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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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Xinhua Commentaries: “Exposing the Three Major Political Deficits of the U.S.”

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The CCP’s Performing Arts Troupes in the U.S.

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RFI: EU Still Divided on Arms Embargo of China

The EU Foreign Ministers Conference in Brussels ended on September 9. The ministers did not reach a common understanding on lifting the embargo. France generally supports lifting it, but it believed a wide agreement is needed before action can be taken. Luxemburg’s Foreign Minister was disappointed about the situation and believed the EU could impose some condition in return for the lift, such as asking China to sign the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Other conditions noted in a document obtained by AFP are improving the relationship with Taiwan and pardoning those arrested in the Tiananmen Incident.
 

The EU arms embargo was put in place after the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. For the past several years, the EU has been reviewing this policy, but with no concrete results.

Source: Radio France International, September 12, 2010
http://www.chinese.rfi.fr/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20100912-%E6%AC%A7%E7%9B%9F%E5%9C%A8%E8%A7%A3%E9%99%A4%E5%AF%B9%E5%8D%8E%E6%AD%A6%E5%99%A8%E7%A6%81%E8%BF%90%E4%B8%8A%E5%88%86%E6%AD%A7%E4%BE%9D%E6%97%A7

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

CRN: China Should Learn to Shape the U.S. Attitude toward China

China Review News recently reviewed an article by East China Morning News on shaping people’s attitudes toward China. The article suggested that not all Americans are willing to see a strong China. They will try their best to create trouble for China. They are worried about the global expansion of China and that it may strike at the U.S. position as a super power. China should avoid a direct showdown with the U.S. At the same time, China should be fighting back, without hesitation, using a reasonably measured means. Versatile foreign relations should be applied to constrain the negative side of U.S. politics.

Source: China Review News, September 6, 2010
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1014/3/7/4/101437427.html?coluid=148&kindid=0&docid=101437427&mdate=0906001356

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China’s Ministry of Agriculture: Cotton Imports Increased over 60% in 2010

 On September 10, 2010, Xinhua reported that, according to a speech made by an official from China’s Ministry of Agriculture, China’s textile industry uses over 10 million tons of cotton each year, while the average annual domestic cotton production is only 7.06 million tons.

In this century, China has been importing over 2 million tons of cotton per annum. The highest amount of imported cotton recorded was 3.6 million tons. This year, the amount of imported cotton increased more than 60%.

Since the beginning of this century, the cotton plantation area in China has decreased more than 14 million mu (ed. note: 1 US acre = 6.07 mu) compared to the last century, leaving only 80 million mu of cotton plantations.

Source: Xinhua, September 10, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/10/c_13489750.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Xinhua: Only 50% of Urban Job Seekers Can Find Work

On September 10, 2010, Xinhua republished a news report from http://www.gov.cn/ regarding unemployment problems in China. Below are the major points:

There is an oversupply of laborers in the job market. This year in the cities, around 24 million people are in need of employment; there is work for only 12 million of them. There are 6.3 million college graduates this year plus 6 million middle and high school graduates who will not pursue further studies. In the rural areas, there are over 100 million surplus laborers. At the same time, a large number of urban laid-off workers and retired military personnel need to be replaced.

In recent years, it has been found that "recruitment difficulties" and "employment difficulties" coexist. It is difficult to recruit migrant workers in the spring, while college graduates have a hard time finding jobs in the fall, after they graduate. This phenomenon highlights the aggravated structural problem in the area of employment. 

Source: Xinhua, September 10, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/10/c_12540420.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Ninety Percent of the Underground Water across China Has Been Contaminated

On September 8, 2010, the International Herald Leader, an official newspaper under Xinhua, reported that 90% of the underground water across China has been contaminated; 60% of the water has been seriously polluted. 

Underground water is an important source of drinking water in China. Nearly 70% of the Chinese people drink underground water.

“In 2005, the EPA conducted an inspection of 206 centralized drinking water sources in 56 cities nationwide. It revealed that the water sources were polluted by 132 types of organic pollutants, 103 of which belong to the category of pollutants that must be controlled either inside or outside of China.”

Source: International Herald Leader, September 8, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010-09/08/c_13484211.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Xinhua Defends the Government’s Real ID Registration for Cell Phones

In defense of China’s recent practice of requiring real IDs for cell phone numbers, Xinhua News Agency published an article titled “How the U.S. Implements Real Name Registration for Cell Phones.” The article explains that U.S. cell phone users need to provide their social security number, name, address, and credit card information at the time of purchase, thus showing that the newly implemented rule is not unlike the rules in many developed nations. However, the article obscured the fact that the major cell phone companies in China — China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom — are all government-controlled, while telecommunication companies in the U.S. are private.
Source: Xinhua, September 9, 2010
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2010-09/09/c_12534295.htm
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Beijing Rebuts Deterioration of the Investment Environment in China

Beijing has made high profile efforts to defuse concerns about the deterioration of the investment environment in China. In July, when meeting with German Chancellor Merkel in Xi’an, Premier Wen Jiaobao said, “There is a view that China’s investment environment has been worse. I think this is not true.” On July 26, Commerce Minister Chen Deming wrote in an opinion piece in Financial Times that “In fact, China will open wider in the future.”
A report issued by the World Bank in July, "Investing Across Borders 2010," states that China is one of the regions that has the most constraint on foreign direct investment. As many as 18 procedures and a time span of 99 days are needed in order to launch a foreign business in Shanghai, slower than both the regional average for East Asia and the Pacific and the global average.
Sources:
World Bank, 
http://iab.worldbank.org/Data/Explore%20Economies/China#/Starting-a-foreign-business
China News Service, September 5, 2010
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2010/09-05/2512860.shtml
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/18dae5d2-981c-11df-b218-00144feab49a.html
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

CCP’s Organization Department Trains Officials Again

A third training session was launched by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s
Organization Department, the party’s function of appointing cadres, in Jinggangshan on September 5. [1] The trainees are 112 Party or government officials at the bureau level (equivalent to assistant secretary in the U.S.) from across the country.
According to an official at the Central Party School, this session is part of the Organization Department’s large scale trainings for nationwide communist Party officials. The focus is “party spirit” and the “relationship between the Party and the people.”
Source: Beijing News, September 6, 2010
http://epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2010-09/06/content_144657.htm?div=-1
[1] Jinggangshan, a mountain located in Jiangxi Province, is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army (the People’s Liberation Army of China) and the "cradle of the Chinese revolution." After the Kuomintang (KMT) turned against the Communist Party in 1927, the Communists either went underground or fled to the countryside. Following the unsuccessful Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Mao Zedong led his 1000 remaining men to Jinggangshan, where he set up his first peasant soviet.
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics