January 1:
A report produced by the U.S. Joint Forces Command has said that ruling Communist Party political leaders have granted the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) "considerable autonomy" to build up its military presence near oil-shipping lanes. The report, which was made public on November 25th, also says China’s emergence from isolation is "the most significant single event on the international horizon since the collapse of the Cold War." According to the report entitled "Joint Operating Environment 2008," Beijing has built naval bases, overland supply routes, commercial port facilities and is building nuclear submarines and a blue-water navy because it "worries that the U.S. Navy possesses the ability to shut down China's energy imports of oil – 80 percent of which go through the straits of Malacca.” It quotes a Chinese naval strategist as saying: "the straits of Malacca are akin to breathing itself – to life itself." The report, covered in the Washington Times, identifies Pakistan's Gwadar port, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, as a naval base and surveillance facility for China, and the commercial-shipping container port at Hambantota, Sri Lanka, a planned canal through Thailand, and two military bases in the South China Sea (including Woody Island airfield) as China’s “string of pearls.”
A Chinese Embassy spokesman, Wang Baodong, disagreed; calling the "string of pearls" notion a "fantasy." "It's true that China is conducting cooperation with some Asian countries in various fields including ports developing, but it's justifiable business for China and the joint ventures are for commercial purposes only," Mr. Wang said. “As facts have proven, China's activities are for mutual benefit and peaceful purposes, constituting no threat to anyone else."
January 2:
The BBC reports that at 9:19pm January 1st, China’s official mobile phone broadcast system sent a message to subscribers from the Sanlu company and 21 other dairy companies. The message read: “We are very sorry to have caused harm to all children and society because of the problematic milk powder. We offer our sincere apologies, and plead for forgiveness. We have resolved to learn the lessons from this and to make sure that no substandard products are made in the future. We welcome supervision from all walks of society. We are operating a compensation system for the families of the sick babies, and are setting up a medical fund for more treatment for those who recover from kidney disease. We wish you and your family a happy new year." The message’s release occurs a day after 17 executives from the Sanlu dairy group plead guilty for selling poisoned baby powder that left at least six children dead and nearly 300,000 ill.
January 4:
Bao Tong, 76, the highest-ranking official imprisoned after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, has published a series of scathing essays criticizing the Communist Party of China. The essays appeared as the party was celebrating 30 years of the “reform and opening-up” policy instituted by Deng Xiaoping, who died in 1997. According to the Sunday Times, Bao contends that true economic reform died in 1989 when Deng turned against political liberalism and backed rule by a strong state. He argues that the CPC has merely transferred economic privilege to a corrupt bureaucratic elite. “The price we have paid for it today has been too steep: a cheap labor force, added to massive plunder of natural resources, poisoned air and polluted water,” he writes.
[Editor’s Note: Bao was the policy director for Zhao Ziyang, the reformist prime minister, and moved in the highest circles. After the 1989 military crackdown he served a seven-year sentence and now lives under house arrest in Beijing. His essays are the second public challenge to the leadership after the appearance of Charter 08, a manifesto for political change that has been signed by more than 7,000 prominent Chinese citizens.]
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