Gordon G. Chang

This month marks the end of the first quarter-century of China's reform era. During the groundbreaking Third Plenum of the 11th Party Congress in 1978, Deng Xiaoping launched his agenda

By Gordon G. Chang A half million demonstrators took to the streets in Hong Kong this month. Can the people in the Mainland be far behind? There are, as we

By Gordon G. Chang Chinese leaders are not as lucky as their North Korean cousins. Beijing's cadres govern a population that is increasingly mobile, aware, and demanding--and that thinks for

By Gordon G. Chang China's problem is that it is stuck in the middle of the reform process, while North Korea's is that it is just starting it. To arrest

By Gordon G. Chang They're communist cousins, existing side-by-side, but they couldn't appear more different. One of them looks vibrant and dynamic--the other dark and desperate. Are we living in

An epidemic, spread by official deception and indifference, is afflicting the Chinese people. What does this disease mean for the People's Republic of China?Severe acute respiratory syndrome, "SARS" for short,

By Gordon G. Chang Memo to the Pentagon: Don't worry about defending Taiwan. Send the Seventh Fleet home because hostility across the Taiwan Strait will soon become a thing of

By Gordon G. Chang "It only takes a small group, and we are that small group," says Peng Ming, the revolutionary. "We don't need the general population, and we don't

Politics itself is immoral and dirty. We have to use immoral, dirty means to overthrow this regime. Then we can set up a moral and clean regime. --Peng Ming Peng

By Gordon G. Chang Will Kim Jong Il just slam down the phone on China's president, Jiang Zemin? That's what Beijing wants us to think. "If Kim tells Jiang he

By Gordon G. Chang China has reported stellar economic growth for 2002. Can the country continue its success in developing its economy? Growth last year was largely the result of

"If we didn't have China I would be suicidal," chief Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach said this month. "It's the only bright spot in the world economy." And bright spot

By Gordon G. Chang The Chinese gangs, as they have penetrated Japanese society, have gone beyond robbery and burglary, have branched out into more sophisticated criminal activities like forging credit

By Gordon G. Chang "It was almost like they were filming the movie of the invasion of Normandy," said New York City detective Ming Li, who witnessed frightened and wet

By Gordon G. Chang These days China proudly calls itself "the workshop of the world." This is no idle boast: The People's Republic is attracting more and more of the

By Gordon G. Chang President Jiang Zemin has recently urged China's young to "Protect the Mother Rivers." If the truth be told, Jiang's exhortation is a call to resist the

"Pigs, chickens, cows--there were corpses everywhere, including people," said Zhao Zhengwu, a soybean grower and resident of Guangming. Guangming, some 40 miles south of Wuhan, was inundated in the great

Beijing is fighting AIDS, but it prefers to fight AIDS activists. And shut down clinics to help the Chinese people afflicted by the disease, the worst in human history. This

"To them we are like bubbles," says Xie Yan, referring to officials in her village. "They know if they turn away and ignore us, we will soon pop and be

By Gordon G. Chang How much are China's pension and other social welfare obligations? Some say they approach a trillion U.S. dollars. Give or take a couple hundred billion dollars

How much do China's unfunded pension and other social security obligations amount to? Nobody knows, not even the technocrats in Beijing. There is, however, one thing that's clear: The nonpayment

By Gordon G. Chang In China, there is always progress. In January of this year the People's Supreme Court, China's highest judicial body, made permanent a ban on shareholder suits

By Gordon G. Chang Forget the hype and follow the money. If you want to know the truth about China's growing equity markets, watch where the green is coming from.

By Gordon G. Chang "Isn't slower better?" asks Dai Genyou. When it comes to certain things, he is surely right. But Dai is an official at the People's Bank of

By Gordon G. Chang There are two things to know about the banking system in China. First, the major state banks, the so-called Big Four, are insolvent. Second, the effort

By Gordon G. Chang China has been in the World Trade Organization for just a little over a month. Already the optimists are in retreat. Even in today's fast-paced world,

By Gordon G. Chang It may not have been "the shot heard 'round the world," but it shook China nonetheless. Especially the modern metropolis of Shanghai. There were many unfinished

By Gordon G. Chang [For this issue China Brief is pleased to offer a debate on Gordon Chang's recent book "The Coming Collapse of China" (Random House, 2001). In his