Hong Kong voters will go to the polls on September 12 to elect the third Legislative Council (LegCo) since 1997, when British rule ended. The voter turnout rate for the first post-handover election in May 1998 was a historic high at 53%. In that election,... MORE

Beijing has acted quickly to dash the hopes that the half-a-million-people rally in Hong Kong last week will change the leadership's hard-line stance toward universal-suffrage elections in the special administrative region (SAR). While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued with its public-relations, united-front offensive... MORE

Diplomatic relations between mainland China and the Vatican broke off in the early 1950s when the Papal representative, who had supported the KMT during the civil war, was expelled for urging Chinese Catholics to oppose the PRC's involvement in the Korean War. Fifty years later,... MORE

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Chaosin made his first official visit to Kazakhstan in April 2003. The success of his meetings with Kazakh officials prompted Kazakh Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev to emphatically state that his views were identical to those of his Chinese counterpart and that... MORE

By Andrew Thompson and Zhu Feng The on-going transfer of power in Beijing is contributing to the "politicization" (zhengzhihua) of China's foreign policy, causing commentators and policymakers in Beijing to emphasize a hard-line ideology on Taiwan. Beijing's current, ideologically-charged atmosphere has had an impact on... MORE

In April, the European Union (EU) dodged a bullet by refusing to take up the issue of overturning its 15-year-old ban on selling arms to China. Supporters of lifting the embargo, led by France and Germany, are unlikely to abandon their quest, however, and the... MORE

The post-September 11 Sino-American rapprochement, based on the two countries' "partnership" in fighting global terrorism, appears to be in danger of rupture – at least from the perspective of the administration of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. According to Chinese diplomatic sources in... MORE

The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) refers to wide range of innovations in U.S. military thinking following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Included in this complex of ideas are new perspectives on tactics, strategy, and technology, as well as concepts such as informational warfare... MORE

China's "overheating" economy has commanded a great deal of concern in recent months. Indeed, some have suggested that if the Chinese economy "cools" too rapidly, world economic stability may be at risk. While such observations are not to be dismissed out of hand, they overlook... MORE

The recent spate of articles on China's growing energy and natural resource consumption is a key explanation for Beijing's growing interest in South America. While the continent remains at least fourth on China's list of priorities, the vast array of resources available, coupled with a... MORE