BBC Chinese: Britain Criticized China’s Maltreatment of Diplomats and Reporters
Global Times: China Voted against UN Resolution on North Korean Human Rights Violations
Military Expert: China Will Not Fire the First Shot and Won’t Give a Second Chance to the Opponent
Recently, U.S. Department of Defense officials said that, within this year, the U.S. will not send any warships to the South China Sea that will navigate within 12 sea miles of China’s artificial reefs. Also, an anonymous official said that the next voyage will be in January of next year. Chinese military expert Cao Weidong, in an interview with the CCTV "Today’s Focus" program, said that the U.S. military action of cruising the South China Sea is just for show. China has always insisted on an active defense policy. China will not fire the first shot, but will never give [the U.S.] a second chance either.
Xinhua: Obama’s Legacy of Hegemony
On December 20, 2016, Xinhua published a commentary in which it rejected the U.S. explanation that its two B-52 bombers didn’t intend to fly over China’s artificial island in the South China Sea. Xinhua questioned “a series of dangerous actions” that the U.S. had carried out in “its recent show of force” in the South China Sea. Xinhua also rebutted the U.S. explanation by citing the recent U.S. arms sale to Taiwan. It said this act “flagrantly violated international law and the norms governing international relations, severely violated the three Sino-US joint communiques, … and caused severe damage to China’s sovereignty and security interests as well as cross-strait relations [with Taiwan].” Xinhua further complained that the U.S. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) excluded China. “People will ask what Washington is truly up to. What does Obama, who will bid farewell to the White House next year, want to leave behind as his diplomatic legacy? [The core of his legacy] is his thinking about ‘hegemony.’
BBC Chinese: China Sanctions the U.S. for Arms Sales to Taiwan
Former Party Secretary of Ministry of Culture Voiced His Reflections on the Cultural Revolution
Starting on December 9, Yu Youjun, a former government official who is now a professor at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, gave a series of lectures in which he reflected on the Cultural Revolution. He started on December 9 and planned to finish the 8-session lecture by December 25. However, he shortened it to 7 sessions, which he completed by December 16, because he needed to go to Beijing once he finished.
This lecture is a rare public discussion on the Cultural Revolution in China. In the past, this has been a taboo topic and no one has dared to voice any criticism.
The Paper, a media with close ties to Wang Qishan, Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) published a lengthy report on Yu’s lecture, but it was later removed. The following is based on Phoenix Online’s republication of the article.
What made this lecture a high-profile event is Yu Youjun’s background. He was a minister-level official, holding top positions in Guangdong, Hunan Province, and Shanxi Province. He served as the Party Secretary and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture from 2007 to 2008. In Yu’s words, "I want to (make this) low-profile but I can’t."
Though the lecture was limited to students and professors in the university, a lot of people came and Yu had to move from a classroom to the auditorium to accommodate the audience.
Yu stated, "The evil spirit of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ is still looming, eroding the body of the people and the Party …"
Yu gave a set of statistical numbers to show the damage that the Cultural Revolution had done:
– According to incomplete statistics, 17.2 percent, or 2.3 million, of the 12 million total officials in China had been investigated.
– 16.7 percent, or 30,000, officials of the central state organs and ministries had been investigated. 75 percent of officials with the rank of deputy minister or higher or deputy provincial governor level were investigated or taken down. 80,000 people in the military were persecuted.
– The economic loss was 500 billion yuan (U.S. $79 billion), which is equal to 80 percent of the sum of China’s total infrastructure investment from 1949 to 1976. That sum exceeds the amount of the total fixed national assets for the same nearly 30 years.
– There was little or no increase in people’s living standard during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966, each person could receive 189.5 kg of rice or wheat, 1.7 kg of oil, and 7 kg of pork for consumption. In 1976, the corresponding numbers were 190.5 kg, 1.6 kg, and 7.2 kg.
In Yu’s view, "to assess Cultural Revolution from the perspective of the results it brought to China, there is only one sentence – (We) must negate it generally and fundamentally."
Source: Phoenix Online, December 20, 2015
http://news.ifeng.com/a/20151220/46757474_0.shtml
China to Tighten Supervision of Law Enforcement
On December 16, 2015, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPC) issued a directive to fully implement and standardize inspection and supervision of law enforcement involving criminal sentences.
http://www.spp.gov.cn/gjybs/201512/t20151217_109493.shtml