The senior cadres currently meeting for their annual brainstorming session at the seaside Beidaihe retreat are putting the finishing touches on a blueprint for seminal reforms to the Chinese economy (Duowei, August 7; South China Morning Post, August 5; Xinhua, August 5). Given the signals... MORE

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “mass line” (qunzhong luxian) education campaign echoes in content and format a similar effort initiated by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, to improve the party’s governance capacity. The current campaign’s effort to leverage Mao’s authority points to an increased sense of... MORE

On July 30, Xi Jinping oversaw a meeting of the Politburo to discuss economic reform, ahead of the widely-anticipated discussions at Beidaihe leading up to the release of a new economic reform package at the Third Plenum in October (Xinhua, July 30). The official press... MORE

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of promoting its own group of moral heroes. Sino-Japanese War martyrs and hardworking small-town cadres have all been used by the government to push social values since the founding of the People's Republic. With an ongoing... MORE

Chinese analysts have been assessing whether recent developments, especially the presidential and U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) meetings, have affected U.S.-China relations in major ways. Their general sense is that relations have improved significantly since the nadir of 2010. This assessment, however, downplays the... MORE

As fresh violence erupted across Xinjiang in June, the outlines of a new ethnic policy—one rooted in Xi Jinping’s “mass line” approach— slowly may be coming into focus (Xinhua, July 3). One aspect of this shift may be the appointment of a new Chairman of... MORE

The regular appearance in the Chinese media of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) figures calling for aggressive foreign policy causes controversy and confusion among foreign observers. The most sensational remarks usually are made by academics at PLA institutions. Foreign media routinely pick up sensational quotes from... MORE

On July 24, Beijing hosted Jose Ramon Balaguer, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of Cuba—the latest in a series of bilateral meetings with Latin American countries running back to the spring (Xinhua, July 24). The rhetoric of these visits illustrates the... MORE

The recent decision of the Arctic Council to admit China and several other Asian states to observer status there represents an epochal decision for both Arctic and Asian affairs. China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, and Italy all won observer status–the inclusion of so many... MORE

A NATO delegation headed by the Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, General Knud Bartels, took active part in the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore from May 31 to June 2. General Bartels discussed regional security with counterparts from Asian countries including General Shigeru Iwasaki, Chief of... MORE