Who would have imagined street stalls could grab so much attention in China? Premier Li Keqiang’s comments about expanding street stalls to promote employment and the apparent pushback by Xi Jinping’s allies against his proposal have also revealed something that has become an afterthought in the Xi era: the power and importance of the [...]
Over the past 40 years, China’s economic rise has been powered by the work, sacrifices and creativity of hundreds of millions of citizens. Yet its rise as a global power has come about thanks to many unsung heroes: its diplomats. There are no movies, memorials or patriotic recruitment clips dedicated to them, but some [...]
The latest confrontation between the United States and China officially started with the trade war in 2018. The time since then has reminded us just how different the two countries are and how difficult it has become to reach a compromise. While the West would like to preserve the current world order and strengthen [...]
A route that spans around Eurasia, an infrastructure project that encompasses over 70 countries, a branding strategy, are just some of the ways in which the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been described until now. But the narrative has begun to change lately. From a beneficial strategy, the BRI has become a bogeyman [...]
Forty years ago, Deng Xiaoping was visiting Tokyo, as the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China was coming into force. There, Deng addressed the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, articulating his famous idea that the issue should be shelved, because “[t]he people of our generation don’t have sufficient wisdom to settle this discussion, [...]
Now that China has done away with presidential term limits, Xi Jinping can retain all his current titles and power long into the future. Most commentary defending the move argues that Xi is consolidating power to push through difficult reforms and strengthen China, and that he wants to remain in charge beyond 2022 to [...]
Xi Jinping said it and the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) confirmed it: it’s a new era, including for the party and its process of institutionalization. Xi entered the congress as a very powerful leader, but one who still respected almost all of the traditions and precedents that guided Chinese [...]
It really is a new era. As members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee walked onto the stage to greet the press, it became clear that no successor to President Xi Jinping has been anointed. Instead, three politicians born in the 1960s – Hu Chunhua, Chen Miner and Ding Xuexiang – have become members of [...]
Until recently, Sun Zhengcai, the party secretary of the metropolis of Chongqing, “the Chicago on the Yangtze”, was seen as a possible successor to Xi Jinping. Then, in July, the Communist Party of China launched an investigation against him for corruption, leading to Sun’s dismissal from office and the precipitous end to his political [...]
China’s political system has two problems. The first is its secrecy. The second problem, though, is very different: the simplified, hyperbolic caricature often presented in the West, where Chinese politics is usually depicted as a totally unpredictable fight for power. In this view, political events in China are simply the result of a power [...]