China Communist Party declares Xi Jinping ‘core’ leader

China’s ruling Communist Party declared its General Secretary Xi Jinping the “core” of its leadership on Thursday, elevating his already powerful status.

A communique issued by top party leaders after a four-day meeting in Beijing called on all its members to “closely unite around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core”, said the People’s Daily, the party’s official mouthpiece.

The announcement followed a gathering of 400 top party leaders in Beijing for a meeting known as the Sixth Plenum to discuss changes to party structure and discipline.

All hail Xi, China’s third ‘core’ leader

China’s President Xi Jinping is about to be endorsed as the Communist Party’s “core” leader. Photo: Reuters/Marko Djurica

 

Chinese president to be put on a par with former paramount leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping whose authority must not be challenged

President Xi Jinping is likely to be formally endorsed as the “core” leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the four-day 6th Plenum of the party’s decision-making Central Committee starting on Monday.

This will put him on a par with former paramount leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping whose authority is firmly established and must not be questioned let alone challenged.

Chinese Warships Shadow Alaska Amid G20 Fallout

(VERO BEACH, FL) Five Chinese warships have been spotted in international waters off the coast of the Bering Sea near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

The armed flotilla has been under observation by US military elements for several days, TASS reports.

The White House is aware of the Chinese warships, and the Pentagon has not registered any threatening activity, even though the same five Chinese warships came within 12 miles of the US coastline during President Barack Obama’s visit to Alaska in September 2015.

Hu Jintao appears in ill health at Beijing military parade

Jiang looked to be in good health, whereas Hu Jintao’s hands were shaking, which has raised suspicions that he may be in ill health, according to the website.

Why China Won’t Stop North Korea

An article from 2009 that hits the nail on the head in explaining the true relationship between China and North Korea. North Korea is a Chinese proxy which serves to keep America distracted from the main threat: China. As time has passed by since this article was written, North Korea has also exponentially increased as a threat toward the United States as well.

 

North Korea has nukes, and China isn’t worried. Something’s not right.

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Understandably, America and its allies in Asia are alarmed by Kim Jong Il’s apocalyptic ambitions. Shortly after Pyongyang conducted its nuclear test on May 25, it turned South Korea into a nervous wreck by threatening a “strong military strike,” and saying that its 56-year cease-fire with Seoul no longer applies. Nearby Japan is so alarmed Tokyo is chattering about the need to develop its own nuclear arsenal. Concerns over North Korea’s nuclear belligerence reverberated throughout Asia.

Except in China.

China won’t sit by idly if Russian economy collapses: ex-official

Long Yongtu, former deputy minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation, said at a Beijing forum that China “should adopt some aggressive measures” as the ruble has nosedived about 60% against the US dollar since the beginning of the year. “When Russia is facing massive difficulties, (China should) show moral strength and economic support,” he said according to a report by China News Service.

Beijing is obligated to help its northern neighbor both from a strategic perspective and out of concern for the wellbeing of the Russian people, he said without elaborating on any specific measures.

US watches as Beijing forges ahead with S China Sea oilfield plans

China’s recently published Resource Development Strategic Action Plan (2014-2020) says the country plans to establish a large oilfield in the disputed South China Sea in the next six years capable of producing around ten million tonnes of oil a year, according to Duowei News, a media outlet run by overseas Chinese.

From the end of 2013 China has accelerated land reclamation projects in the area, with Fiery Cross Reef, which is also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan, being expanded to 0.9 square kilometers as of Oct. 16, making it now the largest island in the disputed Spratlys. Estimates based on a satellite image taken on Nov. 17 suggest that the reef has now grown in area to 1.3 square km and that the reclaimed land is structured like a landing strip. Under previous administrations China had pushed for the shelving of disputes and the joint exploration of resources in the region by claimant nations out of diplomatic considerations, Duowei stated. Due to the land reclamation projects and moves to build airports as well as calls for bids to exploit oil resources by other claimants, however, the shelving of disputes is no longer on China’s agenda. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, there has been an increased military presence in the region and moves that suggest China is moving forward with its plans to exploit resources.

China’s development bank plans test rising power’s strategic shift

In an influential speech in 2005, then-US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick called on China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community. To optimists, China’s recent efforts in creating high-profile international development banks shows that it is gradually embracing that role.

China signed an agreement in July with the four other BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa – to create the New Development Bank (NDB) to provide loans and liquidity to member nations. Just three months later, Beijing pioneered the effort to create an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to finance development projects in the region. Twenty nations as diverse as Qatar, India, Singapore and Thailand signed on as founding members. China plans to provide the majority of the capital required to finance the new bank’s operations, with the headquarters located in Beijing.

The US and its allies view the China-backed AIIB with deep suspicion. It is an open secret that Washington has successfully pressured Australia and South Korea to refrain from joining the new development bank. What explains such hostility toward the Chinese effort to take a larger role in regional and global governance?

The Submarine Race in the Malaccan Strait

Along with the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf near Iran and Oman, the Strait of Malacca is the world’s most important shipping chokepoint.

Linking the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean, the Malacca Strait is by far the shortest maritime route connecting Persian Gulf energy producers to their largest consumers in countries like China, Japan, and South Korea.

Chinese Army Prepares for Conflict with United States

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China is making significant strides toward developing a global military power large enough to protect its rapidly increasing global economic interests, an author of a new book on China explained Wednesday.

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“Chinese military planners really seem convinced that their most likely enemy and their greatest potential threat is the United States,” Wortzel said his analysis of PLA journals showed. “Things aren’t great with Russia, and things are a lot worse with Japan, but they focus on us and our technology.”

The transformation began less than a decade ago when in 2004 leader Hu Jintao announced that the PLA’s mission must be to go global in order to safeguard the country’s expanding national interests.

A Look at the New Chinese Communist Party Leaders: Liu Yunshan

New propaganda czar Liu Yunshan, now a member of the Standing

Committee, greets the press on Nov. 15 in Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

 

Liu Yunshan was born in Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province in 1947. His parents were Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres in Inner Mongolia. His father was a subordinate of Bo Yibo, the father to disgraced official Bo Xilai. After graduating from Jining Normal School in the province, he worked as a teacher, a clerk at the propaganda department, and a reporter for the Inner Mongolia Bureau of the state mouthpiece Xinhua. Between July 1982 and February 1984, Liu Yunshan served as deputy secretary of Communist Youth League in Inner Mongolia, while Hu Jintao was the secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League Central Committee. Therefore, Liu has been classified as belonging to Hu’s Youth League Faction.

Xi Jinping takes helm of China amid reform calls

BEIJING (AP) — Xi Jinping succeeded Hu Jintao as China’s leader Thursday, assuming the top posts in the Communist Party and the powerful military in a once-a-decade political transition unbowed by scandals, a slower economy and public demands for reforms.

Xi was formally appointed as general secretary after a morning meeting of senior communists that capped a weeklong congress, events that underlined the party’s determination to remain firmly in power. Xi also was appointed chairman of the military commission after Hu stepped down, breaking with the recent tradition in which departing party leaders hung on to the military post to exert influence over their successors.

Chinese Patrol Ships Reach Senkaku Islands

The Chinese military deployed its warships to the disputed Senkaku islands, a chain of uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea, amid a weeks-long diplomatic row with Japan over who has sovereignty over them.

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Two patrol ships from the China Marine Surveillance, a maritime law-enforcement agency, were deployed and have reached waters near the islands on Tuesday “to assert the country’s sovereignty,” Chinese state-run media said.

The tiny islets are located approximately 125 miles from Taiwan and more than 1,200 miles from Tokyo, and are said to give the rights to reserves of natural gas, oil, and prime fishing spots in the adjoining sea. Japan has governed them since the 1970s when the United States transferred them.

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The move comes after Chinese Communist Party head Hu Jintao told Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko on Sept. 9 that “Japan must fully consider the seriousness of this situation and not make the wrong decision” while the two were attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

A day later, Premier Wen Jiabao said the Chinese regime “will absolutely make no concession on issues concerning its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to state media.

Full article: Chinese Patrol Ships Reach Senkaku Islands (Epoch Times)

China Sounds Alarm on Global Economy at APEC Summit

China sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy on Saturday and urged countries gathering at an Asia-Pacific summit to protect themselves by forging deeper regional economic ties.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin had also expressed concern about the world economy on Friday, and particularly about Europe’s debt crisis, as he prepared to host the annual APEC summit in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok.

“The world economy today is recovering slowly, and there are still some destabilising factors and uncertainties. The underlying impact of the international financial crisis is far from over,” Hu told businessmen in a speech before the summit.

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Russia sees the weekend summit as a chance to make a pivotal shift away from Europe, increasing political and economic links with countries in Asia that are showing relatively strong economic growth as Europe struggles with its debt crisis.

Full article: China Sounds Alarm on Global Economy at APEC Summit (CNBC)

The Market and the Militarists

A June 27 Washington Times headline reads, “Inside China: PLA says war with U.S. imminent.” Incredibly, PLA Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian has made a speech in which he complained that the United States was “exhausting all its resources to establish a strategic containment” of China.  Using Communist terminology, Gen. Peng said that the “contradictions” between China and America were structural and not amenable to change by any individual – whether George W. Bush or Barack Obama. When speaking of contradictions, Marxist theory (including Chinese Communist theory) holds that the central contradiction is class struggle. When Gen. Peng says the “contradictions” between America and China cannot be resolved by a single individual, he is referring to the inevitable outcome of class struggle. That outcome, by Marxian historical necessity, can only signify defeat of the world bourgeoisie; and America is the embodiment of the world bourgeoisie. Therefore, since the Chinese Communists embody the cause of the workers and peasants of the world, today’s compromise with American capitalism should be viewed by the Communist Party of China as temporary. From the beginning of his reforms, Deng Xiaoping said that it “was a mistake to lose faith in socialism.” Deng underscored the fact that China was engaging the West to get technical and financial support. (Of course, Nixon and Kissinger believed that Chinese Communism would be softened by trade and peaceful exchanges.)

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The statements of Gen. Peng and Adm. Zaozhong suggest there is a split between the civilian leadership of China and certain military officers. As if to reinforce the credibility of this scenario, the PLA Daily has complained of the marginal loyalty of certain military cadres. Last February, Lt. Gen. Gu Junshan was purged in the midst of a leadership shakeup within the PLA. Communist China’s leader, Hu Jintao, has vigorously asserted his authority over the military. Supposedly, there is a massive power-realignment taking place in China.

Foreign observers should be wary of reported disunity in China. It may be true, of course, that Nixon’s opening to China has had the desired effect of softening the Communist leadership. There is also the possibility, on the other hand, that China’s leaders are following the advice of their ancient mentor, Sun Tzu, who once wrote: “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe that we are away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.”

Only time will tell which is feigned disorder, and which is real; whether the market has prevailed, or the militarists.

Full article: The Market and the Militarists (JR Nyquist)