On December 26, 2012, People’s Daily Overseas Edition published an article by a Chinese scholar from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) on why China must give a strong geopolitical response to the U.S. strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region. The following is a quote from the article.

“The shift of the U.S. strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region means that the United State has targeted China as the main objective of its current global strategy. This pushes China into a position where it has nowhere to retreat or hide; it can  only give tit for tat. It is worth being vigilant over the fact that the United States will not just contain China, that is, prevent the expansion of China’s influence. From the historical experience of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, there must also be murders accompanying the containment. In Africa, the United States excludes China’s economic interests and political influence; in the Middle East, it grips China’s energy throat; and in the countries neighboring China, it seeks and supports forces to contain China. It even directly ruins the key to China’s security and its development in East Asia. Together with its strategies to internally penetrate, evolve, and divide China, the U.S. does not simply contain China for the purpose of stopping our expansion, but chokes China for the purpose of manipulation and even suffocation.”

Source: People’s Daily Overseas Edition, December 26, 2012
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2012-12/26/content_1165465.htm

On December 26, 2012, the People’s Daily (Overseas Edition) published an article authored by a researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a government think tank. The author observed that, since the U.S. global strategic adjustment, or its return to the Asia-Pacific, historical and significant changes have taken place in Sino-US strategic relations and in China’s own security environment. "These changes are by no means a single U.S. President’s personal preference or a so-called strategic misjudgment between two sides; rather, they stem from an inevitable strategic reason, which is the new phase of the U.S. global strategy."

The article pointed out that from a geopolitical perspective, since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. global strategy has gone through two major historical stages. "In the 10 years of the 1990s, the strategic focus was to absorb Eastern Europe through the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU; in the first 10 years of the new century, the focus was to expand in the Middle East and Central Asia by launching two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, instigating color revolutions in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, and implementing a plan for the democratization of the Greater Middle East region. The overall objective of the U.S. was to take full control of the Eurasian continent and pave the way for finally overpowering China and Russia."

"The U.S.’s shifting strategic focus from Central Asia and the Middle East to East Asia is the implementation of strategic steps that are in complete accord with its established plan. It was just the momentum of China’s rise that further strengthened the necessity and urgency of the move."

"Out of its hegemonic geopolitical needs, the U.S. will never allow a unified geopolitical bloc that it cannot control to appear on the other side of the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. After World War II and the Cold War, the U.S. succeeded in achieving this on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Now it is trying to achieve the same goal through a new Cold War on the other side of the Pacific Ocean."

"The historical experience of the Cold War indicates that this containment must be accompanied by murder. The U.S. has been crowding out China’s economic interests and political influence in Africa, holding a tight grip on China’s energy throat in the Middle East, finding and supporting the forces of containment around China, and interfering with issues vital to China’s security and development in East Asia, as well as penetrating and dividing China from within. This is more than a mere containment to stop expansion; it is a stranglehold for the purpose of manipulation and even suffocation."

The author pointed out that there is a fundamental difference between the transpacific and transatlantic relationships, as it is impossible for China to become an ally of the U.S. "There are only two ways out for China: either to independently win a place in the future multi-polar world’s political landscape by withstanding the external pressure, or to follow the steps of the former Soviet Union and experience the ravages."

Source: People’s Daily, December 26, 2012
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2012-12/26/content_1165465.htm

China’s Defense Ministry held a regular press conference on December 27, 2012, in response to the U.S. Congress passing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 [NDAA]. Yang Yujun, the Deputy Secretary of the Information Office and spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said that the China-related content in the NDAA "is a gross interference in China’s sovereignty and internal affairs and is not conducive to China-US strategic mutual trust. We express our firm opposition [to the bill]."