
Latest China Brief Articles

Beijing Bids to Extend its Global Clean Energy Lead
China has firmly established itself as the world’s dominant manufacturer of clean energy technologies, having been the largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells and modules for at least a decade (Energy Policy, February 2011). The country now accounts for half of all solar manufacturing (International... MORE

The Belt and Road Initiative: A Road to China’s World Cup Dreams?
Since its inception at a 2013 speech in Kazakhstan, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has touted his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a platform for “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit,” through economic and cultural exchange. (State Council Information... MORE

Xi’s Economic Deleveraging Campaign and the Limits of Credit Committees
For well over a decade, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have understood that excess lending by China’s state-directed banks to unproductive, state-linked companies could spark a future financial crisis. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has made the fight against excess leverage a... MORE

Chinese Media and Latin America: “Borrowing a Boat” to Set Sail
“Though we're geographically distant, we're all developing countries and the progress and well-being of our populations are common objectives,” Liu Biwei, vice-president of the China Public Diplomacy Association, a soft-power-focused organisation, said on opening the China-Latin America & Caribbean Press Center in Beijing last month... MORE

Global Religion and the United Front: The Case of Mongolia
‘Sinified’ religion has a role to play in Xi's elevation of the United Front (UF) into a foreign policy tool. Informed by Qing imperial policy, CCP voices highlight the potential of state-managed Buddhism to advance PRC policy in Mongolia, where it has become a salient... MORE

Hard Edges of China’s Soft Power Projection Meeting Increasing Resistance
The hard edges of China’s global soft power projection have been put under the microscope in a June 19 White House document entitled How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World. The 35-page statement, attributed to... MORE

Hedging Against the Unknown: PRC Media Coverage of the Sino-US Trade War
US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on foreign washing machines and solar products in January touched off a cycle of trade escalations between the United States and China, with immense domestic pressure on both sides to avoid appearing weak. A temporary ceasefire was declared... MORE

Huawei’s Smart Cities and CCP Influence, At Home and Abroad
What do international espionage concerns, a Chinese truckers’ strike, and the smart cities of the future all have in common? All are part of the story of how the commercial ambitions of Huawei—one of the PRC’s leading developers of high-tech electronics and telecommunications equipment—could be... MORE

China’s Intensifying Pressure Campaign against Taiwan
China has significantly ramped up pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was democratically-elected as the country’s president in January 2016. As Beijing’s external pressure on Taiwan grows, pressure for action is building on the Tsai administration, both from the opposition as well as from within... MORE

Understanding the Role of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Associations in United Front Work
In 2017, following explosive allegations of CCP interference in Australian politics by mainstream Australian media outlets, real estate billionaire Chau Chak-Wing (周泽荣) sat for an interview with one of Australia’s major daily newspapers. Chau had featured prominently in the reporting that touched off the controversy,... MORE