MEDIA REACTION: U.S. POLICY, CHINA POLICY

UNCLAS BEIJING 003487 DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R/MR, EAP/CM, EAP/PA, EAP/PD, C HQ PACOM FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR (J007) SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL ECON SENV KGHG KMDR OPRC CH SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: U.S. POLICY, CHINA POLICY -------------- Editorial Quotes -------------- ¶1. U.S. POLICY ¶A. "New breakthroughs in U.S. healthcare reform: towards a managed competition" Guangdong 21st Century Publishing Company Ltd.'s business newspaper 21st Century Business Herald (21Shiji Jingji Baodao)(12/29)(pg 2): "Because the Democratic Party is the majority party in both the U.S. Senate and House, the U.S. Democratic Party's half-century-long effort to promote HEALTH care for all hopefully will pay off soon. There is something that we should learn from the United States' public policy decision-making mechanism. In the United States, the President does not have the final say in public policy. He can merely advocate for or reject the bill. U.S. public policy bills are composed of specific rules rather than vague statements of principles, which are often seen in China's regulations and promulgations. All new bills are drafted based on the original bill, article by article. The U.S. public policy decision-making process is intensive, systematic and targeted. The process of debating and consensus cohesion is also relatively clear and transparent." ¶B. "The future of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is still bleak" The official Communist Party People's Daily (Renmin Ribao)(12/29)(pg 3):" 2009 is almost gone and the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks still takes time. No progress will be seen on the horizon for a considerable time. The United States is the most important mediator for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. The main characteristics of the Obama administration's stance on the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks are: first, the Unite States' position is very precarious. Second, the Obama administration lacks the means to promote peace in this process. Third, the Obama administration has more will than strength to achieve its goals. These are also the main reasons the peace talks have not been resumed. Since President Obama took office, the Secretary of State and U.S. Special Envoy have been sent to the Middle East many times but very few accomplishments have been made." ¶2. CHINA POLICY "Is the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' yellow book providing ammunition for the 'China threat ' theory? " The China Radio International sponsored newspaper World News Journal (Shijie Xinwenbao)(12/29)(pg 9): "Neither Chinese netizens nor military experts think much of this CASS yellow book, which ranks China 7th in the world in overall strength and 2nd after the United States in military strength. Chinese netizens found it ridiculous because they believe that China's overall strength should be ranked higher and China's military strength, the sophistication of China's conventional weapons in particular, has lagged far behind the West especially the United States. Military expert Dai Xu said that the author, the CASS World Economics and International Politics Institute, is not an authoritative institute on Chinese military affairs. Some researchers say that they lack military common sense. Yu Wanli, an expert in international relations at the Peking University said that CASS is just an official think tank and it cannot represent the views of the Chinese government. According to Yu, Russia at least has more military strength than China and this yellow book is nothing but reference material. ONE of the editors of the yellow book, Li Shaojun, admitted that the United States' military strength scored 90.08 and China only scored 33.3 out of 100." GOLDBERG