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

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RFA: Beijing Public Security Bureau Allocated Shocking Amount of Funding for Public Safety

China.com, a website sponsored by the State Council Information Office, issued a report on the 2013 budgets that the Beijing Public Security Bureau and the Transportation Bureau published. The report stated that the total 2013 budget for the Beijing Public Security Bureau was over 3.8 billion yuan (US$610 million). Of that money, 3.2 billion yuan (US$520 million) was allocated to “public safety.” That figure represents an increase of 18.5 percent from the 2.7 billion yuan (US$430 million) that was allocated for 2012.

Hu Jia, an activist from Beijing told RFA that China has never been transparent about its spending on the military and on public safety and the situation in China has worsened compared with last year. Hu said that a politically empowered interest group makes this investment in maintaining public safety in order to maintain its monopoly on power. That group is the “Politics and Law Committee,” the group that Zhou Yongkang used to head. Hu stated, "The ‘Politics and Law Committee’ is not a state organ but rather a Party agency. … Zhou stepped down four months ago, but we felt that the situation in China worsened during the recent Lianghui (two meetings: the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) compared with the 18th National Congress last year.”

Wang Juntao, a Chinese dissident currently living in the U.S., believes that many people in China have hope that the new leadership will bring change to China, but based on what has happened so far, the new leadership is more or less trying to continue the old policy from Deng, Jiang, and Hu, which means to continue the policy of maintaining stability.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 22, 2013
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/jz-03222013154114.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Military Scholar: Expand Military Power to Maintain Energy Safety

Zhao Jingfang, a Professor with the National Defense University PLA, wrote an article on the issue of the challenge of energy safety that China currently faces. China relies heavily on energy imports while it is seriously lacking in effective measures to control energy safety overseas. The article listed the following three areas in which the Chinese military can play a key role in protecting energy safety: 1) The PLA can increase military capacity which can effectively stop the outside world from posing a threat to China’s energy safety. 2) The PLA can increase exchanges with other countries: actively participate in UN peace keeping efforts; increase military cooperation with developing countries; organize forums and technology exchange conferences on topics of energy safety with neighboring countries; perform military exercises in key passageways; and increase the presence of China’s naval vessels. 3) China’s combined political, economic, military, and cultural power can be used to maintain active control of the overall situation.

Source: China Review News, March 24, 2013
http://www.zhgpl.com/doc/1024/6/3/3/102463382.html?coluid=1&kindid=0&docid=102463382&mdate=0324002305

Briefings | | |   Defense/Military

Huanqiu: Close Ties between China and Russia Will Benefit Both in Foreign Policy

On March 23, 2013, Huanqiu published an opinion piece on Xi Jinping’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The article discussed how the two countries can benefit from strategic energy cooperation. It said, "Since China will ultimately become the biggest importer of oil from Russia, it means that, as long as both countries can build a strong basis for trust with each other, China and Russia will have strategic close ties with each other." The article also stated that the cooperation between China and Russia will not harm either country’s relationship with the Western world. It continued, “The strong alliance between the two will not be enough to threaten the Western world, but the strategic partnership would be strong enough for either country to face the isolation and attacks from the outside world.” 

Source: Huaqiu, March 23, 2013
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2013-03/3760782.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Xi Jinping’s China Dream

The “China Dream,” or “Chinese Dream” as some others have translated it, is currently the most fashionable term in China’s media. When Xi Jinping was formally “approved” as China’s president at the National People’s Congress (NPC) last Sunday, he used the “China Dream” as the main theme in his NPC keynote speech. Xi repeatedly stated the term “China Dream,” using it on nine occasions and vowed to lead the nation to realize the “China Dream.”

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Perspectives | | |   Opinion

Editorial: U.S. Uses Rogue Means against China to Pave the Way for Its Cyber Army Development

Huanqiu (Global Times), a division of People’s Daily, published an editorial accusing the U.S. of preparing for a cyber war by smearing China. The article has also been republished on the websites of People’s Daily and Xinhua. Below are excerpts from the article: 

“Keith Alexander, Commander of the U.S. Military Cyber Warfare Command, reported to Congress on Tuesday that he was building 13 cyber offense brigades and 27 squads in order to safeguard the United States and in retaliation against those countries using cyberspace to attack the U.S. This is the first time that the Obama administration has publicly acknowledged the development of Internet offensive weapons and means.” 
“This reminds everyone of the U.S.’s recent accusations that the Chinese military supports hacker attacks against the United States. A U.S. organization fabricated a report. First, the American media hyped it. Then senior U.S. officials up to Obama also got involved, putting on a show that the United States is suffering from Chinese government-backed hacker attacks. All of this is to pave the way for the United States to announce its plan to establish an offensive army using cyber warfare!” 
“This is really a manifestation of the U.S. government’s lack of moral integrity; it smears China’s reputation as part of its opening ceremony in the formation of its offensive cyber warfare forces. The action shows a lack of the most basic respect for China.” 
“China faces a choice; China should not be naive, nor does it need to be shy. We should immediately start to set up a cyber war army and build an online Great Wall to defend China’s national security. We must not be limited by the double standard that the United States is bound to have, being left far behind the advanced countries in cyber warfare techniques.” 
“The United States taught a lesson to the whole Chinese society, including the Chinese government. The United States is a country whose government and people have a high degree of institutional coordination capacity. For the U.S. national interest, non-governmental organizations and associations are highly motivated to cooperate with the government. The United States government is also very professional and skillful in manipulating social resources.” 
“The cyber warfare structure is far from fixed. It will continue to evolve in the future. China should not only make a great effort to build its cyber warfare capabilities; it should also be mindful not to weaken the research and development of advanced weapons of conventional warfare.” 
Source: Huanqiu, March 15, 2013 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2013-03/15/c_124463692.htm http://military.people.com.cn/n/2013/0315/c1011-20799794.
html http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2013-03/3734812.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Sichuan Hit by the Worst Drought in over Twenty Years

Sichuan Province is now in the middle of the worst drought in over 20 years. Since November 2012, the average precipitation has dropped by 52 percent. Drought continued after the spring of 2013, spreading rapidly throughout Sichuan Province, which has the largest drought-stricken area in over 20 years.

According to the Sichuan authorities, over 6 million of its population have been hit by drought. About 1.15 million people and 360,000 large livestock suffer from a lack of drinking water. The drought has also damaged or destroyed 395,000 acres of crops, with the direct economic loss alone reaching 1.74 billion yuan (approximately US$277 million).

Source: People’s Daily, March 21, 2013
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/0321/c70731-20869736.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

China’s Oceanic Environment Continues to Deteriorate

On March 20, 2013, China’s State Oceanic Administration released its 2012 report on China’s oceanic environment. The report indicated that the quality of the seawater along China’s coastline deteriorated in 2012 as a result of disasters including oil spills. For example, the oil spill from the sub-sea wells in the Penglai 19-3 oil field in June 2011 and from the oil explosion at the Dalian Xingang on July 16, 2010, continue to have an adverse effect on the adjacent waters and the ecological environment.

An increasing volume of pollutants are being dumped into the sea. In 2012, the pollutants discharged from 72 rivers into the ocean rose from last year to a total of 17.05 million tons. Liaohe estuary, Yellow River estuary, Yangtze river estuary, and Zhouhai estuary have seen dramatic adverse ecological deterioration. About 70 percent of the nearby waters are below standard.

The report also said that a total of 170,000 square kilometers of near-shore waters are now below the first grade of seawater quality, which is the level suitable for hosting marine life and natural reserves.

Source: China’s State Oceanic Administration, March 20, 2013
http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2013-03/20/content_2358728.htm

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Xinhua: China Faces Serious Threat of Cyber Attacks from U.S.

On March 19, 2013, the National Emergency Response Center (CNCERT) released a report claiming that China faces a serious threat of cyber attacks from outside of China. 

The report said that in 2012, there were about 73,000 Trojans or botnet network control servers (NCS) involved in the control of host servers in Chinese territory, a year-on-year increase of 56.9 percent; also, 1802 government websites were defaced (altered), a year-on-year increase of 21.4 percent. 
The CNCERT report also stated that, in 2012, 12,891 network control servers from the United States controlled more than 10.512 million host servers in China. In addition, it stated that 96.2 percent of the fishing sites targeting China were located offshore, up to 83.2 percent of them being from the United States. 

"The attacks on China’s Internet are mainly from the United States," reported Zhou Yonglin, director of the Operations Department of CNCERT. 

Source: Xinhua, March 19, 2013 
 http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-03/19/c_115081043.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations