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Media Report
November 21 , 2017
  • ChinaFile comments: "Donald Trump's Asia trip was historic in one respect: it belatedly focused American attention on the competition between the United States and China for global primacy. China has risen, the era of uncontested American leadership has ended, and any American with a television set now knows it—thanks to the media's proper framing of Trump's and Chinese Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping's activities in Beijing and Da Nang, Vietnam. In those cities, the two men were treated by media as equally authoritative as they laid out disparate visions for the future of the eastern hemisphere. It seems we are no longer number one. It's a tie, for now. Most U.S.-China frictions since 1979, whether over intellectual property, currency valuations, or human rights, have been limited to the bilateral relationship. The two nations now compete to shape the world order by having their values and policies accepted on the global stage. In the South China Sea, the question is not so much who should have sovereignty over which rocks and reefs as whether international law or great power prerogatives should settle such questions. In trade and investment disputes, the issue is how nations should view openness, reciprocity, and multilateralism on one side and protectionism on the other. In the cultural, media, and civil society spheres, the core difference is how to weigh the interests of states against the freedom of groups and individuals. To prevail in this contest, Beijing and Washington must legitimize their preferred practices by strengthening partnerships and alliances, providing global public goods, building multilateral institutions, and enhancing their soft power and economic relations worldwide."
  • The New York Times reports: "One of the last foreign-run tools for online communication in China appears to be in trouble with the authorities there. For almost a month, Skype, the internet phone call and messaging service, has been unavailable on a number of sites where apps are downloaded in China, including Apple's app store in the country. 'We have been notified by the Ministry of Public Security that a number of voice over internet protocol apps do not comply with local law. Therefore these apps have been removed from the app store in China,' an Apple spokeswoman said Tuesday in an emailed statement responding to questions about Skype's disappearance from the app store. 'These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business.' The removal led to a volley of complaints from Chinese users on internet message boards who were no longer able to pay for Skype's services through Apple. The users said that the disruption began in late October. Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, still functions in China, and its fate in the country is not yet clear. But its removal from the app stores is the most recent example of a decades-long push by China's government to control and monitor the flow of information online."
  • Bloomberg reports: "China has seen its influence rise in Zimbabwe during Robert Mugabe's nearly four decades in power, becoming the African nation's third-largest trading partner and biggest foreign investor. Beijing might gain even more if he goes. Former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose removal sparked last week's military intervention, is seen as more open to investment from China and other nations than Mugabe, according to researchers who advise President Xi Jinping's government on Africa policy. Mnangagwa is poised to take Mugabe's job after replacing him as leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party on Sunday. Mnangagwa, who received military training in China during a war for independence decades ago, proposed in 2015 to have the Chinese yuan as legal tender in inflation-prone Zimbabwe. That paved the way for its adoption along with other currencies -- though none are as popular as the U.S. dollar. He also signaled opposition to Mugabe's nationalization moves, telling China's CCTV he sought 'an environment where investors are happy to put their money because they will have a return.' 'Mnangagwa has a more open and moderate approach in economic policies and is also a friend of China,' said Shen Xiaolei, a research fellow on Africa in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China's state think tank. 'Mugabe's receding power is just a matter of time, and sooner is better than later because it can help stabilize the domestic situation.'"
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