VZCZCXRO6963
RR RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #3487 3630901
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 290901Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7455
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RHMFIUU/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI

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