Latest China Brief Articles

PERSPECTIVE: A CHINESE DEMOCRAT LOOKS AT HU JINTAO

Hu Jintao, heralded by both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal as the next "reformer" in the People's Republic of China, had the most muted high-level visit to Washington in memory. However, Hu took care to woo the business community. It is... MORE

HU JINTAO AND THE TIBETAN ISSUE

By Jonathan Mirsky Last week President Bush welcomed to the White House China's prospective president, Vice President Hu Jintao, a man whose career and character are usually noted as virtually unknown. The New York Times recently described him as "blandly modern--never seen with a hair... MORE

SECRETS, SCHOLARS AND SPIES

By John Tkacik Taiwan Army Colonel Liu Kuan-chun is, by all accounts, a sleaze ball. Colonel Liu was a finance officer in the National Security Bureau (NSB), Taiwan's spy agency, and disappeared in September 2000 with several million U.S. dollars of espionage cash, sparking an... MORE

WILL THE HEIR APPARENT BE A WEAK NUMBER ONE?

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam Vice President Hu Jintao has encountered some problems in factional infighting within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)--and this could affect his pivotal trip to the United States. It is important to note that while Hu is regarded as the heir-apparent of... MORE

GUESS HU’S COMING TO TOWN?

By Baopu Liu The performance of Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao during his coming visit to the United States is largely predictable, because the boundaries that restrict his public showcase of personality and views are predefined and impossible to ignore. The foremost limitation is that... MORE

CHINA’S EQUITY MARKETS: FLOATING WITH HELIUM, PART I

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. During the preceding three calendar years, Chinese companies raised an average of US$7.9 billion in... MORE

THE PLA STRENGTHENS ITS AMPHIBIOUS CAPABILITY

By Yihong Chang It has been fashionable for many Western analysts to discount the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) ability to mount an amphibious invasion of Taiwan, calling it a potential "million-man swim." But in the face of such doubts, the PLA is modernizing and strengthening... MORE

PROJECT HOPE: THEY COULD NOT KEEP A GOOD SCANDAL DOWN

By Arnold Zeitlin Despite furious efforts of the Chinese leadership to control it, the internet--assisted by a free-wheeling Hong Kong news media--serves as a formidable obstacle to suppressing news and information in China. A recent crackdown on news coverage at the end of March revealed... MORE

CHINA’S SPACE AGENDA

By Richard D. Fisher, Jr. China's recent successful third uninhabited test of its Shenzhou manned space capsule serves to highlight the political, military and diplomatic agendas of its manned space program. But before the United States and Europe can craft a proper response to either... MORE

STABILITY AT THE EXPENSE OF REFORM?

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam More than twelve years after Deng Xiaoping launched the open door policy, the Chinese leadership has still not solved the contradiction between stability and reform. Whenever the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) mandate of heaven seems in doubt, the Politburo would pull... MORE