criticism of China’s human rights. (“They’re worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool’s errand.”). The article, titled “The West Cannot Win a Human Rights Dispute with China,” said, “Why is it so hard for the West to achieve the ‘final victory?’ This relates to the fact that their purpose is twisted. The West now talks about human rights with China, but not the ‘various rights of a human being.’ The Western political system stealthily changed the word ‘human rights’ to give it a special meaning. According to this logic, as long as China’s way of social organization deviates from the West, its human rights development will be at a low level.” 

In an interview published in The Atlantic, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized China’s “deplorable” human rights record and characterized the Chinese government’s attempt to suppress democratic reform as a “fool’s errand,” citing the recent revolutions in the Middle East as an example. In response, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Jiang Yu said, “It is inappropriate for anyone to compare China to the West Asian and North African countries. It would be futile for anyone to attempt to bring the Middle East crisis into China and change the development path that the Chinese people have chosen for themselves.”

On May 6, 2011, secretary-generals of China’s five state-sanctioned religious groups held a joint meeting to evaluate the annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. A written consensus was published on Xinhua on the same day.