JUST after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts in Beijing on November 8th, a short line of dark-suited men, and perhaps one woman, will step onto a red carpet in a room in the Great Hall of the People and meet the world’s press. At their head will be Xi […]
If every modern president needs a creation myth, then Xi Jinping‘s begins on the dusty loess plateau of northwest China. It was here that Xi spent seven formative years, working among the peasants and living in a lice-infested cave dug into the silty clay that extends around the Yellow River. Gradually, the selfless peasants and the unforgiving […]
China’s top leaders have asked policy think-tanks to draw up their most ambitious economic reform proposals in decades that could curb the power of state firms and give more freedom to the setting of interest rates and the yuan currency. But after almost 10 years of delay to painful structural reforms by the outgoing leadership, […]
As the Communist Party of China prepares for a once-in-a-decade change of leadership at the 18th Party Congress in November, the country’s foreign relations are in worse shape than they were 10 years ago, especially in East Asia but also in terms of heightened strategic rivalry with the United States. How the incoming leadership chooses […]
Perhaps the most intensely debated issue on the outcome of the clichéd once-in-a-decade transition in China that has drawn the attention of the strategic community is the PLA-Party relationship and its influence on the possible outcome of the transition process. The reason for this is not hard to guess – recent reports emerging out of […]
Is civil society taking roots in China? Read Here – China Media Project
Thirty years ago, a young government official with a plum job in Beijing made an odd request: reassignment to a poor rural area. At the time, millions of young people were still clawing their way back to China’s urban centers after being exiled to the countryside in the Mao era. But 30-year-old Xi Jinpingbucked the trend, […]
China‘s leaders put on a show of unity on Saturday after their damning accusations against disgraced politician Bo Xilai, whose expulsion from the Communist Party drew an outcry from leftist supporters in a sign of the rifts his prosecution could inflame. On Saturday evening, top leaders gathered in the cavernous national parliament building for a […]
Sometime in the next few weeks, the Chinese Communist Party will likely convene its Party Congress, which meets every five years to set major policies and choose its Central Committee of about 370 members. This year a major leadership change will take place. China watchers are scrutinizing the personality and goals of Vice President Xi Jinping, […]
China has just taken another step in the direction of becoming a military power. On Tuesday, it put into service its first aircraft carrier, named the “Liaoning” after China’s northeastern Liaoning Province. According to the Ministry of National Defense, the carrier’s entry into service “has important meaning for raising the level of the modernization of China’s […]
looking beyond borders 