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Disasters in 2008 Affected 470 Million

An assessment report published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs indicates China faces increasingly severe natural disasters. According to the Response Assessment Analysis for 2008 Natural Disasters, disasters in 2008 were high in frequency, of different varieties, spanned vast geographical ranges, were of high magnitude and caused heavy losses. “The overall situation remains grim.” Statistics show that in 2008, 470 million people were affected, 88,928 killed or missing, 26.822 million evacuated, 39.99 million hectares of crops damaged, and 10.977 million houses collapsed. The disasters caused direct economic losses of 117.524 billion Yuan.

Source: Ministry of Civil Affairs, September 23, 2009 http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/zwgk/mzyw/200909/20090900038648.shtml

Top Party Leader Presses for Greater Security for October 1

Zhou Yongkang, Politburo Standing Member and Party Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, pressed for greater local security measures for the October 1 National Day Celebration. During an inspection tour of Beijing and its vicinity, Zhou said, “Maintaining stability in the capital to ensure celebrations are safe and successful is the overriding political task at the moment. Various destabilizing factors and security risks should be resolved locally so that local stability throughout the country will ensure stability in the capital, which in turn will lead to a safe and successful National Day celebration.”

Source: Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China, September 23, 2009 http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n1237/n1342/n803680/2058383.html

Military Parade on October 1: A Show of Force

Some of the most anticipated Chinese weapons will make their first public debut at the October 1 military parade in Beijing. They include J-10 fighters and J-11 fighters, new models of main battle tanks, new strategic missiles, the KJ-2000 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), the Z-9 helicopter gunship and the re-modeled QBZ-95 light rifle family. According to the press release on September 23, the military parade will include 14 squads on foot (352 persons each), 30 defense equipment squads (18 items of equipment per square) and 12 air force echelons (6 to 18 aircrafts per echelon).  

Source: Qiushi, September 22 and 24, 2009
http://www.qsjournal.com.cn/tbzt/jdzghhlsn/60nzxbd/200909/t20090922_12031.htm
http://www.qsjournal.com.cn/tbzt/jdzghhlsn/60nzxbd/200909/t20090924_12224.htm

China News Service: The CommuniquÚ Reveals the Party’s Concern about Looming Problems

The Communiqué by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was published on September 18. China News Service quoted expert’s interpretation of the communiqué: it reveals the Communist Party’s concern about looming problems.

The communiqué mentioned the current situation more than just once, pointing to “Profound changes in the global, country and party situation, which imposed a new requirement for the Party’s development” and “The entire Party should brace itself for impending danger in the time of peace, develop heightened awareness of looming problems, remain concerned for the Party, fulfill the Chinese people’s responsibility to expand the Party, be daring regarding reform and innovation, and under no circumstances be rigid or stagnant.”

Source: China News Service, September 18, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/09-18/1874886.shtml

The Chosun Ilbo: Xi Jinping’s Hard Line Talks

During the Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the focal point was whether Xi Jinping would be crowned as the next leader of the Communist Party. The Chosun Ilbo, or North Korea Daily, reported some of Xi’s hard Line talks:

“China can solve the problem of feeding 1.3 billion people. That has already been the greatest contribution to the global community. Some foreigners who had nothing to do after being fed kept pointing fingers at us. China does not export revolution, does not export hunger or poverty, and does not try to stir up your lives, either. Why should you criticize China?”

Response on “How to view the Tibetan turmoil.” “There are many birds in a cage. If we drive the noisy birds out, the cage will no longer be active. We have already been immunized and seen too much. The key is how we settle our scores.”

Source: The Chosun Ilbo, September 18, 2009
http://chn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/09/16/20090916000019.html

International Herald Leader: How to Understand U.S.’ Attitude Change to China

The International Herald Leader, a newspaper under Xinhua, published a commentary about the “U.S. National Intelligence Strategy.” It noted that the U.S. identifies China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as its “imaginary intelligence enemies” and stressed China and Russia’s capability of Cyber War against the U.S. The commentary said that the U.S. changes its face toward China, from cozy relationship at the G2 to punitive taxes on Chinese tires, and then to directly pointing to China as its “main challenger.” The U.S. did a complete turn-about.

The bottom line is, that it is unimportant that they claim China to be their imaginary enemy or praise the G2; it all is an outgrowth of the U.S. national interest. At certain times, the U.S. might need to ask for favors from China, but in reality, it is on high alert concerning China.

Source: International Herald Leader, September 21, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-09/21/content_12087872.htm

Xinhua: International Chinese Media Alliance Founded in Shanghai

The creation of the International Chinese Media Alliance was announced on the closing day of the Fifth International Chinese Media Forum on September 20 in Shanghai. Chinese language media around the globe have been challenged since the second half of 2008, which is a general trend that remains unchanged. Other than a few newspapers that were hit hard by the financial crisis, nearly all Chinese language media are still running. Internet based Chinese language websites actually had a 30% traffic increase.

China News Services took the initiative to call for the creation of the Alliance. The preparatory work started two years ago and received 116 agreement letters from various countries.

Source: Xinhua, September 20, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-09/20/content_12084814.htm

Xinhua: Ministry of Culture Implementing Culture Industry Development Plan

Minister of Culture Cai Wu said on September 14th that the Ministry is actively coming up with policies to stimulate the development of the culture industry. The primary efforts are focused on these aspects: (1) improving resource integration to speed up establishing leading “culture enterprises"; (2) encouraging private capital to enter the area of the culture industry; (3) establishing large scale model concentrated culture bases; (4) improving technology-oriented creativity; (5) following the “Go Out” strategy and internationalizing the culture market; (6) building corresponding financial and human resource systems.

Source: Xinhua, September 14, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-09/14/content_12052037.htm