As China‘s major trading partners try to control rising public pension and health care costs, they may not realize they also have an important stake in China’s ongoing struggle to fashion a safety net for its own rapidly aging population. Many observers assume China has no pensions or healthcare insurance for the 185 million people over […]
Elections make for responsive and accountable governments, or so goes the truism. But can they also achieve the opposite — that is, encourage complacency, even callousness, among elected representatives? Last month’s headlines from India and China present a disquieting contrast between elected and unelected governments for anyone committed to democratic politics. Read Here – Bloomberg
In 2011, when Algeria’s Religious Affairs Minister Bouabdallah Ghlamallah awarded the contract to build the Grand Mosque of Algiers, the third-largest such structure in the world, it did not go to a homegrown Algerian bidder nor to one based in a fellow Muslim-majority Arab nation like Lebanon, nor even to one in a nearby non-Muslim […]
IN HUNAN province last August, Tang Hui was sentenced to 18 months in a labour camp. Her crime was to demand tougher sentences for the men who had kidnapped and raped her 11-year-old daughter. In days gone by, Ms Tang would simply have disappeared. In the age of the microblog, thousands of incensed middle-class people […]
In a little noticed event on New Year’s Day, China inaugurated its first non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of soft power—China Public Diplomacy Association (CPDA). Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi attended and spoke at the unveiling ceremony for the group, which elected as its president Li Zhaoxing, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s National People’s Congress. Addressing the group […]
ON JANUARY 2nd front pages of many Chinese newspapers carried identical headlines. “Greater political courage”, they proclaimed, was needed in the execution of reforms. But even as they try to signal their openness to change, China’s new leaders are nervous of demands that they move faster to loosen the Communist Party’s grip. Most worryingly for […]
2013 will be remembered as the year China became a more “normal economy”. What does normality mean for China? Soon-to-depart Premier Wen Jiabao’s oft-cited quote that China’s growth is “unbalanced, unsustainable and uncoordinated” is a good place to start. China was an abnormal economy with its state-led capitalist approach that produced double-digit growth rates, no […]
As China keeps extending its interests abroad, some predict that neighboring countries will form a coalition to counter it. Any of three states could take the lead on building such an alliance: India, South Korea, or Japan. Each has a different mix of technological, economic, and diplomatic power that — when combined with the resources […]
The Chinese feel strongly about China, but are indifferent to the party. Yet state and party are united, and the absence of popular responsibility towards keeping the party as government could see the country forfeited. Political participation is the key to the stalemate. During the next plenary session of the Chinese parliament, the National People’s […]
Not so long ago the question how to deal with China was an evolving conundrum. It is real now. As real as an elephant — looming large over all that it views, with a large appetite and largely prepared for a fight but peaceful until provoked. And just like the pachyderm, feared. In an increasingly […]
looking beyond borders 