MEDIA REACTION: ARMS SALES TO TAIWAN, DALAI LAMA,

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIJING 000278 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: ARMS SALES TO TAIWAN, DALAI LAMA, AFGHANISTAN, GOOGLE -------------- Editorial Quotes -------------- ¶1. ARMS SALES TO TAIWAN "U.S. arms sales will have a serious negative effect on Sino-American exchanges and cooperation on many issues" The official Communist Party People's Daily (Renmin Ribao)(02/03)(pg 3): "Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Ma Zhaoxu said that 'The United States insisted on selling arms to Taiwan regardless of China's resolute opposition to it. The U.S.'s move will severely damage China's core interests and Sino-U.S. relations. Inevitably, this will also damage China's cooperation with the U.S. on relevant key international and regional issues. The U.S. side should assume full responsibility. We'll urge U.S. companies involved to stop pushing for, and participating in, the sale of arms to Taiwan. Ma Zhaoxu also said that the U.S.'s move seriously violated the Sino-U.S. three communiqu, especially the principle in '8.17' Bulletin. This will also seriously damage China's national security and harm China's course of peace and unification, which is severely opposed by China." (Note: Another major official newspaper Guangming Daily has also published this report.)" ¶2. DALAI LAMA "U.S.-China disputes now start with the Dalai round" The People's Daily-sponsored and internationally-focused commercial news publication Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao)(02/03)(pg 1): "Analysts predict that the already chaotic Sino-U.S. relationship may have a new challenge - the next Dalai Lama round. On February 2, Chinese officials warned President Obama to not meet the Dalai Lama and that the issue of Tibet's sovereignty is nonnegotiable. Within one short month, Sino-U.S. relations have been overturned. Niu Xinchun, a Chinese scholar, said that the next Dalai round will allow the United States to be even more unreasonable in its series of offenses toward China. Chinese society will become more concrete under the West's pressure. In fact, the two ideological camps, the West and China, will both become consolidated. Analysts said that, due to disagreements on the Dalai issue, there will be two possible outcomes for Sino-U.S. relations: first that the worsening of the relationship gets way beyond out of control; or that President Obama is throwing all his 'bombs' at the beginning of the year and will later, by year's end, restore Sino-U.S. relations in an easy manner. Yuan Peng, the director of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that if Obama meets the Dalai, then Sino-U.S. strategic competition will start. The U.S. and China have a cognitive gap between these disputes (arms sales and Dalai meeting.) The U.S. thinks that China should understand its domestic political factors, but China has changed, it is now a country which no longer fears other countries. Regarding the equal positions of the two countries, they can't discuss issues within the old bilateral framework. The possible Obama-Dalai meeting will definitely impact the U.S., who is relying on how the meeting goes, positively or negatively. This time is substantially different from previous times - China wants to change the rules of the game." ¶3. AFGHANISTAN "The new Anglo-American way of thinking: counter-terrorism through 'development'" The Shanghai-based Shanghai Media Group (SMG) publication, China Business News (Diyi Caijing)(02/03)(pg A6): "U.S. counter-terrorism has always gone along with strong political motives and double standards. The two international conferences, held in London last month on anti-terrorism in Afghanistan and Yemen, began to stress the importance of 'development' in counter-terrorism. This is the result of a rational reflection on the counter-terrorism strategies of the Bush administration. Such changes deserve attention. Wang Shida, export on the Afghanistan issue at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that, looking from the military angle, it seems impossible for U.S. troops to withdraw in ¶2011. However, at the same time, the U.S. and UK government have to face domestic pressures. What's more, their amnesty policy will only work toward low-ranking Taliban forces, but won't likely effect core leadership in the Taliban. But the London conference still had some transitional significance in strategy because this amnesty policy is a new way of thinking when resolving the Afghanistan issue. Western countries have shown an obvious inclination for more collaboration." ¶4. GOOGLE "The United States is not the teacher of 'information freedom'" BEIJING 00000278 002 OF 002 The People's Daily-sponsored and internationally-focused commercial news publication Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao)(02/03)(pg 14): "Since the start of the Internet Age, the United States, has used one hand to ask other countries to implement network information freedom and remove their firewalls, so that, with the other hand it can spread its American values without obstacles. However, it builds its own network firewall and it filters information which it feels is harmful to its values [and ideology]. In fact, the U.S. is challenging China's core interest. This issue presents confrontational factors for the Sino-U.S. relationship. China hopes to possess information freedom. But when a certain country is still damaging China's long term national interests and security, regrettably China, which is the same as the United States and other countries, will not implement full information freedom at the current time. China is not supposed to implement information freedom without condition; otherwise it would be an irresponsible move for the country. China's censorship over the Internet content has existed before the Google incident and will not change because Google leaves. We have to apologize to Google since we won't provide extraterritoriality to it. Any foreign companies in China must obey China's laws. Information freedom is not yet a reality. As long as nation-states still exist and there is competition, there will be a large distance from the ideal situation of total information freedom. The United States should not pursue China to shorten the distance, through policies that threaten China and suggest it correct its own practices." HUNTSMAN