China: Back to Authoritarianism

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
Over the past decade, Xi has become a transformational figure on a par with the two other giants of Chinese Communist Party rule: Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Like them, he has reversed earlier policies, in Xi’s case the relative openness that his...

Man Tipped as China's Future President Ousted as Xi Jinping Wields 'Iron Discipline'

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Sun Zhengcai rose from farming studies in Hertfordshire to Communist party elite. Many fear his downfall signals turbulent times in Beijing.

Xi Jinping: The Illusion of Greatness

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
Politics is always about pomp and pageantry, but as pure, stultifying ritual few occasions can compare to the convening of the Chinese parliament, the National People’s Congress, which ended this week. No matter what is happening in China or the...

A Good Year for Xi Jinping— But Trouble is Heading His Way

Tom Phillips
Guardian
After domestic victories in 2016, China’s president must deal with a worsening economy and Trump in the White House

Xi’s Power Play Foreshadows Historic Transformation of How China is Ruled

Jeremy Page and Lingling Wei
Wall Street Journal
Party insiders say president wants to remain in office after his second term, breaking succession conventions

Xi Jinping is China’s “Core” Leader: Here’s What That Means

Chris Buckley
New York Times
President Xi got a lift when the CCP give him the title of "Core" Leader last week. But what does that mean for Mr. Xi and China’s political future?

Party Time in China: The Riddle of Xi

Dexter Roberts
Bloomberg
The prospect of the Party Congress in fall 2017 is already roiling politics.

The Race to China’s 19th Party Congress

Jonathan Brookfield
Diplomat
Next fall, China’s leaders will kick off the 19th Party Congress. Start your engines.

Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are Crushed

Andrew Jacobs, Chris Buckley
New York Times
Prominent activist, Xi Zhiyong, is indicted in a harsh warning to the New Citizens Movement. 

Other

12.23.13

[Transcript] One Year Later, China’s New Leaders

J. Stapleton Roy, Susan Shirk & more
Nearly a year to the day after seven new leaders ascended to their posts on the Standing Committee of China’s Politburo, the Asia Society held a public conversation with The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos; Dr. Susan Shirk of the University of California,...

Reports

07.24.13

Throttling Dissent: China’’s New Leaders Refine Internet Control

Madeline Earp
Freedom House
This special report is based on the 2013 China chapter of Freedom House’’s annual Freedom on the Net survey. As the home of one of the most systematically controlled and monitored online environments in the world, China will no doubt retain its...

Media

03.05.13

What Do You Know About China’s Politics?

Ouyang Bin & Zhang Xiaoran
The Liang Hui or “Two Sessions”—the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—are the most crowded, most covered, and probably most hilarious annual political events in China. Every March,...

Waiting for the Next Act

Dorinda Elliott
Cairo Review
“The Taoists have always spoken of an un-carved block, and I think that we should look on the new Chinese leadership as being something like that,” says Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society.

Is Xi Jinping a Reformer? Wrong Question.

Yiyi Lu
Wall Street Journal
Better questions are needed in order to produce more useful analyses and forecasts of China’s political development. Such analyses should start by recognizing two facts: First, the new leadership’s various initiatives and pronouncements after taking...

Viewpoint

01.15.13

Will Xi Jinping Differ from His Predecessors?

Andrew J. Nathan
As part of our continuing series on China’s recent leadership transition, Arthur Ross Fellow Ouyang Bin sat down with political scientist Andrew Nathan, who published his latest book, China’s Search for Security, in September.In the three videos...

The New Chinese Gang of Seven

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
In traditional Chinese religion, a fashi, or ritual master, will recite a set of phrases to turn an ordinary space into a sacred area where the gods can descend to receive prayers and rejuvenate the community. The ceremony can last days, with breaks...

Media

12.09.12

New Leaders’ Common Touch Gives Netizens “Great Hope”

Glad-handing with the locals. Kissing babies. Eating fast food. These are tried and true ways that American politicians seek to advertise their common touch; but when China’s new leaders employ these methods, it is greeted as a pleasant surprise,...

Caixin Media

12.07.12

China’s Dream Team

Stephen S. Roach
The country’s recent leadership transition was widely depicted as a triumph for conservative hardliners and a setback for the cause of reform—a characterization that has deepened the gloominess that pervades Western perceptions of China.In fact,...

James McGregor: An Open System with Closed Minds

James McGregor
Quartz
China was a closed system with rapidly opening minds. Today, China is a much more open system with some purposely closing minds.

How Crash Cover-Up Altered China’s Succession

Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
The outlines of the affair surfaced months ago, but it is now becoming clearer that the crash and the botched cover-up had more momentous consequences, altering the course of the Chinese Communist Party’s once-in-a-decade...

Ten Ways to Investigate Transition in China

Tom Marshall
New York Times
How can students learn what kind of place China is today? The Learning Network and The New York Times gathered 10 different ways of looking at the country.

Media

11.27.12

Spotted on Weibo: Chinese Leaders Share a Human Moment

An active Beijing-based micro-blogger named Dongdong Wang recently tweeted this image on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: {vertical_photo_right}At first glance, it doesn’t look like much: Outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao (left) and outgoing...

China's Powerbrokers Block Reformers

Benjamin Kang Lim
Reuters
Retired leaders in China's Communist Party used a last-minute straw poll to block two pro-reform candidates from joining the policymaking standing committee, including one who had alienated party elders, sources with ties to the leadership said...

Why Is China Censoring a Fake Photo of its Leaders Doing 'Gangnam Style'?

Max Fisher
Washington Post
A doctored photo of China's top officials doing a popular South Korean dance went viral 'til Chinese censors pulled it down. 

America and China in the Aftermath of Election and Succession: Paths and Pitfalls

Cheng Li, Kenneth Lieberthal, J...
Brookings Institution
Panel discussion with Li Cheng, Kenneth Lieberthal and Ambassador Stapleton Roy

Media

11.19.12

A Conservative Commentator Calls Out Chinese Liberals, and Liberals Shout Back

Speech on the Chinese Internet, it seems, is beginning to thaw once more following the country’s leadership transition. After months of speculation, new Chinese leader Xi Jinping was announced on November 16 at the close of the 18th Party Congress,...

China’s New Chief

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
When it was all over this morning, and the seven men had returned once again to the secluded backstage of the Great Hall of the People, trailed by their security, and the stage where they had stood was suddenly empty. I walked up to the spot where...

Viewpoint

11.15.12

Age of China’s New Leaders May Have Been Key to Their Selection

Susan Shirk
Earlier this week, before the new Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) and Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party were announced, I argued that the Party faces the difficult problem of how to allocate power in the absence of an open and legitimate...

Habemus Papam! China Unveils its New Leaders

T.P.
Economist
With its unique and mystifying blend of pageantry, ritual and secrecy, China’s ruling Communist Party has named its seven new leaders. 

The New Member's of China's Ruling Body

The New York Times
New York Times
All of China’s new Politburo Standing Committee, the group of politicians who rule country, have close connections with former leaders.

Viewpoint

11.14.12

The Future of Legal Reform

Carl Minzner
Carl Minzner, Professor of Law at Fordham University, talks here about the ways China’s legal reforms have ebbed and flowed, speeding up in the early 2000s, but then slowing down again after legal activists began to take the government at its word,...

Viewpoint

11.14.12

Change in Historical Context

Peter C. Perdue
China’s Communist Party has only ruled the country since 1949. But China has a long history of contentious transfers of power among its ruler. In these videos, Yale historian, Peter C. Perdue, an expert on China's last dynasty, the Qing, puts...

Viewpoint

11.14.12

Are You Happier Than You Were Ten Years Ago?

J. Michael Evans
“Many Chinese feel that they have not participated in the economic benefits of an economy that has been growing very rapidly,” says Michael Evans, a vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group and head of growth markets for the Wall Street...

Zhou Seen Exiting PBOC as China Installs New Economic Leadership

Kevin Hamlin and Michael Forsythe
Bloomberg
Top finance official Vice Premier Wang Qishan will move to a new role and Commerce Minister Chen Deming is also likely to exit. 

Viewpoint

11.13.12

China’s Next Leaders: A Guide to What’s at Stake

Susan Shirk
Just a little more than a week after the American presidential election, China will choose its own leaders in its own highly secretive way entirely inside the Communist Party. What’s at stake for China—and for the rest of the world—is not just who...

China Dodges Politcally Sensitive Questions at Key Congress

Ben Blanchard and Terril Yue Jones
Reuters
In pre-Olypmics 2007, officials took solo interviews and overseas reporters were encouraged to ask questions. Not so this time.

Exclusive: Hu Jintao Set to Step Down as Military Chief

Staff Reporters
South China Morning Post
Outgoing President Hu Jintao will formally relinquish his position as military chief at the end of the 18th party congress this week, according to sources.His decision to opt for complete retirement surprised many analysts, who had expected him to...

China Turns Corner on Economy as Party Chooses New Leaders

Kevin Yao
Reuters
The world's No2 economy has stopped slowing, the economic planning agency said, forecasting 2012 GDP growth of 7.5 percent or more.

Sinica Podcast

11.10.12

Eighteenth Party Roundup

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, our hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are joined by Gady Epstein from the Economist and we turn our attention to the Eighteenth Party Congress, which officially started in Beijing earlier this week. As China’s capital...

Is China Better at Picking Leaders than the U.S.?

Max Fisher
Washington Post
The case for China is that its leaders can emphasize long-term planning and difficult decisions over short-term politics and voter-appeasement.

Viewpoint

11.09.12

Pragmatism and Patience

Hamid Biglari
Hamid Bilgari, Vice Chairman of Citicorp, the strategic arm of Citigroup, is a leader in international investment banking. Bilgari says that pragmatism and patience are the dominant qualities exhibited by cultures facing major change, such as...

Ex-President of China, Said to Be Ill, Appears in Beijing

Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president who was said to have fallen gravely ill in July, appeared at a ceremony in Beijing on Sunday, fanning speculation about his health and the role he might play in power struggles accompanying the long-planned...

China Decides (Series)

Various
Foreign Policy
The world's other superpower is having its own “election” this week. And if all goes according to plan, on Nov. 14 nine (or seven) men (and possibly one woman) will stride across the stage in Beijing’s massive Great Hall of the People as the...

On Way Out, China’s Leader Offers Praise for the Status Quo

Ian Johnson and Keith Bradsher
New York Times
Capping 10 careful years at the helm of the Communist Party, China’s top leader is stepping into history with a series of rear-guard actions. The leader, Hu Jintao, 69, is scheduled to step down as the party’s general...

Reports

11.08.12

China 3.0

Edited by Mark Leonard
European Council on Foreign Relations
China’s once-a-decade leadership change is currently underway in Beijing. The new leaders will take power at a crucial time for China, as it enters the third stage of its development since the revolution. How they deal with the challenges ahead will...

Viewpoint

11.08.12

Who is Xi Jinping?

Orville Schell
In an era of great change and economic uncertainty around the world, one might expect a leadership transition at the top of one of the world’s rising powers to shine a light on that country’s prospective next leaders so the public might form an...

China's Communist Party Congress Opens with a Warning

Peter Ford
Christian Science Monitor
Outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that the Communist Party faces 'collapse' if it fails to clean up corruption.

China Prepares for Party Congress

Ian Johnson
New York Times
Hu Jintao told party-picked that China faces a period of major change and “complicated domestic and international circumstances."

China’s Leadership Transition: What to Look For

Damien Ma
Atlantic
Now that the U.S. election is behind us, time to turn to the next most important political transition in years: the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Congress. Seventeen congresses have gone by and hardly anyone has paid much attention, including...

Viewpoint

11.07.12

Peering Inside the ‘Black Box’

Orville Schell
Just hours after the United States voted for its next president, China, too, is preparing for a leadership change—although much less is known about that process, which begins Thursday with the start of the 18th National Congress of the Communist...

Viewpoint

11.05.12

The Big Enterprise

Orville Schell
In days of yore, when a new dynasty was established in China and a new emperor was enthroned, it was known as dashi, “The Big Enterprise,” and it usually involved mass social upheaval and civil war. The latter-day version of changing...

Generational Change on Hold in China’s Leadership Transition

Wang Xiangwei
South China Morning Post
If this list turns out to be true, it signals that a more meaningful generational transition is most likely to take place at the 19th congress in 2017, when more youthful officials would be elected into the Standing Committee.It also sends a clear...

Candidates Debate Rise of China; China Debates Reform

Bill Bishop
Deal Book
China's presumptive next president, Xi Jinping, may wish his economy were the juggernaut many Americans think it is. He will inherit an economy in desperate need of reform and rebalancing. As discussed in an earlier China...

Many Urge China’s Next Leader to Liberalize

Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
After it was leaked that Xi Jinping, the man anointed to be the next Communist Party chief of China, had met in private with a well-known supporter of political liberalization, the capital’s elite began to buzz about the import of...

Bo Xilai's Case: China's Pandora's Box

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The Chinese Communist Party has just done something it hates to do: hang its dirty laundry out in public. With a level of force and lurid color that surprised just about everyone who pays attention to these things, on Friday the...

Chinese Female Official Aspires to Top Role

Leslie Hook
Washington Post
Most of the 25 members of China’s Politburo are uncannily similar, with their black-dyed hair, dark suits and science degrees, but one stands out.With her trademark blue skirt-suit and pearls, Liu Yandong, 66, the top official in charge of health,...

China Politics Stall Overhaul for Economy

Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
When it comes to confronting economic slowdowns, the Chinese government has not been shy about making bold moves. Faced with the contagion of global recession four years ago, policy makers created a $585 billion stimulus package that helped...

Beijing's Dangerous Game

Perry Link
New York Review of Books
Many have ascribed the vehemence of the protests to deep-rooted anti-Japanese sentiment linked to injustices committed by Japan eighty years ago. But there is little evidence to support this. Rather the protests appear to have everything to do with...

Off-Script Scramble for Power in a Chinese Leader’s Absence

Ian Johnson and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
With still no sign of China’s designated new leader, Xi Jinping, who has not been seen in public since Sept. 1, many insiders and well-connected analysts say the Chinese political ship is adrift, with factions jockeying to...

Where’s Xi? Using New Code Words, China’s Netizens Speculate by the Thousands

Rachel Lu
It’s a cat and mouse game for netizens who are interested in Mr. Xi’s coming and goings. Certain code words for Mr. Xi, such as “Crown Prince (太子)” or XJP, are blocked search terms on Sina Weibo. However, netizens have invented others, such as heir...