A new generation of Chinese cadres in their late 50s have assumed ministerial and provincial positions, including top roles at the commerce and agriculture ministries, as Beijing reshuffles government rankings after finalising its 2035 development vision.
Read Here | South China Morning Post
As profound as the COVID-19 crisis seems to us now, it pales in comparison to what previous generations faced. Unlike in the past, however, today’s biggest threats must be addressed at both the national and global levels, implying the need for political leadership of a kind that is utterly lacking in today’s world.
Read Here | Project Syndicate
Xi Jinping intends to be the Leader of the “Second Hundred” just as Mao Zedong is regarded as the Leader of the “First Hundred”. This means the world will be dealing with President Xi Jinping for some time. It is, therefore, important to get a proper measure of the person.
One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare is an absence of global leadership. This time the G20 has done little beyond a rhetorical pledge to “do whatever it takes” and supporting debt-repayment suspension for poor countries. America, which led global campaigns to defeat HIV/AIDS and Ebola, has been absorbed in its internal arguments. And the UN Security Council has confirmed its dysfunctionality.
During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.
Seventeen years after Vladimir Putin first became president, his grip on Russia is stronger than ever. The West, which still sees Russia in post-Soviet terms, sometimes ranks him as his country’s most powerful leader since Stalin. Russians are increasingly looking to an earlier period of history. Both liberal reformers and conservative traditionalists in Moscow are talking about Mr Putin as a 21st-century tsar.
A 38-nation Pew Research Center survey finds there are reasons for calm as well as concern when it comes to democracy’s future. More than half in each of the nations polled consider representative democracy a very or somewhat good way to govern their country. Yet, in all countries, pro-democracy attitudes coexist, to varying degrees, with openness to nondemocratic forms of governance, including rule by experts, a strong leader or the military.
The man once tipped to become President Xi Jinping’s successor, Guangdong party boss Hu Chunhua, is likely to become a vice-premier in March but his prospects of inclusion in the Communist Party’s top echelon of power, the Politburo Standing Committee, are fading, sources have told the South China Morning Post.
As Donald Trump’s White House spirals deeper into crisis, the rest of the world seems to be giving up on America’s new president. A survey by Pew Research Centre showed that respondents in 22 out of 36 countries trusted Russian President Vladimir Putin more than Trump when it comes to handling global affairs. And that includes American allies like Germany, France and Japan. (Donald Trump edged out Putin in the UK, India and Israel.)
Through rounds of reshuffles and a relentless war on corruption that has felled more than 200 senior officials, Xi has managed to place loyalists or associates of close allies in key positions in central and provincial government and powerful party departments. Many are now poised to be elevated to the Central Committee and some to the Politburo.
