Victor Shih

on July 30, 2015

Victor Shih is Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. A scholar of political economy of China, Shih holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. He has published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies, and exchange rates, and was the first analyst to identify the risk of massive local government debt. He also worked as a principal for The Carlyle Group. Shih is currently engaged in a study of how the coalition-formation strategies of founding leaders had a profound impact on the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China.

Can Xi Jinping Turn China’s Economy Around?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Arthur R. Kroeber, George Chen & more on July 29, 2015

On Monday, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.5 percent, erasing all of the gains it had made in an extraordinary run-up this year. The drop was the second 8.5 percent drop in recent weeks. The first such drop (the occasion for the Conversation below) came on the heels of major government intervention to stem the market slide that began in late June. What happened? What does the latest chapter of the crash mean for China’s economy? And, more broadly, what does it mean for the policies and politics of China’s current leaders? —The Editors [Updated Aug 24, 2015]

The Ad That Cracked China’s Infertility Taboo

By Adam Minter on July 28, 2015

The country's infertility rates are rising rapidly among couples of child-bearing age, reaching 12.5 percent in 2012, compared with 3 percent in 1992, according to a government study. There are about 40 million infertile couples in China, as well as a chronic shortage of sperm donations.

Health, Science, Society
Advertising, Family Planning, Sex, Infertility

Chu Yin

on July 28, 2015

Chu Yin is an Associate Professor at the Foreign Affairs Management in Public Administration Department at the University of International Relations, where his has worked since receiving his Ph.D. from the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China in 2006. Chu is also a researcher for the National Security and Legal System of Government Institute and a research fellow in the Center for China and Globalization. In 2004, Chu was an exchange researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. In 2010, he was a research fellow in the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies. His academic research interests include many ares, mainly focusing on the protection of China’s overseas interests and national security studies.

Clickbait Nationalism

Chinese State Media’s Sensational Headlines, Misleading Translations Incite Anger at Japan

on July 28, 2015

On July 16, the lower house of the Japanese Parliament passed a set of new security legislation that would grant Japan limited power to engage in foreign conflicts for the first time since its defeat in World War II.

Tech Takeoff Lifts Drone Industry to New Heights

Cheaper Manufacturing and Smartphone Advances Spurring Investors to Look Skyward

on July 27, 2015

A tech evolution and falling production costs have allowed drones to make the flight off military bases and Hollywood production lots to the hands of ordinary people and government agencies.

It has become routine to see these small unmanned aerial vehicles used for amateur photography, rescue efforts, environmental inspection, geographical surveys, and more.

China’s Un-separation of Powers

By Christopher K. Johnson and Scott Kennedy on July 27, 2015

U.S. industry has figured out how to pull the levers of power in China but also points to a substantial change in how China is governed. In the past, there was at least some separation between party and government roles, but it seems that the line is blurring dramatically. The CCP and its ruling Politburo Standing Committee have always been the ones in charge, but they have been amassing greater control over policymaking and even implementation. It leaves one wondering: Does the Chinese government matter anymore?

Business, Economy, Politics
Chinese Communist Party, Bureaucracy, Xi Jinping

China’s “New Normal” is Shifting the Country’s Economic Center of Gravity

By Richard Macauley on July 27, 2015

But it is not only because more developed cities are slowing that the rest of China is advancing. Smaller, poorer cities are also innovating their way out of the doldrums. Guiyang, capital of Guizhou, China’s poorest province, tops this year’s report as the most promising city in the country; it has achieved much recently through infrastructure investment, but most impressive is its ambition to become a “data capital” of China.

Economy
Development, Guizhou, Urban Development