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China’s Reaction to Trump’s Election Win

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Xinhua Commentary Series: Spotlight on the U.S. Presidential Election

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Wu Guoguang: Xi Jinping’s Reversal of the Course, Will China’s Transition be Peaceful or Marked with Bloodshed?

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Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

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China Has Ordered a Large Number of Russian Fighter Engines

According to an article in Voice of America on October 08, 2011, China is continuing to purchase large numbers of Russian fighter engines. So far this year, China and Russia have signed two fighter engine sales contracts and recently have been negotiating to sign a 3rd one. Up until now, China has bought 1,000 fighter engines. Analysts say that China is still heavily dependent on Russia for fighter engines because China’s domestic made engines have a shorter life span and less power.

Source: Voice of America, October 08, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/20111008-China-Russia-Fighter-Engines-131381388.html

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

“Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is the Choice of History”

After Hu Jintao’s July 1 speech, all Party organs were required to study and digest the messages that were conveyed. On October 8, Xinhua published the first article in a series that summarized the collected feedback that resulted from those studies. Below are the subtitles of each section:

1) Only socialism can save China: Hu’s speech highlighted the path that the Party has walked over the past 90 years. The truth is that there is no other ideology that can save China other than the socialist ideology.
2) Only socialism with Chinese characteristics can help China to develop and prosper: the economic achievements in the past 30 years of the "reform and opening-up" policy were due solely to the fact that the Party took the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
3) Firmly walk our own path: if we deviate from the path which has proven to be the only choice, or if we dream of adopting any other form of ideology or formality, it is doomed to have no hope and no future and to be meaningless.

Source: Xinhua, October 8, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011-10/08/c_122129952.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Xinhua: China Provided Telecom Satellite Launch Service for Eutelsat

On October 7, China used the “Long March-III2 rocket carrier” to send the W3C telecom satellite into orbit in space. This is the first time that China has provided launch services for Eutelsat, a European satellite company, which owns the W3C telecom satellite. The W3C was built by Thales Alenia Space, a French satellite manufacturer. The satellite has a 15 year lifespan and will provide TV, radio, broadband, video, data transmission, and Internet service. This launch mission was based on the satellite launch contract signed between China and France in 2008. China Great Wall Industry Co., the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General collaborated in carrying it out. This is also the 148th time that the “Long March” rocket carrier series has conducted a space launch.

Source: Xinhua, October 7, 2011
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2011-10/07/c_122125080.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

2010 Overview of China’s Culture Industry

People’s Daily published a report that included an overview of China’s culture industry in 2010. According to the report, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ recent blue book stated that, in 2010, the value-added output of China’s culture industry rose to 1.11 trillion yuan (US$173.98 billion) which accounts for 2.75 percent of the GDP. That figure is expected to reach 5 percent over the next five years. It was suggested that the culture industry will become a key industry that will bring more employment opportunities and economic growth to the local economy. In 2010, there was an infusion of funding from the Ministry of Finance. There are 26 provinces that have set up designated funds to support the culture industry with the investment reaching 2.5 trillion yuan (US$392 million). The statistics the report released show that China’s movie industry grew 10 times from 1 billion yuan in 2000 to 10 billion in 2010. Since 2009, the news publishing industry grew 20 percent reaching 1 trillion yuan. The computer games industry reached 34.9 billion yuan with a 70 percent share of the domestic market.

Source: People’s Daily, October 8, 2011
http://game.people.com.cn/GB/48604/213917/15820565.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Guangming Daily: State-Ownership Is Crucial for China

[Editor’s Note: In an effort to rebut a suggestion to reduce state-ownership, Xinhua republished a Guangming Daily article that discussed the importance of state-ownership to China’s economy. The article argues that a public economy, especially an economy with state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is the keystone of the socialist system. State-ownership enables China to use SOEs to maintain a quick control of the direction of the market, to compete globally, and to achieve its strategic goals. The authors of the article are from the Marxism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The following are excerpts from the article.] [1]

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Reports | | |   Report

Wen Jiabao Urgently Tours South to Handle the Private Loan Crisis in Wenzhou

Over 90 owners of private enterprises in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province have fled in order to escape from debts they could not pay, in an amount of more 200 million yuan (US$31 million). A loan crisis in intermediate and small business enterprises is erupting. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao brought a group of top financial officials including Finance Minister, Xie Xuren; Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan; Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Liu Mingkang, together with the Party Secretary and Governor of Zhejiang Province, to travel to Wenzhou to deal with the crisis. They held discussions with the local entrepreneurs and asked the local government to try to do everything they could to stabilize the economic and financial situation.

The trigger was that the intermediate and small enterprises could not get funding under the central govenment’s macroregulatory policy and therefore turned to private (underground) sources for loans that often required as much as 200 percent in annual interest.

Source: China Review News, October 5, 2011
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1018/5/7/8/101857897.html?coluid=151&kindid=0&docid=101857897&mdate=1005104610

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

State Think Tank: The Purpose of the U.S. Senate Bill on Chinese Currency Is to Slow China’s Economy

Guo Xiangang, the Deputy Director of China’s Institute of International Studies, commented on the bill on China’s currency that is before the U.S. Senate, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011. He observed that, in addition to political motivation because of the upcoming election year, the move occurred because the U.S. has its own problems. In particular, in recent years, China has surpassed Japan and become the No. 2 economy in the world. “The United States of course is No. 1. From the U.S. perspective, it has a sense of crisis, worrying that China will surpass the U.S. and become No. 1 in a few years. Therefore, it has been trying various approaches. One is to find fault with and attack China. A second is to reduce China’s growth rate, or even to contain China, believing that will slow down China’s growth.

Source: China National Radio, October 3, 2011
http://china.cnr.cn/qqhygbw/201110/t20111003_508576092_1.shtml

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Guangming: The U.S. Should Forget about Ideology and Focus on Its Own Interests

The State media Guangming Daily published an article on its website urging the U.S. to focus on its own interests, rather than on ideology, when dealing with China. It observed that the U.S. would like to see other economies in a strong recovery so as to lead the world economy out of recession. “China is exactly such an economy, and is probably the only economy that can do the job.” It warned that the U.S. is playing with a boomerang with the Chinese currency exchange issue and could end up harming its own economy if it is not careful. “The Sino-US relationship is not based on ideology but respective self-interest. … The normal approach to expanding the bilateral relationship is not to allow ideology to hinder our views, but to play the game based on the different interests of each party.”

Source: Guangming, October 3, 2011
http://view.gmw.cn/2011-10/03/content_2733020.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations