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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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Chinese Railway Ministry Refused to Disclose the Available Number of Chun Yun Train Tickets

Chun Yun, the Chinese New Year’s travel season, usually starts 15 days before the Lunar New Year and ends 25 days afterwards. It is China’s busiest travel season of the year. Between January 8 and February 16 of 2012, the total volume of tickets using all means of travel was over 3 billion. One of the major issues in railway transportation is the difficulty of purchasing train tickets.

Two Beijing lawyers recently requested that the Ministry of Railways disclose the available number of railway tickets for sale during the Chun Yun period. The Ministry of Railways refused the request, claiming that information about railway ticket sales falls under the domain of the railway transportation enterprises and is therefore not applicable as government information. Some people questioned the black-box operations of the Ministry of Railways.

One economist questioned the logic of the response. "Generally speaking, Chun Yun is a major social issue. The government has a greater responsibility than corporations do to be transparent to the public. The enterprises subordinate to the Ministry of Railways are monopolistic enterprises; they are thus different from normal private companies in a highly competitive sector. The response is very strange and does not pass the logic test. … Information of this kind should be open and there is no reason to hide it."

A lawyer told Radio Free Asia, "It is a problem with the whole system. All authorities shirk their responsibilities. It is not just one single ministry; it is the whole government system that is shirking its responsibilities."

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 8, 2013
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/zg-02082013112753.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Canadian Singer Sang a Revolutionary Opera Piece at CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala

Thomas Glenn, a Canadian opera singer who won a Grammy Award in 2012 for best Opera recording, sang a Revolutionary Beijing Opera piece at Chinese Central Television’s (CCTV) 2013 Spring Festival Gala.

The Spring Festival Gala, also known as Chun Wan, is one of the government TV network’s flagship programs. It provides a live broadcast every year on the Chinese New Year’s Eve to billions of Chinese people, domestically and overseas, who are celebrating the Lunar New Year at home, most of whom have their TV turned on. The four-plus-hour-long gala, put together after almost a year-long preparation, with the programs carefully selected and heavily censored, served the purpose of propagandizing the ruling regime’s accomplishments over the past year while entertaining the audience.

At CCTV’s official website that hosted the program, a subtitle identified Glenn as a student of the Confucius Institute, a language-teaching facility sponsored and driven by the Chinese government. According to the Confucius Institute’s website, since 2004 it has launched over 300 Confucius Institutes and 500 Confucius Classrooms in five continents. The Revolutionary Opera Piece, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, is one of the eight Revolutionary operas, or model operas, (Chinese: 样板戏; pinyin: yàngbǎnxì) planned and engineered during the Cultural Revolution by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife. They are commonly viewed as typical propaganda pieces for the Communist Party.

Source: China Central Television, February 10, 2013
http://chunwan.cctv.com/2013/02/10/VIDE1360474568955538.shtml

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

China’s State Media Closely Follow the Cyber-War Strategy of the United States

China’s state-run media Xinhua published a news article on February 6, 2013, about U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta’s speech at Georgetown University. The article particularly focused on Mr. Panetta’s answer to a question regarding cyber attacks. It said that Mr. Panetta issued a warning about the threat of a cyberwar and said cyberspace would inevitably be one of the future battlefields. 

The article reported that Panetta called on Congress to strengthen the Defense Department’s cyberwar capability and warned that the next “Pearl Harbor” might very well happen on the battlefield of cyberspace. 
The article also stated that the “cyber warfare capability is one of the [U.S.] Defense Department ‘s priorities in the area of development. U.S. media have reported that the Defense Department approved an expansion of the manpower in Internet security by five times over the next few years in order to deal with Internet security challenges and launch cyber attacks against foreign targets. At the same time, the U.S. is reviewing the legal procedures and policies involving the application of Internet weapons.” 
Source: Xinhua, February 6, 2013 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2013-02/07/c_124333555.htm?prolongation=1

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5189
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Yunnan Province Stops Sentencing People to Forced Labor Camps

Meng Sutie, the Yunan Party Secretary of Politics and Law, announced that Yunnan would cease processing “cases of re-education through labor,” effective immediately. It has been common in China for the authorities to suppress opponents of the government by administratively sentencing them to forced labor camps as punishment. Meng, as Yunnan’s top law enforcement official, made the announcement on February 5, 2013, “Throughout the province, Yunnan will cease to approve and review all cases of re-education through labor for three alleged actions: endangering national security, constantly petitioning the authorities to redress officials’ abuse of power, and vilifying a leader’s image. The processing of cases based on other grounds will be suspended and will be handled in accordance with relevant laws; re-education through labor will not be used."
 
Source: Xinhua, February 7, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-02/07/c_124332693.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

Xi Jinping Calls for Enhancing Combat Readiness

Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the China Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, visited the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and the Lanzhou Military District Command on February 2 and 3, 2013. While touring the Lanzhou Military District Command, Xi emphasized that China “must make efforts to expand and deepen military readiness, to promote the acceleration of the development of information technology, and to constantly enhance the combat capability of information systems; this is to ensure that the military troops quickly respond when called upon, are ready to fight when responding, and will win if engaged in a war.”

Source: Xinhua, February 6, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-02/06/c_114637957.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics

People’s Daily: U.S. Primarily Responsible for Curbing Cyber Warfare

A February 7, 2013, People’s Daily opinion piece opened with the New York Times report about President Obama’s broad power to order a preemptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad. It also mentioned the Washington Post report about the Pentagon’s approval of a major expansion of the U.S. cybersecurity force over the next several years. The size will increase more than fivefold in order to bolster the nation’s ability to defend critical computer systems and conduct offensive computer operations against foreign adversaries.

The article continued, "Coincidentally, at the same time that the United States revealed its network warfare plans, some U.S. media also began, based upon hearsay evidence, to run rampant speculation about the so-called ‘China network threat theory,’ thus trashing China. It’s not the first time; nor will it be the last time for the real thief to assume innocence by preemptively calling others thieves. The purpose is to artificially create enemies and provide an excuse for the United States to engage in network warfare."

"The United States is in a leading position in the field of information technology. It holds most of the world’s Internet resources and critical infrastructure. It also has primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in cyberspace. The United States should clearly recognize that taking the lead in developing cyber warfare capabilities and pursuing absolute military superiority will lead to an arms race and military conflict in cyberspace, bringing unpredictable catastrophic consequences to human society."

Source: People’s Daily, February 7, 2013
http://media.people.com.cn/n/2013/0207/c40606-20457814.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua: U.S. Frequent Speculation about Chinese Hacker Attacks Is to Make China Lose Face

He Hui, Deputy Director of the Public Opinion Institute of Communication at the University of China, published an opinion article on the Xinhua website discussing the U.S. media’ reports regarding Chinese hackers attacking U.S. entities. He points out that the U.S. media have three motives for repeatedly hyping these Chinese hacker attacks. 

1) They want to encourage the United States and the even the whole world to guard against China. China is already the world’s second-largest economy. Due to the rapid pace of China’s development and the growth of its economic strength, it is not easy to attack China directly or to block China’s development. Instead, they use a devious strategy that can have some effect or interfere to some extent. 
2) The U.S. government shows an ambiguous attitude toward the U.S. media’s hyping [of Chinese hacking] and stays in the background to harvest the benefits, "reserving" its use as an excuse to increase its military budget. 
3) They are attempting to fortify the U.S.’s dominant position in the information field. Hyping the news that U.S. companies suffer from Chinese hacker attacks will undoubtedly make Chinese information companies lose face. … Hyping the report that China has used hacker attacks to obtain information illegally will not only make the Chinese government face a credibility crisis; it will also subject Chinese information technology companies to suspicion that they are engaging in improper competition. Naturally, this is beneficial to the U.S. government and to American companies. 
Source: Xinhua, February 4, 2013 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/yzyd/mil/20130204/c_114607399.htm?prolongation=1

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

CRN: Inflated GDP Hurts China’s Economy

China Review News published a commentary on the gap between the official GDP and the GDP as calculated by totaling the figures from local governments. According to the preliminary number that China’s National Bureau of Statistics released earlier, the domestic GDP for 2012 was 52 trillion yuan (about US$8.3 trillion). However, the total of the GDP figures that the local governments released was 5.76 trillion yuan (about $9.3 trillion), a discrepancy of 5.76 trillion yuan. The two figures have been inconsistent for several years.

According to the author, “the cause of the difference is that the local governments inflate GDP. Apart from statistical standards and technical reasons, the figure bears a direct relationship to how a number of local officials measure their performance. The most direct consequences of this inflated GDP are that it leads to economic data distortion and misguided macro-control policies; it adversely affects the moral integrity of the government and its attempt to build its credibility; and, eventually, it will hurt the healthy and steady development of the national economy and the people’s vital interests.”

Source: China Review News, February 5, 2013
http://www.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1024/3/0/3/102430386.html?coluid=123&kindid=0&docid=102430386&mdate=0205104515

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics