Looking to Gaza... and America
Earlier this month, during Israel's offensive in Gaza, I told you that China had yet to send its Middle East envoy back to the region.
An update for you: China's envoy, Sun Bigan, has now been back to the Middle East. This afternoon, in Beijing, he held a news conference to report on his trip.
Mr Sun told us that China was seeking a long-term solution to the conflict and that China would continue to promote talks for peace. He said that Israel should stop its actions in Gaza and that Hamas should stop its rocket fire.
Standard diplomatic words... delivered at a time when it's fair to say that almost no-one outside China was listening. The main offensive in Gaza appears to be over. And Mr Sun's news conference took place on a day in which the world's attention is elsewhere.
One man in China may be more excited about Barack Obama's inauguration than everyone else. On its front page, the China Daily newspaper reports on Mark Ndesandjo, who is one of Mr Obama's half-brothers. The paper says that Mr Ndesanjado has lived in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen for the last seven years (the paper reports that he is a vegetarian who practises Chinese calligraphy).
His half-brother's swearing in as the 44th US President takes place at 1am China time. I'll stay up to see how Chinese TV covers it.
I’m 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~46~RS~)
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Wow, what a poor job the Chinese government is doing. Full of empty words. Much less effective than USA's unconditional support of Israel (both financially and politically). And democratic European governmets' support of Israel seems not attracting much support from their taxpayers? They only got some hundreds of shoes as a praise. After decades of conflicts, have the poor people in a forever war zone get any peace after so much help from the west?
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Well James, you're listening. Why can't you write a main article and put it on the Asia section front-page?
Interesting bit about barack's half brother. Thanks.
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Wow, James, intentional fault-finding at its best.
First you state he's doing nothing about Gaza. Now that he's done something, the ONLY point you attempt to make is to accuse Mr. Sun of purposefully timing his words to be over-shadowed by the Obama inauguration.
No doubt your version of assembling the material from your train trip means making sure all the positive stuff people said about Beijing hits the cutting room floor while the complaints are high-lighted, and placed from and center in the blog. Can't hardly wait to see it!
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So what you're really saying is that no matter what China does, you're not happy? The west (America in particular) was involved in causing the issue in Israel over 50 years ago. The continuing biased support of Israel hasn't produced any further results. I'd suspect that China's policy of non-interference has worked out much better for it. Get off you high horse and provide some better reporting please.
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And what has special Middle-East envoy Tony Blair done to help resolve this conflict?
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"Standard diplomatic words" is really a very vivid word to portray Chinese officials' way of speaking, but it doesn't mean Mr Sun did nothing on the issue even if almost no-one outside China was listening.
Besides, have you found anything more by staying up to see how Chinese TV cover news? I'd like to know your comment on Chinese TV, websites, newspapers & magzines. Maybe it's a good point for you. I'm expecting a much more impartial report from you.
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Does anyone ever get sick of governments saying "peace and stability (of the region)" or "a harmonious society"?
Not just from China (had to mention that since this was a post about China), but from the U.S of A U.K France Singapore, Russia Korea Chile Brazil Fiji you name it..
I know they mean well, but come up with another punchline politicians! Its getting so dull and flat -.-
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The problem between Israel and Palestine is created after the world war II when the state of Israel is founded by the joined agreement between Europe and America.
To be brutally honest, this is a problem created by the Europeans and Americans, and because of this we have half of century of pain and terrorism, extremism. (I have no bad feeling towards Israel nor do the Palestinians, I'm just saying what is the truth).
Now why would China want to dip into this mess and solve this problem? What's in it for China when it's quite possible to cause bad feelings to both Israel and Islam fractions?
On the other hand, China can sit back and enjoy the relative peace within its own borders and watch this mess unfold by itself.
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Seriously, I doubt the PRC gov is genuinely intending to do anything in the Mid East., reason being that China is actively collaborating with Isreal on a number of fronts, mostly technologically, whilst it always wants to be seen as the leader of the 3rd world. Big dilemma! And I don't think there's a way out for China.
So keeping quiet is probably what China has to do.
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I agree bbtyeh. Any 'standard diplomatic words' are useless as every politician or international organisation - whether it be from China or anywhere, are saying the same thing. To be honest, it's getting tiring hearing the "peace and stability" rhetoric; its been said so much it doesn't mean anything anymore.. and meanwhile, the whole Middle East situation continues..
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To be fair #7 and #12, the US didn't really get involved in Israel/Arab issue until the yom kippur war which was in 1973. It was then that US really actually started to support Israel.
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@ #16. My mistake. Still, it was western powers that initiated the whole Israel issue. And I'm pretty sure that the US and UK were involved in creating the issue in Iraq with Saddam originally. The point is that non-interference is not necessarily a bad thing. However all these reports seem laced with buckets of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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#17, ya non interference isn't neccessarily a bad thing but then again China's excuse of non interference in a place like sudan doesn't hold much water with the world.
Damned if you and damned if you don't is something Americans know very well. That is pretty much how the world has treated the US since it became the worlds sole super power.
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James:
Taken from your remarks:::
[an update for you: China's envoy, Sun Bigan, has now been back to the Middle East. This afternoon, in Beijing, he held a news conference to report on his trip. ]
-Thanks for the update and it is nice for the information that Mr. Sun Bigan was able to provided following his trip to the Middle East....
~Dennis Junior~
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Vegetarian in China??? Surely thats unpossible!
Comeon JR, get on with posting the stuff on the CNY train journey?
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I think what Chinese media did was actually showing they would prefer a friendly link with the new American gover. If the speech was fully translated, it just may angry the mass of Chinese people, and require the government to take some action, that would put Chinese gove into an awkward position.
and really, who is judge who is at the wrong side of history. just look what western civlization did, it was such an aggressive civlization, no matter where they went , America, Australia, Africa, the original culture and people just suffered, even wiped out.
Only histroy can tell, and history is not speaking in the term of hundred years.
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China has no real reason to be involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are almost no Jews in Israel and while there is a Christian population, most are not interested in Dispensationalism (End of the World Soon fantasies), the way US Christians are. China does have about 20 million Muslims, but you can be pretty sure that the vast majority of Chinese people have never heard of any place in the Middle East and do not care.
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