Viewpoint
11.14.12
The Future of Legal Reform
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
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?
“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...
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11.14.12Chinese Authorities Putting Pressure on Businesses to Help Censor the Web
New York Times
Web police units directed companies, including U.S. joint ventures, to buy and install hardware to log traffic, block select sites, and connect with police servers.
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11.14.12Opinion: Don't Expect Radical Reforms in China
Financial Times
If Li Keqiang walks on stage second it will suggest the premier post has been upgraded to a position of greater political clout.
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11.14.12Zhou Seen Exiting PBOC as China Installs New Economic Leadership
Bloomberg
Top finance official Vice Premier Wang Qishan will move to a new role and Commerce Minister Chen Deming is also likely to exit.
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11.13.12The Real China Model
New York Times
As a historian, however, I cannot let pass unchallenged the characterization of premodern Chinese political culture as “meritocratic.” Over the last 20 years, research has shown that the keju was far from the “ladder of...
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11.13.12China’s Great Political Leap Backward
Wall Street Journal
After years of parsing China's political jargon, I wasn't expecting anything dramatic from the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened in Beijing last week. It was foolish, I knew, to look for bold statements...
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11.13.12At Mao-style Conclave, China Embraces Twitter Age
Associated Press
Dozens of the more than 2,000 party delegates, among them Chairman Mao's grandson, are using social media to wax rhapsodic about China's rise and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao's live 90-minute reading of highlights from this year...
Viewpoint
11.13.12
China’s Next Leaders: A Guide to What’s at Stake
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...
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11.13.12The U.S.-China Reset
New York Times
The leaders of the U.S. and China may not want to say it out loud, but they would privately admit that U.S.-China relations are in trouble.
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11.12.12China Dodges Politcally Sensitive Questions at Key Congress
Reuters
In pre-Olypmics 2007, officials took solo interviews and overseas reporters were encouraged to ask questions. Not so this time.
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11.12.12China Mandates 'Social Risk' Reviews for Big Projects
New York Times
The move is aimed at curtailing the large and increasingly violent environmental protests of the last year.
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11.12.12Xinhua Insight: China Will Never Copy Western Political System
Xinhua
Xinhua says Hu Jintao wants China to support state power and at the same time improve the system of community-level democracy.
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11.11.12Recording the Untold Stories of China’s Great Famine
NPR
A young man trudges doggedly around his village, notebook in hand, fringe flopping over his glasses. He goes from door to door, calling on the elderly.The young man has one main question: Who died in our village during the Great Famine?This is the...
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11.11.12Exclusive: Hu Jintao Set to Step Down as Military Chief
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...
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11.11.12China Film Regulator: Don't Blame us for Hollywood Hiccups
Wall Street Journal
Beijing says it was the market that decided to bar imported films from domestic cinemas this summer, not film regulators.
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11.11.12Building China's Enlightenment
Sydney Morning Herald
China's most ambutious, radical and consequential think tank behind the scenes at the 18th Party Congress.
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11.11.12China, at Party Congress, Touts its Cultural Advances
New York Times
Party guidance is the "soul” of China's moves to privitize and promote industries that can spread soft power abroad.
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11.10.12China Turns Corner on Economy as Party Chooses New Leaders
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
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...
Postcard
11.09.12
Where to, China?
The windows of buses and taxis going by Tiananmen Square have been taped shut. The paramilitary police stand at attention at all major traffic intersections—even near the old alleyway where I live some five kilometers away. Those are sure signs that...
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11.09.12Opinion: Meritocracy Versus Democracy
New York Times
Without much fanfare, Beijing has introduced significant reforms and established an elaborate system of what can be called “selection plus election.”
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11.09.12Two Rising China Leaders Say Open to Wealth Declarations
Reuters
After report on Wen Jiabao's "hidden riches," Guangdong and Shanghai party bosses said officials will eventually have to declare assets.
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11.09.12Is China Better at Picking Leaders than the U.S.?
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.
Books
11.09.12
Strong Society, Smart State
The rise and influence of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy reveals a remarkable evolution in authoritarian responses to social turmoil. James Reilly shows how Chinese leaders have responded to popular demands for political participation with a sophisticated strategy of tolerance, responsiveness, persuasion, and repression—a successful approach that helps explain how and why the Communist Party continues to rule China.Through a detailed examination of China's relations with Japan from 1980 to 2010, Reilly reveals the populist origins of a wave of anti-Japanese public mobilization that swept across China in the early 2000s. Popular protests, sensationalist media content, and emotional public opinion combined to impede diplomatic negotiations, interrupt economic cooperation, spur belligerent rhetoric, and reshape public debates. Facing a mounting domestic and diplomatic crisis, Chinese leaders responded with a remarkable reversal, curtailing protests and cooling public anger toward Japan. Far from being a fragile state overwhelmed by popular nationalism, market forces, or information technology, China has emerged as a robust and flexible regime that has adapted to its new environment with remarkable speed and effectiveness. Reilly's study of public opinion's influence on foreign policy extends beyond democratic states. It reveals how persuasion and responsiveness sustain Communist Party rule in China and develops a method for examining similar dynamics in different authoritarian regimes. He draws upon public opinion surveys, interviews with Chinese activists, quantitative media analysis, and internal government documents to support his findings, joining theories in international relations, social movements, and public opinion. — Columbia University Press
Viewpoint
11.09.12
Pragmatism and Patience
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...
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11.08.12Ex-President of China, Said to Be Ill, Appears in Beijing
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...
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11.08.12In China, Self-Immolations Continue as Party Congress Opens
Los Angeles Times
As China launched its 18th Communist Party congress on Thursday, a record number of Tibetans immolated themselves in a stark illustration of the internal tensions facing the country's new leadership.Over a 48...
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11.08.12Party Report Suggests Old Guard is Strong
China Media Project
My preliminary conclusion: conservative forces within the Party are still very powerful. According to the line marked out by the political report to the 18th National Congress, there is very little prospect that substantive moves will be made on...
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11.08.12China Decides (Series)
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...
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11.08.12On Way Out, China’s Leader Offers Praise for the Status Quo
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
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?
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...
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11.08.12China's Communist Party Congress Opens with a Warning
Christian Science Monitor
Outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that the Communist Party faces 'collapse' if it fails to clean up corruption.
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11.08.12China Prepares for Party Congress
New York Times
Hu Jintao told party-picked that China faces a period of major change and “complicated domestic and international circumstances."
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11.07.12China’s Leadership Transition: What to Look For
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...
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11.07.12Unwelcome at the Party
New York Times
I don’t belong to a political party and have never felt that Communist Party meetings are any of my business. But my home is in Beijing. I am a writer, and Han Chinese. My wife, Woeser, is also a writer, and Tibetan. The other...
Viewpoint
11.07.12
Peering Inside the ‘Black Box’
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...
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11.06.12China’s Security Ministry Suspected Slain Businessman Was a Spy
New York Times
China’s external intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, suspected a British businessman of being a spy before his murder last year at the hands of a senior politician’s wife, according to people with close ties to Chinese state...
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11.06.12Neil Heywood 'Was MI6 Informant'
Telegraph
Neil Heywood, the British businessman murdered in China, gave MI6 info on Bo Xilai.
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11.06.12If China Voted, It Would Be Obama in a Landside, Surveys Show
Los Angeles Times
An AFP-Ipsos poll in late September showed 63% of about 800 Chinese respondents wanted Obama.
Caixin Media
11.05.12
Scenes from a Leadership Transition
Jiang Zemin’s Lyrical MemoryCompiled by Caixin(Beijing)—A glance at off-hours correspondence between two veteran leaders has added a lighter dimension to the recent public appearances of former Politburo members in the run-up to the party’s 18th...
Viewpoint
11.05.12
The Big Enterprise
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...
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11.04.12CCTV Comes to America
Foreign Policy
CCTV America's coverage of China is largely scrubbed of controversy and upbeat in tone, with a heavy emphasis on business and cultural stories in places where Beijing hopes to gain influence. Reporting on topics sensitive to Beijing,...
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11.04.12The Five “Vermin” Threatening China
China Story
In Yuan Peng’s 2012 repertoire of what are now popularly known as the ‘New Black Five Categories of People’ were identified as: rights lawyers, underground religious activities, dissidents, Internet leaders and vulnerable groups
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11.04.12Generational Change on Hold in China’s Leadership Transition
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...
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11.04.12The Problem with the Pivot
Foreign Affairs
Ever since the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping opened up his country’s economy in the late 1970s, China has managed to grow in power, wealth, and military might while still maintaining cooperative and friendly relations with most of the world...
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11.02.12From Toys to TV News, Jittery Beijing Clamps Down
New York Times
As China's capital steels itself for the 18th Party Congress, the government is cracking down on balloons, homing pigeons, Ping-Pong balls and remote-control toy airplanes, anything that could potentially carry protest messages and mar the...
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11.02.12U.S. Rights Official Faults China on Tibetan Suppression
New York Times
Navi Pillay says she's disturbed by reports of detentions, disappearances and the excessive use of force.
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11.02.12One-Child Policy Up for Reform in China?
Associated Press
The unpopular policy should be phased out, says a Chinese government think tank.
Media
11.02.12
Chinese Movie Mogul Promises New Party Leaders Will Open Market to Hollywood
A wise old cartoon turtle in Kung Fu Panda advises Po, the portly black and white star of the 2004 DreamWorks Animation blockbuster film, not to fret about honing his fighting skills, but rather to focus on the moment and do his...
Caixin Media
11.02.12
18 Reforms for the Party’s 18th Congress
China’s leadership handover comes at a critical moment for society and the economy, and changes are in order.The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party this month comes at a critical time described by economist Wu Jinglian as “a tipping...
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11.01.12Staying Out of Trouble Before the 18th Party Congress
As Beijing enters extreme lock-down prior to the 18th National Party Congress (十八大 or “shi ba da” in Chinese), social media users have invented a new coded reference–“Sparta”–to talk about this otherwise censored topic on Sina...
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11.01.12Silencing a Voice for Justice
New York Times
I have been recently seeking to use the rule of law to achieve social justice. This isn’t easy in a country where legal vagueness and arbitrary enforcement make advocacy a constant uphill battle. But in my career, I’ve encountered few cases as...
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10.28.12Seven Tibetan Self-Immolations Hit China in One Week
Agence France-Presse
Two Tibetans set themselves on fire protesting Beijing's hardline rule, a rights group said.
Media
10.26.12
Myanmar Envy
Chinese netizens’ reactions to tentative democratic reforms in neighboring Myanmar, including to the recent repeal of censorship rules for private publishers by the Southeast Asian nation’s reformist government, reflect just how closely it’s...
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10.26.12China Condemns NYTimes Wen Jiabao Wealth Story as 'Smear'
BBC
Beijing said the report that Wen's family has "controlled ... at least $2.7bn" had "ulterior motives."
Sinica Podcast
10.26.12
Party Congress Preview
from Sinica Podcast
With less than two weeks to go before the Eighteenth Party Congress, speculation on China’s upcoming leadership transition could not be more intense here in Beijing, where insiders are trading lists of potential Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC)...
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10.25.12China Paves Way for Prosecuting Disgraced Politician Bo Xilai
Reuters
China's parliament has expelled disgraced former senior politician Bo Xilai, Xinhua said, paving the way for formal criminal charges.