A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to energy-hungry China’s billion-dollar bids on oil fields in Canada and the Asian giant’s reliance on oil from countries like Iran and Sudan to fuel its growing economy. But its growing interest in another major oil producer has gone largely unnoticed, and if current trends […]
Outgoing Chinese Premier Wei Jiabao returned to Beijing this week office after disappointing ASEAN and East Asia summits that failed to live-up to years of diplomatic posturing and positioning, designed to protect his country’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea. The pro-Beijing lobby will no doubt praise his efforts in Cambodia where China successfully thwarted attempts […]
In China they are known as “princelings” — the privileged children of the revolutionary founders of the People’s Republic of China. And in the generational leadership change that just took place in Beijing, it could not have been clearer that having the right family bloodlines is among the most important attributes an ambitious cadre could possess. Of […]
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, promoted last week to the No. 2 spot in the ruling Communist Party and set to take the job of premier in March, said three decades of economic opening must be accelerated as the push to overhaul the economy encounters obstacles. Li, speaking Nov. 21 at a meeting in Beijing, […]
For China bulls, things are starting to look up. The property market has been showing signs of life, and October retail sales, investment, and industrial production have come in above forecasts. A manufacturing index also showed improvement, and exports increased 11.6 percent in October, the fastest pace in five months. Yet one figure is going in […]
China’s central bank governor said convertibility will be the next step in the overhaul of the exchange-rate system as calls grow for the nation’s new leadership to deepen changes in the economy to sustain growth. “For the central bank, I think the next movement related to the yuan is going to be reform of convertibility,” Zhou Xiaochuan said at […]
Mao Zedong believed that revolutionary fervor could overcome technological backwardness. But when more pragmatic leaders took power in Beijing, they found that China lagged so far behind the West that the country risked permanent second-class status. Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, launched China’s rise by reforming the economy and opening the country to the West. With […]
The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) concluded in Beijing Wednesday morning, after a new CPC Central Committee and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection were elected. Delegates to the congress also passed resolutions on the report of the 17th CPC Central Committee, the work report of the Central Commission for Discipline […]
Much has changed in China over the past decade, from the tens of millions of former peasants who are now members of the middle class, to the Prada, Hermès, and Gucci boutiques that now crowd the malls of Beijing and Shanghai — but not the fashion stylings of China’s top leaders. The single-breasted navy two-button […]
Recent anti-Japanese street demonstrations in China may signal the start of economic decline for a nation that won its reputation as the “world’s manufacturing factory” in the late 1990s and surpassed Japan in 2010 to become the second-largest economy after the United States. Although the riots were ostensibly meant as a protest against the Japanese […]
looking beyond borders 