Talking Points: April 8 - 22, 2009

Talking Points
April 8-22, 2009

Earlier this week, China’s government announced plans to spend $124 billion by 2011 to expand and improve the rural health care system and to provide more than 90% of rural residents with health insurance. Efforts to develop this plan began several years ago and follow an earlier unsuccessful initiative to address the threat illness and injury pose to people’s financial as well as physical health. While the spending may itself provide a small boost to the economy, the effort is mainly intended to increase rural residents’ sense of security and make them more willing to spend rather than to save as a hedge against the high costs of seeking medical help. The state also hopes programs such as these will help mitigate the difficulties encountered by the millions of families of people left jobless by the global economic crisis. Chinese authorities at the highest levels warn that social unrest is likely and that governments at every level must take action to keep the peace, to create jobs, and to otherwise alleviate hardships.

Although large scale and sometimes violent protests occur by the thousands every month in China, most are confined to particular locations and are propelled by specific local grievances. Later today, Hiroki Takeuchi of Southern Methodist University discusses how China’s government has thus far managed to defuse or deflect much popular discontent. His presentation on how remonstrance and other “democratic” institutions function in China starts at 4 pm. We hope you can join us. 

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 “There have been, to my knowledge, no disruptions of power on any grid caused by a deliberate cyberattack on our infrastructure….”      
                                 – Janet Napolitano, U.S. Sec. of Homeland Security, April 8, 2009

Napolitano was responding to questions raised by reporters following a Wall Street Journal report that cyberspies from China and Russia had successfully hacked into the computer systems controlling components of the U.S. power grid as well as other key infrastructure including water and sewer systems. The article cites unnamed current and former intelligence officials and comes just a week after researchers at the University of Toronto issued a report arguing that hackers, possibly in China, though not necessarily government-sanctioned, had infiltrated computers used by Tibetan exile organizations as well as those used by the diplomats of more than a dozen governments and international organizations. Both Chinese and Russian authorities have denied any involvement in internet hacking or interference with the U.S. infrastructure. A Chinese embassy official condemned the allegations as “sheer lies” fabricated by Cold War-minded people. Napolitano did not confirm that intelligence officials believed China or Russia was behind the attacks.

You can follow these stories and read feature articles about unemployment among recent college grads, the paradoxes of Chinese cyberspace, efforts to stamp out smoking and protect the environment in US-China Today, our student-driven web magazine. The Institute website features video presentations from our conferences on the impact of the Olympics and on American policy toward China.

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