Trump Demands Aides Pump up Anti-China Tariffs

Adam Behsudi and Andrew Restuccia
Politico
President Donald Trump is getting ready to crack down on China. Trump told Cabinet secretaries and top advisers during a meeting at the White House last week that he wanted to soon hit China with steep tariffs and investment restrictions in response...

Chairman Xi, Chinese Idol

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
For nearly sixty years since it opened in 1959, the Great Hall of the People has been the public focus of Chinese politics, a monumental granite block that extends 1,200 feet along the west side of Tiananmen Square. It is where the country’s leaders...

Conversation

03.13.18

When Trump and Kim Meet, What Will Xi Do?

Zha Daojiong, Sergey Radchenko & more
On March 8, South Korea’s National Security Advisor announced that Donald Trump had agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by May. Although now-ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previously downplayed the announcement, a summit...

A Malaysian Insta-City Becomes a Flash Point for Chinese Colonialism — and Capital Flight

Brook Larmer
New York Times
A futuristic city funded by China is rising from the sea off Malaysian coast.

A Reporter Rolled Her Eyes, and China’s Internet Broke

Paul Mozur
New York Times
A reporter's eye-roll at China's legislature meeting went viral.

China Sets up New Foreign Aid Agency to Better Project Influence Abroad

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
The communist government establishes a new agency to coordinate its foreign aid program.

Beijing Watches and Waits While Trump Talks up His Meeting with Kim Jong Un

Nyshka Chandran
CNBC
The milestone summit suits Beijing's interests so the communist state isn't expected to interfere.

China Unveils Overhaul of Government Bureaucracy

Chun Han Wong
Wall Street Journal
Plan follows constitutional amendments that boost President Xi Jinping’s power.

Reports

03.13.18

Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China

PEN America
PEN International
Based on extensive interviews with writers, poets, artists, activists, and others personally affected by the government’s grip on online expression, as well as interviews with anonymous employees at Chinese social media companies, this report lays...

Viewpoint

03.12.18

Chinese History Isn’t Over

Julian B. Gewirtz
One of the simplest and least useful ways to understand the future is to take exactly what’s happening today and project it forward, rigidly and predictably, into tomorrow. This view is more than just a form of mental inertia; it is a breed of...

Excerpts

03.12.18

A Chinese Mayor-to-Be Tells His Story

Zak Dychtwald
When I lived with Tom in the city of Chengdu in 2015 and into 2016, he was a 23-year-old probationary member of the Chinese Communist Party, on his way to joining the organization’s nearly 90 million full members. He wanted to embark on a career in...

Xi Jinping Clear to Rule Indefinitely as China Scraps Presidential Term Limits

Chun Han Wong
Wall Street Journal
Legislature votes to repeal 10-year presidential term limit imposed after Mao’s death.

Ending Term Limits for China’s Xi Is a Big Deal. Here’s Why.

Chris Buck and Adam Wu
New York Times
What is at stake when China ends term limit on Xi’s presidency?

Trump’s China Whisperer: How Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman Has Sought to Keep the President Close to Beijing

Michael Kranish
Washington Post
This American investor has one of the closest relationships to Beijing.

South Korea Moves to Ease Chinese Jitters over U.S.-North Korea Talks

Euan McKirdy
CNN
South Korean officials met with Xi about Trump-Kim Meeting.

China Says Trade War with U.S. Will Only Bring Disaster to Global Economy

Elias Glenn
Reuters
Beijing criticizes proposed tariffs by Washington amid fears it could shatter global growth.

China’s Arms Sales Rise as It Vies with U.S. for Influence on the World Stage

Kristin Huang
South China Morning Post
Research group highlights Beijing’s growing share of global arms trade as it tries to strengthen ties with key allies.

Books

03.09.18

End of an Era

Carl Minzner
Oxford University Press: Since the 1990s, Beijing’s leaders have firmly rejected any fundamental reform of their authoritarian one-party political system, even as a decades-long boom has reshaped China’s economy and society. On the surface, their efforts have been a success. Political turmoil has toppled former communist Eastern Bloc regimes, internal unrest overtaken Middle East nations, and populist movements risen to challenge established Western democracies. China, in contrast, has appeared a relative haven of stability and growth.But as Carl Minzner shows, a closer look at China’s reform era reveals a different truth. Over the past three decades, a frozen political system has fueled both the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself and the systematic underdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Economic cleavages have widened. Social unrest has worsened. Ideological polarization has deepened.{node, 45901}Now, to address these looming problems, China’s leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms and practices that have formed the bedrock of the regime’s stability in the reform era. Technocratic rule is giving way to black-box purges; collective governance sliding back towards single-man rule. The post-1978 era of “reform and opening up” is ending. China is closing down. Uncertainty hangs in the air as a new future slouches towards Beijing to be born. End of an Era explains how China arrived at this dangerous turning point, and outlines the potential outcomes that could result. {chop}

US’s Tillerson Warns African Nations Not to ‘Forfeit Their Sovereignty’ by Taking Chinese Loans

Justina Crabtree
CNBC
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has warned against African nations accepting Chinese cash in agreements which could “forfeit their sovereignty.”

Xi Jinping Says China’s Authoritarian System Can Be a Model for the World

Zheping Huang
Quartz
Chinese president Xi Jinping has repeatedly told the world that China is ready to lead on issues like free trade and climate change.

Chinese Students in America Say ‘Not My President’

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
Foreign Policy
The first posters appeared on a bulletin board at University of California, San Diego on March 1.

How China Is Challenging American Dominance in Asia

Max Fisher and Audrey Carlsen
New York Times
As China grows more powerful, it is displacing decades-old American preeminence in parts of Asia. The outlines of the rivalry are defining the future of the continent.

China, Europe Slam Trump’s Tariffs as U.S. Metalworkers Cheer

Wayne Ma, Emre Peker, and Doug Cameron
Wall Street Journal
China and Europe lashed out against new U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, while officials and executives from several American allies caught in the crossfire reacted more cautiously, embracing what the White House promised would be some flexibility...

Trump Takes the Bait from Musk, Attacks China Auto Import Duties

Dana Hull and Justin Sink
Bloomberg
President Donald Trump may not follow Elon Musk on Twitter, but the Tesla Inc. chief’s posts decrying China’s automotive trade practices managed to catch his attention.

Media

03.08.18

Weibo Whack-a-Mole

King-wa Fu, Channing Huang & more from Weiboscope
China might be the world’s second-largest economy, and have more Internet users than any other country, but each year it is ranked as the nation that enjoys the least Internet freedom among the 65 sample nations scored by the U.S.-based Freedom...

Excerpts

03.08.18

Reversing Reform

Carl Minzner
Political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth were the hallmarks of China’s post-1978 reform era. But they are ending. China is entering a new era—the counter-reform era.

Francis Fukuyama: China’s ‘Bad Emperor’ Returns

Francis Fukuyama
Washington Post
Since 1978, China’s authoritarian political system has been different from virtually all other dictatorships in part because the ruling Communist Party has been subject to rules regarding succession.

New Chinese Agency Could Undercut Other Anti-Corruption Efforts

Dimitar Gueorguiev and Jonathan...
Brookings Institution
China’s National People’s Congress is expected to ratify legislation during the next two weeks to create a new supra-agency, the National Supervision Commission, to institutionalize President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-corruption campaign as a...

China Protectionism Creates Tech Billionaires Who Protect Xi

Shelly Banjo
Bloomberg
China’s tech giants will add star power to the country’s political festivities this week, paying homage to President Xi Jinping and endorsing constitutional changes for him to remain president indefinitely.

China Unhappy with US Aircraft Carrier’s Visit to Vietnam, State Media Says

South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
Beijing is unhappy with the visit of a US aircraft carrier to a Vietnamese port, the first by such a vessel since the Vietnam war, and is monitoring developments, according to a state newspaper report on Wednesday.

Talks with North Korea? China Approves (No Matter the Outcome)

Jane Perlez
New York Times
When China hosted the last serious talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, in the mid-2000s, the setting was a huge, hexagonal table covered in green felt, in a government guesthouse in Beijing.

The West Is Doing Its Best to Help China

Edward Luce
Financial Times
Most of it is unintentional. Yet the west could not be helping China more if it tried.

India Is Willing to Snub the Dalai Lama to Please China

Devjyot Ghoshal
Quartz
On March 17, 1959, a 23-year-old Buddhist monk disguised as a soldier fled Tibet, travelling for three weeks across the Himalayas before reaching the border with India.

Box Office: Will ‘Black Panther’ Conquer China?

Patrick Brzeski
Hollywood Reporter
At nearly $900 million worldwide and counting, Marvel’s latest is a certified historic hit, but Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster faces a final challenge to “conventional wisdom” in the world's second-largest film market.

China Boosts Defense Budget in Quest for ‘World Class’ Military but Tells Neighbors Not to Worry

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
China’s government said Monday that it will boost its defense spending by 8.1 percent this year, the biggest increase in three years, even as it insists that it poses no threat to other countries.

Conversation

03.06.18

China’s Military Spending

Dhruva Jaishankar, Dennis J. Blasko & more
On March 5, during the opening of the National People’s Congress, China’s annual parliament, Beijing announced it plans to spend U.S.$175 billion on its military in 2018, an 8.1 percent rise from 2017. China’s military budget is the world’s second...

Conversation

03.02.18

How Will Trump’s Tariffs Affect U.S.-China Relations?

Derek Scissors, Donald Clarke & more
Arguing that America is harmed by other countries’ trade practices, President Donald Trump said on March 1 that the U.S. will impose a new 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum. “People have no idea how badly...

The Brands That Kowtow to China

Richard Bernstein from New York Review of Books
There’s been no joking as the apologies to China have come thick and fast in recent weeks, issued not by teenage singers but by some of the largest and richest multinational corporations in the world—the German luxury car manufacturer Daimler, the...

As Xi Tightens His Grip on China, U.S. Sees Conflict Ahead

Mark Landler
New York Times
A few weeks after Stephen K. Bannon left the White House in August, he was invited to a dinner at the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss American policy toward China.

A Summer Vacation in China’s Muslim Gulag

Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Since announcing a “people’s war on terror” in 2014, the Chinese Communist Party has created an unprecedented network of re-education camps in the autonomous Xinjiang region that are essentially ethnic gulags.

An Anbang-Linked Revolutionary Heir Dies in China. Speculation Begins.

Josh Chin and Eva Dou
Wall Street Journal
The sudden death of a revolutionary scion linked to troubled Chinese insurer Anbang Insurance Group Co. is reverberating through China’s battered private business community.

China Energy Group Bonds Crash after Detention Report

Lucy Hornby and Archie Zhang
Financial Times
Bonds of mysterious Chinese energy firm CEFC crashed on Thursday amid reports that its chairman Ye Jianming had been detained, complicating its deal to buy a $9bn stake in Russian oil company Rosneft.

How the West Got China Wrong

The Economist
Economist
Last weekend China stepped from autocracy into dictatorship. That was when Xi Jinping, already the world’s most powerful man, let it be known that he will change China’s constitution so that he can rule as president for as long as he chooses—and...

Why China Is Censoring Winnie the Pooh—and the Letter ‘N’

Natasha Bach
Fortune
Chinese President Xi Jinping has had a fruitful five plus years in his current position.

Viewpoint

03.01.18

Maybe the Law Does Actually Matter to Xi Jinping

Taisu Zhang
The February 25 announcement that the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove term limits on the office of the presidency is arguably the most significant Chinese political and legal development in...

Sinica Podcast

03.01.18

Can Chinese Journalists Criticize the Party-State?

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Outside observers typically view China’s media as utterly shackled by the bonds of censorship, unable to critique the government or speak truth to power in any meaningful sense. In part, this is true. Censorship and other pressures do create “no-go...

China’s Media Is Struggling to Overcome Its Racial Stereotypes of Africa

Dani Madrid-Morales
Quartz
For most Chinese people, the Spring Festival is a time to honor family ties, friendships and acquaintances.

China’s New Economic Guru Is Trying to Stop a Trade War

Daniel Shane
CNN
As trade tensions escalate between the US and China, one of President Xi Jinping’s most trusted advisers is paying a visit to Washington.

China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Chinese authorities are building and deploying a predictive policing program based on big data analysis in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The program aggregates data about people – often without their knowledge – and flags those it deems...

Xi’s Power Grab Gives a Short-Term Boost with Long-Term Ramifications

David Dollar
Brookings Institution
China’s stock market and currency rallied Monday on news that the country would revise its constitution to abolish term limits for the president.

Conversation

02.25.18

Xi Won’t Go

Richard McGregor, Taisu Zhang & more
In a surprise Sunday move, Beijing announced that the Communist Party leadership wants to abolish the two-term limit for China’s president and vice president, potentially paving the way for China’s 64-year-old President Xi Jinping to stay in power...

China Probes Report of Possible North Korea Sanctions Breach at Sea

Reuters Staff
Reuters
China said on Thursday it is investigating a Japanese report that a Chinese ship may have carried out a ship-to-ship transfer with a North Korean vessel in breach of U.N. sanctions.

As China Puts Pressure on Taiwan, Signs of a U.S. Pushback

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
As China ratchets up pressure on Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its territory, the United States is cautiously starting to push back.

China Hands out Free TVs to Beam Propaganda into Poorest Regions

Neil Connor
Telegraph
China is distributing 300,000 television sets to some of its poorest regions as Beijing seeks to spread its propaganda into some of the country's most hard to reach households.

Battleground Malaysia: China Extends Crackdown on Uygurs across Borders

James M. Dorsey
South China Morning Post
Malaysia has emerged as the latest battleground pitting Chinese efforts to export its security notions against principles of the rule of law.

Terracotta Theft: Chinese Anger over Stolen Warrior Thumb

BBC
BBC
Chinese authorities have demanded “severe punishment” for a man who allegedly stole the thumb of a terracotta warrior statue on display in the US, Chinese state media report.

“Ignore the Missiles”: Duterte Says China’s South China Sea Militarization Is No Problem

Steve Mollman
Quartz
Generally speaking, a sovereign nation dislikes it when a foreign power establishes new military bases within striking range of its capital. But when it comes to China doing just that to the Philippines in the South China Sea, Rodrigo Duterte, it...

Chinese Warships Enter East Indian Ocean Amid Maldives Tensions

Reuters Staff
Reuters
Eleven Chinese warships sailed into the East Indian Ocean this month, a Chinese news portal said, amid a constitutional crisis in the tiny tropical island chain of the Maldives now under a state of emergency.

Viewpoint

02.15.18

A Clash of Cyber Civilizations

Geoffrey Hoffman
There has been little need for the term “cyber sovereignty” among democratic states: the Internet, by its nature, operates under an aegis of freedom and cooperation. However, as the international system slips away from American unipolarity, a...

Chinese Envoy Says It’s ‘Dangerous’ for U.S. to Confront Beijing

Keith Zhai
Bloomberg
China’s ambassador to the U.S. warned the Trump administration against adopting a confrontational approach to the world’s second-biggest economy.