All posts by LLD - 219. page

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met on October 28 in Moscow, Russia, for the thirteenth annual meeting between the premiers of the two countries. During the meeting, Wen and Putin exchanged their views on major issues regarding the pragmatic cooperation between the two countries. On the same day, the Xinhua News Agency published the background material on its website (Xinhuanet) about the system of the two premiers having regular meetings annually. Below is a translation to the background material. [1]

In April of 1996, Yeltsin, the Russian president at the time, visited China. He and Jiang Zemin, who was then the chairman of China, came to an agreement that there should be periodic meetings between China and Russia. They both agreed that it was very important that different branches of the two countries could communicate frequently in various ways and it was especially important for the leaders of the two countries to get in touch regularly. From December 26 to 28 of the same year, Li Peng, the premier of China at the time, went to Russia for a working visit. During the visit, the two sides agreed to a new system of having annual meetings between the two Premiers. Since the establishment of this system, the premiers from the two countries have met once every year.

There are three major regular meeting branches under this system: the meeting between premiers, the meeting for humanitarian affairs cooperation, and the meeting for energy negotiation among representatives. In all the foreign cooperation systems, this one [the meeting between the premiers] has the highest level, the most complete framework, and the widest area of discussion. The establishment of this system has pushed forward the good neighborliness and mutual beneficial cooperation, and has driven a healthy development of the strategic partnership of Russia and China. The major successes resulting from these meetings in recent years are as follows:

9/8/2001: Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and Russian Premier Kasiyanov met in St. Petersburg for the Sixth Regular Meeting and signed a joint communiqué.

8/22/2002: Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and Russian Premier Kasiyanov met in Shanghai for the Seventh Regular Meeting. The two parties thoroughly exchanged opinions on issues such as enhancing cooperation between the two nations, anti-terrorism, and easing tensions in hot spot regions.

9/24/2003: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Premier Kasiyanov met in Beijing for the Eighth Regular Meeting. The two parties both agreed that at the same time of making breakthroughs in the development of bilateral economic and trade relations, the two countries should extend humanitarian cooperation.

9/24/2004: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Premier Fradkov met in Moscow for the Ninth Regular Meeting. In a friendly and collaborative atmosphere, the two parties summarized the cooperative achievements between the two countries, worked over ways for solving existing problems, and determined the priorities of future works.

11/3/2005: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Premier Fradkov met in Beijing for the Tenth Regular Meeting. The two sides signed eight agreements in the fields of economics, education, health, banking, etc., and issued the “Joint Communiqué of the Tenth Regular Meeting Between Chinese and Russian Premiers.”

11/9/2006: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Premier Fradkov met in Beijing for the Eleventh Regular Meeting and both attended the closing ceremony of China’s “Year of Russia.” The two sides signed 17 agreements in the fields of energy cooperation, financial insurance cooperation, news exchange, etc.

11/6/2007: Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Premier Zubkov met in Moscow for the Twelfth Regular Meeting. They signed a joint communiqué, and together attended the signing ceremony for signing the agreements on the cooperation between the two countries in the fields of trade, energy, technology, banking, border trade, etc.

Endnotes:
[1] Xinhuanet, October 28th, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-10/28/content_10267944.htm

The following is the translation of a series of interviews Radio Free Asia (RFA) conducted on the general election of village heads in China. [1]
BEIJING — On November 4, 2008, the U. S. elected an African-American, Barack Obama, as the next President of the United State of America. Yet, in China, some of the websites were still discussing the issues related to the election of village heads, and the people sighed over the struggling village elections in China.

Guang Ming Daily, an official Chinese News website published an article Xu Xun-Lei titled, "The U.S. Presidential Election Versus the Election of Village heads in China." The author disclosed that in recent years, there have been a lot of issues with the election of village heads in China, including bribery, the Village Committee and the Village Party Branch of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fighting for interests and power, and the lack of the judiciary playing its role that has caused corruption among village officials. The author quoted some of well-known experts within the Party, "Despite of existing issues, the direct election of the villages needs to be extended to the township level. In recent years, there are many people requesting that the general election of officials [be expanded] from the village to the township level, but the Central Government and many local government officials have opposed such requests." The author believes that this has been an obvious obstacle for moving one-step, or even half-a-step towards democracy. The general election of village heads in China was piloted in the mid-1990s [but] until now, it is still very hard to move forward. Cheng Xiao-Nong, the Editor-in-Chief of "Contemporary China Studies," a magazine in the U.S., has been working for the Chinese Reformation Committee. He is very familiar with the problems of Chinese farmers. He expressed that, in fact, the general election of village heads in China is deviated; it cannot be regarded, in a sense, as a genuine form of democratic election.

The CCP has used some clever ways to maintain its power; as a result, the Village Committee Organization Laws have been short-changed. In the end, they have gradually become the CCP’s former local appointed organizations who appoint officials for the villages; then, a fake voting system is used to pass the nomination. First, competition is not allowed; second, all candidates must be approved by the CCP beforehand. Therefore, the general election of village heads is much less meaningful; it has returned into the CCP’s local organization for appointing the village officials.

Mr. Cheng believes that the reason for the general elections of village officials running into difficulties is that the CCP does not want to give up its power in a "One-Party-Totalitarian System."

"The earlier elections of the villagers, generally, were relatively clean and normal. To the CCP, on the one hand, it was desirable to have the villagers’ general election form; however, it cannot allow the officials who are elected to be out of the control of the CCP. Therefore, along the way, the basic direction of the local governments has been to reinforce the leadership of the CCP, and there has been a gradual manipulation of the elections mainly through intervention from local CCP organizations.

Li Hong Kuan, the past Editor-in-Chief of a U.S.-based online magazine, "Big Reference," regards the general elections in Chinese villages as not comparable to general elections in democratic countries.

"They are incomparable because they are from systems of a different nature. In the United State, at the general elections, the Executive Head of a government is elected, but not the village heads. Frankly, in a village, the Village Secretary of the CCP, picks a running dog, or a gopher as the Village Head to carry out the CCP’s Central Birth Policy. It was like in World War II, the Japanese selecting a Committee Head to govern the villages by the same token. The Head of the Committee had no authority; the main power was in the hands of the Japanese. The real power over the land and the allocation of benefits belongs to the Village Branch Secretary of the CCP."

According to "the Village Committee Organization Law," the Village Heads are directly elected by the villagers expressed Cheng Xiao-Nong. Any organizations or individuals cannot appoint or replace [the village head]; however, local organizations of the CCP often intervene in the elections in the villages. In some areas, it happens all the time that the local governments appoint or replace the village heads. Cheng believes that the root of the culprit is "the One-Party-Totalitarian System," of the CCP that has caused difficulties for the general elections in the villages.

Endnote:
[1] Radio Free Asia, November 6, 2008,
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/xuanju-11062008110216.html

International Herald Leader under Xinhua published an article on October 6 on the U.S. economic policy under the situation of the world financial crisis. [1]
On October 3, the U.S. Congress passed the $850 billion financial rescue package. President Bush was relieved with a smile on his face, but led Chinese experts to worry.

US Assets Melting Down

 “The United States has always asked the whole world to bear the U.S. difficulties. It won’t be an exception for this time.” Zhou Shijian, Senior Research Analyst of the US-China Research Center of Qinghua University, told the reporter in an interview. Since the World War II, the United States has been issuing large amount of U.S. dollars (cash) and issuing national debt to resolve its economic crises. However, these methods, to certain extent, amount to transferring the risks to other countries including China.

Lu Qianjin, Associate Professor from Department of International Finance of Fudan University, said the main source of the rescue package issued by the United States was increasing national debts; it would make the financial deficit even worse, consequently, increasing the deficit in trade. It could hinder the growth of U.S. dollars and potentially force the dollar back to the depreciation track.

 “If the dollar depreciates, the price of the future oil products will remain high, and it poses the risk of asset melting down for the countries that hold U.S. assets.” Lu Qianjin said. At the same time, Lu said: “these countries will also face the same risk of asset melting down if the United States is to reduce its debt by depreciating the dollars.”

 “$850 billion rescue package is like purchasing medicines from the world to cure the U.S. disease.” Zhou Shijian told International Herald Leader. Currently, there is only one third of the U.S. dollars circulating within the United States. According to the report from the U.S. Treasury Department, China is the second largest holder of the U.S. debts.
   
Companies in China Are Suffering “US Default”

In reality, since the financial crisis started, the U.S. has been transferring its crisis to others. Zhou Shijian is using word of “killing buddies” to describe the U.S. behavior. “Europe has the best relationship with the United States, now Europe is in a crisis. The next is Japan, and then China” Zhou Shijian said.

Lu Qianjin said, China is not only facing the risk of dollar depreciation and bankruptcy of the U.S. financial institutes, it also faces the risk of the U.S. companies transferring their losses by defaulting on payments.

Currently, there are thousands of companies in Zhejiang Province facing default of the U.S. companies. The financial crisis has caused the decline in consumers’ spending in the United States.  Importers could not get their cash collected and the cash flow fell short. In addition, banks have tightened up their loans. Importers could not get their loans easily. Some importers announced bankruptcy after their cash flow broke, as a result, the companies in China could not get their payments for goods exported to the United States.

 “The U.S. companies have actually transferred their losses [to Chinese companies].” Lu Qianjin said.

Psychological Impact Could Not be Ignored

Tan Yaling, from the China financial research center of Beijing University, said in this financial crisis, through proactive adjustment, the U.S. has moved from reaction mode to pro-action mode and has transferred its loss to others.

 “The United States has a mature economy.  Many of its actions are strategic and foreseeing.  Sometimes, it uses the psychological factors to influence countries like China and to transfer its risks.” Tan Yaling said that  the U.S. stock market is going downward, however, the U.S. dollar index is going up.  “It is very abnormal. Therefore, you could see the U.S. strategies coordinate very well as planned.”

Tan Yaling said further that the dollar strengthening is to meet the need of inbound asset flow to the US. “It satisfies the market need in this special period,” at the same time, the U.S. is using the fluctuation of its stock market to throw the world into crisis. Even on the same day of the rescue package approval, the stock market dropped.

“Why it could be this way.  October 3 was Friday and the Chinese market closed for that week. On Monday before we open the market, we must check the U.S. market.” Tan Yaling said.

Tan Yaling told International Herald Leader, “by self-adjustment, the U.S. is using the psychological factors and policies to influence the market development in other countries.” The U.S. is not stronger than others, but rather behaved worse than others.

Or to Expand the Export of the Military Products

Because the rescue package costs $850 billion, the U.S. has to pay a huge amount of interest in the future. Lu Qianjin said that to make up this big hole, the U.S. could expand its export in military products.

 “There would be strong opposition if the U.S. government wants to tighten up the belt of its own people to solve the problem by increasing the taxes. One may have seen the opposition during the process of negotiating the rescue package.” Lu Qianjin said that another way of improving the economy and lessening the financial pressure would be to expand exports to increase income and tax revenue. “Especially expanding the export of military products is a fast and effective way of relieving the financial pressure in the US.”

Currently, the U.S. government has started to sell military products to Taiwan and the total amount will be $6.46 billion. “In the future, the United States may use future geo-political conflicts or the alleged potential military threats to expand exports of military products to certain countries and areas, hoping Exports of Munitions would alleviate domestic economic problems.” Lu Qianjin predicted.

Endnote:
[1] International Herald Leader, October 6, 2008  http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2008-10/06/content_10154827.htm

On October 6, 2008, the International Herald Leader, a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency, published a respondent to the arrest and lawsuit against the Chinese-American physicist, Shu Quansheng, Ph.D., by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [1]
LOS ANGELES, BEIJING — While the Chinese around the world joyfully celebrated the launching of Shenzhou VII, the news of "The Chinese Aerospace Spy Arrested," came out from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the United States. On the early morning of September 24, 2008, the FBI arrested the Chinese-American physicist, Shu Quansheng, Ph.D., the President and CEO of the U.S. AMAC International Inc., in Norfolk, Virginia.

The FBI filed three indictments against Shu Quansheng: Illegally provided the defense service to the foreign agents in violation of the U.S. "Weapon Export Control Law," exported defense goods, and bribed or attempted to bribe foreign government officials in violation of the U.S. "Foreign Corruption Law, respectively." If all of these charges were convicted, Shu Quansheng would face up to a 25-year of imprisonments.

The Chinese-American Scientist Was Accused of Selling Technology

The FBI indictments indicated that Shu Quansheng provided professional technology to the aerospace plans; assisted the purchase of foreign technology, and the improvement of the aerospace and the satellite abilities of China. The FBI official stated that Shu Quansheng was suspicious of providing the technology that "will be used to implement the plans for future lunar landing and the new generation rocket fuel for its space station plans of China." The indictments indicated that since 2003, Shu Quansheng has sold the technology of developing the liquefaction hydrogen rockets to China, and provided the low-temperature pump, the low-temperature valve and the refrigeration equipment related to the liquefied hydrogen technologies for the construction of astronautics launch station in Hainan Province, China, all of them violated the "Weapon Export Control Law."

After the turmoil 1989-political movement, the U.S. implemented the weapon embargo against China, and it is prohibited to sell the high-tech products to the Chinese military departments. This prohibition is still effective and has become the prosecution legal basis for the law enforcement authority to investigate the Chinese-American espionage case.

At NASA, A Person of Great Merit, Earns High Prestige in the U.S.

The 68-years-old Shu Quansheng was born in Shanghai, China. He is a well-known scholar at the areas of accelerator, superconductivity and cryogenics, and has earned high prestige in the American scientific community. On October 5, 2008, the International Herald Leader called the office of AMAC Beijing branch, but nobody answered. According to the website of the AMAC Beijing branch, Shu Quansheng was the Chairman of the U.S. Applied Superconductivity Conference in 2001, and was a member of the Commerce Committee for President Bush

During the college years, Shu Quansheng majored in Physics. In 1970, after graduated and earned his Ph.D., he started teaching at Zhe Jiang University in China, and was engaged in the cryogenic technique research. In the mid-1980s, Shu Quansheng immigrated to the U.S. and was engaged in the scientific research at Washington University. In 1998, he became an American citizen. In the same year, he founded AMAC in Newport News, Virginia, and became the CEO of the company. 10

AMAC had been granted $4.7 million for research and renovation from the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA because of its outstanding achievements in the areas of superconductivity accelerating cavity, the radio frequency power coupler, the magnetic suspension cryogenic system and the astronautics low temperature. Shu Quansheng had led and completed six projects related to low temperature and superconductivity. According to the website of the AMAC Beijing branch, he developed the first prototype of Cryogenic Transfer Line with Magnetic Suspension in the world from 2001 to 2004. This magnetic suspension technology would improve the launch quality and lengthen the flight life span of the vehicle.

The U.S. Media Implicated the FBI Abused Its Power

The analysis of the aerospace plan of China from an American scholar may explain the intention of the FBI’s publicity of this so-called, "the Chinese Aerospace Spy Case," at the launch of Shenzhou VII. Charles Vick, a senior analyst for GlobalSecurity.org research group, a think tank in the defense information and aerospace research, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., indicated during the interview that although the military power of China in outer space falls far behind the U.S., China possibly would threaten the leadership position of the U.S. in 15 years as a result of the its fast economy development and the support in aerospace plan of its government.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the "The National Anti-Expansion Plan," in 2007, with the main purpose of prohibiting the export of sensitive military or military-civilian technology to China, Iran and so on. However, as early as in 2005, the FBI official publicly declared China as the biggest espionage threat. By now, the U.S. government has already filed at least 20 espionage cases that involved exporting sensitive technology to China. With incessant Chinese spy cases emerging, even the U.S. media, which always pursue sensation, started to suspect the authenticity. When "Forbes" magazine reported the Shu Quansheng case, it mentioned the Li Wen He case in 1999. It pointed out that Li Wen He finally sought the justice and obtained the compensation from the government and the media. It implied that the FBI abused its power during the investigation of the so-called Chinese spy cases.

An anonymous retired Chinese aerospace engineer told the International Herald Leader that the FBI and the other U.S. law enforcement agencies are still keeping the mindsets of the cold war. Their first impressions are that most Chinese technical personnel could be the Chinese spies of which made these Chinese-Americans impossible to protect themselves. The fundamental reason of these "the Chinese Espionage Cases" is the ideology conflicts between the different political systems of the U.S. and China, particularly the U.S. authorities still regard the rising China as the potential enemy. Under the present circumstance that both countries have close ties on economics and technologies, it could be predicted that more so-called "the Chinese Espionage Cases" would emerge.

Endnote:
[1] International Herald Leader, October 6, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2008-10/06/content_10154808.htm