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

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BBC Chinese: China and Britain Signed Agreement on RMB Settlement

BBC Chinese recently reported that the British government signed an RMB Clearing and Settlement Agreement with China. This is the first agreement of its type outside of Asia. It further strengthened London’s position as the primary RMB exchange center in the Western world. After Hong Kong became the first offshore trading center for the Chinese currency (RMB) in 2009, several other cities such as Singapore and Tokyo competed to be the second primary RMB trading market. The Chinese government is trying to make the RMB a key player in the competition to challenge the U.S. dollar as the dominant currency in the global economy. The Bank of England signed a currency exchange agreement with the People’s Bank of China in June last year; that agreement expires in three years.
Source: BBC Chinese, March 26, 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/uk/2014/03/140326_china_uk_rmb.shtml
Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

WTO Ruled against China on Rare Earths Export Restrictions

Well-known Chinese online news site Sina recently reported that the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against China on China’s quota-based rare earths export restrictions. This ruling was based on a complaint filed jointly by the United States, the European Union, and Japan. This is the second time China has lost in WTO filings on natural resource export restrictions. China’s quota-based export management system may be approaching its end. Experts from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce suggested that one-third of the WTO experts assigned to this case supported China’s position, while some other members, such as Russia, also sided with China. However some legal experts expressed the belief that the probability is low that China’s would win the case on appeal. Officials from the China WTO Research Organization called for establishing a protection system for China’s strategic natural resources.
Source: Sina Net, March 27, 2014
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-03-27/012929799448.shtml
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Guangming Daily: Strengthening Think Tanks is an Important and Urgent Strategic Task

On March 31, Guangming Daily published an article on the importance of China’s think tanks. The following is an excerpt from the article.

"The Third Plenary Session of the Party’s Eighteenth Congress emphasized the task of strengthening new think tanks with Chinese characteristics and of building a sound decision-making and advisory system. Currently, high-level and internationalized think-tanks have become an important symbol of a country’s soft power and influence in international discourse."

"To achieve the goal of two hundred years and the China dream of the great rejuvenation of the nation, we must strengthen the new think tanks with Chinese characteristics. At present, China is in a critical stage of building a moderately prosperous society and of facing an increasingly complex international environment with new things, new problems, new conflicts, and new challenges emerging one after another. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation should be a comprehensive revival. Practical and effective policies and strategies needs to be made in all fields including the economy, politics, culture, society, ecological civilization, Party buildup, national defense, and foreign affairs. Such policies and strategies are inseparable from the advice emanating from high-level think tanks."

Source: Guangnming Daily, March 31, 2014
http://news.gmw.cn/2014-03/31/content_10842073.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

PLA’s General Political Department: Tough Battle between Espionage and Counter-espionage Activities

From March 24 to 28, the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department (GPD) held a meeting in Beijing on protecting secrets and also a training session. The meeting stressed that the current battle between espionage and counter-espionage is complicated and grim. The GPD should have a strong sense of urgency and responsibility, and should not slack off.

The training focused on conveying instructions from the upper-level authorities; analyzing the current situation of the work of protecting secrets; inviting officials and experts from the government, the PLA Committee for Protecting Secrets, and National Defense University; and demonstrating anti-theft technologies.

Source: People’s Liberation Army Daily, March 31, 2014
http://www.chinamil.com.cn/jfjbmap/content/2014-03/31/content_71655.htm

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

Sino-Russian Youth Friendship Exchange Year Launched in St. Petersburg

The opening ceremony of the "Sino-Russian Youth Friendly Exchange Year" was held on March 28 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin each sent a letter of congratulations.

In his letter, Xi Jinping said that, "President Putin and I jointly decided to hold the ‘Sino-Russian Youth Friendly Exchange Year.’ Year 2014 is a ‘Sino-Russian Youth Friendly Exchange Year’ and year 2015 will also be a ‘Sino-Russian Youth Friendly Exchange Year.’" The initiative will promote the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Russia at a high level and will promote the China-Russia friendship for the coming generations. The leaders of the two countries have undertaken this major initiative with an eye toward long-term bilateral relations.

In his letter, Putin expressed that large humanitarian events such as Russia’s "Year of China" greatly expand bilateral cooperation in many fields, including education, science, culture, tourism and sports. The "Youth Friendly Exchange Year" will further strengthen the China-Russia comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Source: Xinhua, March 29, 2014
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2014-03/29/c_126330401.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Dai Xu: The Only Type of Warfare That Could Destroy China

[Editor’s Note: Dai Xu, a renowned Chinese social commentator, who is President of the Marine Institute for Security and Cooperation, a Professor at the National Defense University, and Senior Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army Navy, wrote an article for Xinhua about the danger to China of information infiltration. Dai observed that an information war in Cyberspace is the only type of war that could destroy China.] [1]

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Reports | | |   Report

Huanqiu: How Can the U.S. Have the Cheek to Blame Others When It Leads the Stealing

Shen Dingli, Vice Dean of the Institute of International Affairs, Fudan University, published an article on Huanqiu (Global Times) commenting on the U.S.’s Internet Invasion of Chinese entities as exposed by Edward Snowden. Below are some excerpts from the article: 

"Whether it involves official communications from China’s state leaders or inside information from the departments of the Chinese government, they are all China’s secrets protected by Chinese law. Even in the information age, they belong to the scope of China’s information sovereignty. There is no chance that the U.S. does not understand this point. The U.S. used the same grounds in its accusation that China hacks the U.S. information network." 
"Then, are China’s state secrets not worth protecting? If U.S. secrets are secret and if China cannot touch them, then how can the U.S. wantonly touch China’s confidential information? Obviously, with regard to Internet security issues, the United States pursues a policy of imperialism. That is, other countries have to respect the information sovereignty of the United States, while the United States does not need to respect other countries’ information frontier." 

"No country will accept such extreme arrogance and selfish behavior." "Our government has asked the U.S. to explain why the U.S. invades China’s information territory. We can expect that the United States will not explain and apologize to our country. Neither will it offer compensation for the losses that their invasion caused or guarantee that they will no longer engage in such activities in the future. If so, the United States has no grounds for blaming other countries that carry out those same activities on the United States or for expecting other countries not to retaliate against the U.S.’s Internet violations." 

"In the name of fighting terrorism, The United States wantonly invades the Information territory of other countries to steal information. What it does is completely beyond the legitimacy of counter-terrorism cooperation. … That the United States conducts such large-scale, high-level surveillance in the world only tells us that the United States has a strong desire to control the entire world. In its eyes, there is no such concept as country equality and mutual respect for sovereignty. What the U.S. wants is to maintain its long-term dominance of the world and prevent the development and rise of other countries." 

“The U.S. government should know that, in the Internet world, America’s leading technology may not be absolute; nor is it ever-lasting. If today the United States takes the lead to steal, tomorrow it may find out that it is itself that will undergo even worse suffering when others steal from the United States.” 

Source: Huanqiu, March 25, 2014 
http://military.people.com.cn/n/2014/0325/c1011-24727361.html http://mil.huanqiu.com/observation/2014-03/4928199.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Qiushi: The Bankruptcy of “Universal” Western Liberalism

Qiushi published a commentary on the universal right of “all are created equal” and stated that this fallacy went bankrupt because it could not bridge the gap between the ideal and reality. 

“History has proven that adherence to the right of discourse of Marxism in the ideological field is to firmly uphold the one-Party’s guiding ideology. With plural guiding ideologies, even the original working class party (such as the Social Democratic Party) might transform into a bourgeois party. The reason is that, with plural guiding ideologies, it appears that all thoughts and ideas are equal. But under the capitalist dominance (including today’s "the West stronger than the East" situation), the pluralism in ideology, in fact, cancels any existing independence of the dominant ideology, not to mention boycotting and rising above and beyond the dominant ideology. One is bound to become a captive of bourgeois ideology.” 
Source: Qiushi, March 25, 2014 
http://www.qstheory.cn/hqwg/2014/201406/201403/t20140325_333589.htm
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics