Chinascope – Page 804

People Daily: China’s ADIZ Hit Japan and the U.S. Where It Hurts

The following is an excerpt from a commentary published on the People’s Daily website:

China’s announcement of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) caused uproars in Japan, the United States, Australia, Canada and other Western countries. Japan and the U.S. even sent military planes as an act of provocation. Their media also followed the barking and rallied together to attack (China). Some people laughed at China, saying that the ADIZ is a self-inflicting "disgrace," "useless," "a paper tiger." In fact, such an extraordinary response proves that the Chinese move hits Japan and the U.S. exactly where it hurts.

One of the accusations against China is China’s military modernization is "breaking the balance of power in the region." The United States, therefore, should "return to Asia" to rebuild "the Asia-Pacific balance." Some U.S. allies in Southeast Asia also expect the United States to balance China. It should be noted that the Asia-Pacific has never had military balance: the United States not only has never left Asia; it has had military dominance in East Asia. … In recent years China’s military modernization has been more for the sake of configuring its legitimate defense, as is needed for a big country. It is a process to rectify the "imbalance" and achieve "rebalance." This is where the United States and Japan’s worries are. However, China cannot stop growing the crops because of "fear of locusts.”

Establishing the ADIZ is not only a matter of the sovereignty of our core national interests and of economic importance; it also has great strategic significance. The United States not only has never accused Japan because of its air identification zone; the U.S. also strongly supported it. Why do the two countries cooperate so seamlessly? Their purpose is, through the establishment of an air defense identification zone, to achieve blockage of China’s sea and air passages at the first island chain. In fact, Japan’s attempt is not "unacceptable." China must break barriers. How to break through? The United States and Japan have now shown us the way to follow. Now that American and Japanese military airplanes can break into China’s ADIZ without notice, then China of course can pass through Japan’s aviation identification zone without notification. Thus, the first island chain of the U.S. and Japan has become a "useless paper tiger."

Source: People’s Daily, December 3, 2013

http://world.people.com.cn/n/2013/1203/c1002-23729935.html

Briefings | | December 5, 2013 | US-China Relations

Xia Bin: Urbanization Depends on Further Reforms

Xia Bin, Director-General, Financial Research Institute, Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC), People’s Republic of China, wrote that the two key issues affecting urbanization in China are welfare benefits to farmers and urban planning.

Xia stated that the Chinese leadership has adopted the strategy that China must accelerate urbanization in order to stabilize the economy. At the minimum, according to Xia, China must carry out reform in these areas:

1. To accomplish the objective of increasing the welfare benefits to farmers, reform is needed in the household registration system, housing, the medical system, retirement, education, the financial system, and land use;

2. To accomplish the objective of ensuring the source and efficacy of the funds for urban infrastructure construction, reform is needed in the financial system, land administration, the allocation of resources, the division of power between the central government and local governments, the price mechanism involved in the factors of production, and the overall government administrative system;

3. In order to optimize urban planning, including the creation of new municipalities, a series of policies must be revised.

“In short, we can say China has almost no existing system and policy it can follow without addressing the need for improvement in the areas of reform that must be carried out in order to achieve its urbanization strategy. Therefore, the current strategy to promote urbanization is to promote further reforms. The essence of the urbanization strategy is to accelerate China’s reforms.”

Source: China Economic Times, December 2, 2013

http://www.cet.com.cn/ycpd/sdyd/1045775.shtml

Briefings | | December 5, 2013 | Economy/Resources

Due to Local Debts, Shadow Banking, and Property Bubbles, China’s Economy May Crash at Any Time

On December 3, 2013, the Hexun website, a leading financial and securities information website in China, published an article on three major financial risks that China faces. The three major financial risks in China are local government’s debts, shadow banking, and property bubbles. Once one of these 3 financial risks gets out of control, China’s economy may crash at any time.

China’s local government’s debts have been growing continuously in recent years. Currently, local debts have reached around 20 trillion Chinese yuan, which is 40 percent of its total GDP for 2012. Shadow banking in China poses the 2nd biggest risk for its financial system. As China has never publicized any real estate statistical data, there has been a debate as to whether China has a property bubble. However, according to scholars’ research there are 68 million vacant housing units in China. If that is true, then China’s property bubble is very large. Once the bubble breaks, a destructive domino chain reaction may not only crash China’s economy but also lead to wide scale social unrest in China.

Source: Hexun, December 3, 2013
http://opinion.hexun.com/2013-12-03/160234304.html

Briefings | | December 4, 2013 | Economy/Resources

Qiu Shi: Directions on How to Manage Public Opinion Online

Qiu Shi, a magazine of the CCP Central Committee, recently published an article discussing a key point the new Chinese President Xi Jinping made in a conference. Xi suggested that those who do propaganda and ideology work should shift their focus toward managing public opinion online. The article analyzed the development trend of the Internet and concluded that it fundamentally changed human society and how public opinion can be influenced. Traditional one-way communication channels like newspapers, the radio and even television are losing ground. China now has a netizen population of nearly 0.6 billion; it has 0.46 billion cellphone users and 0.3 billion microbloggers. China is becoming the largest “new media” country in the world with the “most noisy” public opinion “field.” The author emphasized the importance of the fact that the government must tightly control the online leadership position, administrative power, and the highest right to speak. If the Communist Party does not “occupy the battlefield,” then “someone else will.” The author called for establishing a talent pool to provide the government with qualified government officials and superior technical teams to deliver Internet control in a timely, deep, accurate and effective fashion.

Source: Qiu Shi, November 27, 2013
http://www.qstheory.cn/zywz/201311/t20131127_296081.htm

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Information/Technology

CRN: The Emerging Countries Are Good Consumers for China’s Excess Capacity

China Review News (CRN) recently published an article discussing China’s manufacturing overcapacity issue. China’s market demand apparently does not match the volume of current production. China is facing a major problem of excess manufacturing capacity. It is not easy to resolve it without massively increasing the unemployment rate. The author expressed the belief that the Chinese manufacturing structure was not designed for domestic consumption to begin with. Therefore, it is highly possible that emerging economies, whose share of the global market has grown to 29.7 percent (from 15.4 percent), may be a good target market. The article suggested that the Chinese companies take the opportunity of an appreciated Chinese currency and invest in the new markets so that a large percentage of China’s manufacturing capacity can be consumed.

Source: China Review News, November 28, 2013
http://hk.crntt.com/doc/1028/9/1/2/102891236.html?coluid=53&kindid=0&docid=102891236&mdate=1128074739

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Economy/Resources

BBC Chinese: Japan Turned to ICAO to Discuss China’s Air Defense ID Zone

BBC Chinese recently reported that Japan took the issues arising out of China’s creation of the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The Japanese representative asked the ICAO Council to have a discussion on how to deal with the newly established Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone. Japan called the Zone a potential threat to international civil aviation order and safety. The United States, Great Britain, and Australia all agreed with the Japanese on their call for a discussion. However China disagreed. The United States government stated that the U.S. government expects civil airlines to follow the ICAO regulations on issuing NOTAM (Notice to Airmen). However that does not mean that the U.S. government accepts Beijing’s terms for its Zone. Since rounds of foreign military aircraft have ignored the Chinese Identification Zone rules, the Chinese Air Force has started sending fighter jets to identify the aircraft entering the Zone.

Source: BBC Chinese, November 30, 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/world/2013/11/131130_japan_icao_china.shtml

Briefings | | December 3, 2013 | Geo-Strategic Trend

Guangming Daily: China’s Scientific Journals Lag Behind

Recently, the 9th Scientific Journal Development Forum was held in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Over 600 scholars from the domestic and foreign scientific journal industry participated in the forum.

Guangming Daily published an article summarizing the discussion on the topic of how the fact that China’s scientific journals lag behind other countries is incompatible with China’s image as a scientific and economic giant. The article said that China has the largest number of researchers who publish the second largest number of scientific papers and it also holds the third largest number of patents in the world. China has close to 5,000 scientific journals. They account for 50 percent of the total number of journals in China. Thus China ranks second in the world next to the U.S. However, only 239 or 5 percent of those journals are in English. Their quality is considered to be low and they do not have much of an impact in their respective scientific fields. The article disclosed that over 80 percent of the Chinese researchers have chosen to publish their papers in foreign journals rather than in domestic journals. It also said that China’s journal industry is behind in online and digital publishing. Currently scientific groups, research agencies, or universities publish articles, but they have a limited publication size and sales channels and can hardly compete with international publishers.

The article also reported that the General Administration of Press and Publications, Radio, Film and Television has and will continue to introduce policies to assist in the development of the scientific journal industry and to improve its international influence.

Source: Guangming Daily, November 30, 2013
http://news.gmw.cn/2013-11/30/content_9652103.htm

Briefings | | December 2, 2013 | Information/Technology

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Cheng Xiaonong: U.S.-China Strategic Relations Have Crystallized

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

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