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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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China’s Unprecedented Internet Mishap Due to Malfunction of Domain Name Root Servers

On January 21, at around 15:20, China’s entire top-level domain name root servers (DNS) malfunctioned, leaving two-thirds of China’s websites inaccessible and “causing severe damage to China’s Internet.” 

Internet users found themselves re-directed to IP 65.49.2.178 [a U.S. website]. The malfunction lasted until 18:30 when visits to most of the .com websites had been restored. 
The state-run China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) earlier said in a microblog post that the incident was due to a malfunction in China’s top-level domain name root servers and that the incident had no impact on .cn which functioned properly throughout the incident. 
Sources: 
Nanfang Daily, January 22, 2014 
http://epaper.nfdaily.cn/html/2014-01/22/content_7269197.htm 
Xinhua, January 22, 2014 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2014-01/22/c_119082541.htm
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Qiushi: The Values Freedom, Democracy, Equality, and Rule by Law Are Different in China

On January 16, 2014, Qiushi, a theoretical journal of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, published an article denying the existence of any “universal values.” Although the Chinese Communist Party also advocated “freedom,” “democracy,” “equality,” and “rule by law” in its report issued at the recent 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the interpretations of these four values are different in nature from the “universal values” in the West.

According to the article, the people of China enjoy complete equality in economic, political, social, cultural, and other aspects rather than just the periodic “voting rights” in the Western countries. Socialist democracy and justice in China allow the Chinese people to be the real masters of the nation, while democracy and justice in the Western countries just represent a rotation of power between bourgeois parties.

Source: Qiushi, January 16, 2014
http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk/2014/201402/201401/t20140114_312584.htm  

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

People’s Daily: CAS Released New Operating System

People’s Daily recently reported that, on January 15, the Software Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced the availability of the China Operating System (COS). CAS fully owns the intellectual property of the new operating system, which is deigned to “break the monopoly” currently enjoyed by foreign operating systems such as those made by Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Due to the various security issues that open source operating systems have, the COS is designed to be “closed-source” in order to offer better security. The new operating system is aimed at all market segments including personal computers, hand-held devices, set-top boxes, and “smart” appliances. The COS claims to be built from the ground up, without any dependency on any other operating systems. Although hundreds of millions of Chinese end-point machines are currently running “foreign” operating systems, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is determined to face the challenges and join the competition against the international mainstream.
Source: People’s Daily, January 16, 2014
http://gd.people.com.cn/n/2014/0116/c123932-20406940.html
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Netease Financial: ICBC Stock Fell below Net Asset Value

Netease Financial, a well-known Chinese online financial news site, recently reported that the stock value of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) fell below the Bank’s net asset value on January 15. ICBC ranked number one in China’s banking industry in terms of corporate loans and corporate deposits and Euromoney named ICBC the “Best Bank in China.” Ninety percent of the publicly traded Chinese banks are now suffering below net asset market prices. At the same time, 143 companies listed on the Chinese stock market fell below net asset value. Based on the outcomes of the recent central government audit reports, local government debts are at all-time highs. Most of them were funded by state-owned commercial banks. It seems the landslide of the banking industry’s stocks has not ended yet. 
Source: Netease Financial, January 15, 2014
http://money.163.com/14/0115/15/9IL0MURF00251LJJ.html
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Study Times: How to Improve China’s Global Influence

The Chinese Communist Party Central Party School’s magazine, Study Times, recently published an article discussing how to enhance the power of China’s global influence. The article set a two-step goal for the Chinese economy: to catch up with the United States in the total volume of its economy within fifty years and to surpass the U. S. in per-person average GDP in another fifty years. To achieve these goals, the author offered a four-point strategy: 1) To push the construction of a green economy, which will solve the issue of resource constraint and achieve sustainability; 2) To push the reform of China’s income structure to achieve more fairness in the distribution of wealth; 3) To push innovation-driven growth to take advantage of a wiser population; 4) To construct a strong financial system, aimed at the U.S. dollar, the U.S. central bank, and the highly efficient U.S. financial market. The author concluded the article by calling for a stronger leadership of the Communist Party to lead the nation to the new global high ground. 
Source: Study Times, January 13, 2014
http://www.studytimes.com.cn/shtml/xxsb/20140113/3729.shtml
Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

The Number of Chinese Bloggers Declines

According to the China Internet Network Information Center’s annual report issued on January 16, 2014, there has been an overall decline in the use of such social media as weibo (microblogging), social media websites, and forums. In particular, the number of weibo users declined by 27.83 million users compared to the 2012 end of year statistics. The instant mobile messaging services showed an increase, reaching 532 million users. 

According to Sina back in November 2013, it closed about 100,000 weibo accounts because they were in violation of the “seven bottom lines” – the law and regulations, the socialist system, the national interest, citizens’ legitimate rights and interests, the social and public order, morality, and the information’s authenticity. 
Sources: 
Xinhua, January 16, 2014 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/2014-01/16/c_119000678.htm 
Radio Free Asia, January 16, 2014 
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/nu-01162014112625.html
Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

Chinese Bank Deposits See Transfers

According to Xinhua, the China Banking Regulatory Commission is considering accelerating the introduction of bank insolvency regulations. Its official, Yan Jingmin, stated, “In the future, let capital speak. If a commercial bank cannot maintain solvency, it will exit.” 

“To allow banks to go bankrupt means the State will not cover the deposits of customers in commercial banks [when the bank goes bankrupt],” added Xinhua. The invisible guarantee by the credit of State will end. The depositors would be compensated by the insurance mechanism established in the bank insolvency regulations. 
It was further reported that under the proposed insurance mechanism, the maximum compensation to depositors would be 500,000 yuan. In a panic, Chinese depositors have started to transfer their money in excess of 500,000 to different banks. 
Sources:
Xinhua, January 15, 2014 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2014-01/15/c_126006365.htm 
Jinghua Times reprinted by People’s Daily, January 16, 2014 http://finance.people.com.cn/bank/n/2014/0116/c202331-24133060.html
Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Li Jie: U.S.’s New War Strategy of Air Sea Battle Is Looming toward China

Li Jie, the chief expert at the Marine Research Center of the Three Strategies Institute (a “non-governmental” military think-tank in Beijing) published a commentary article in which he discussed the U.S.’s new war strategy; the “Air Sea Battle” against China. 

The article said, “In recent years, the ‘Air Sea Battle’ has been kept in low-profile, but at the beginning of this year, the United States again started to talk highly about it. The U.S. military declared that it will increase funding to develop the ‘Air Sea Battle.’ The remark and new developments have revealed at least two pieces of information: First, since early 2009 when this concept was first introduced, the United States has never stopped for a moment doing research, demonstrating, testing, and perfecting the ‘Air Sea Battle.’ Now it has matured, and is becoming the core of military theory for the United States’ ‘return to Asia’ and ‘strategic rebalancing’ strategy. Second, in recent years, the United States has developed a large number of new weapons, which have come out one after another. Almost all of them were first deployed and applied at the forefront of East Asia and are continually undergoing experiments and being tested. This fully demonstrates that ‘Air Sea Battle’ is entering the ‘window of opportunity’ to be applied in real combat. 
The article warns that “[China] should make sure forever that it does not to forget that the U.S.’s ‘sword of Damocles’ — the ‘Air Sea Battle’ — is looming toward us.” 
Source: People’s Daily, January 15, 2014 
http://military.people.com.cn/n/2014/0115/c1011-24121030.html http://opinion.huanqiu.com/opinion_world/2014-01/4750720.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations