I’ve been puzzling over this article
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/19/content_762056.htm
Because I can’t find any Chinese source in which SASAC identifies strategic industries. It is the case that the State Council issued an opinion on 12/18 which did refer to “key industries” but it did so in vague terms. I don’t have much respect for China Daily’s reportage, so in absence of any other independent source for these remarks, my guess is that they got something wrong.
Xinhua didn’t mention anything like that
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2006-12/19/content_5507850.htm
The other thing that China Daily sort of got, but got stripped away when the news made it to the West was that SASAC was talking in the context of the state-owned enterprises which are directly managed by the central government. This is a subset of the total number of state-owned enterprises.
Also in other news, Xinhua has started talking about the 2008 elections in Taiwan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/tai_gang_ao/2006-12/21/content_5513709.htm
and this other article critical about Chen’s efforts to create a second republic
http://news.xinhuanet.com/tai_gang_ao/2006-12/21/content_5513753.htm
The interesting thing about both articles is the tone. The second article has an anti-Green slant, and both are critical of Chen Shui-Bian, but neither article is screaming at you, and there isn’t any of the loud rhetoric that was typical of the articles that were written a few years ago. The articles on the rivalry between Frank Hsieh and Su Cheng-chang were rather factual and cast neither in a particularly negative light, and the article seemed to highlight both candidates “moderate” approach in contrast to CSB. Except for the quotation marks and the simplified characters, both articles could have been written by the pan-Blue press in Taipei.
My guess is that Beijing is looking past the 2008, and hoping to turn over a new leave with whoever gets elected. I do suspect that Beijing would prefer that Ma Ying-jeou gets elected, but making that obvious would kill his chances, and so Beijing has to maintain a disinterested outlook over what happens in Taiwan.
