In the run-up to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Fifth Central Committee Plenum scheduled for October, President Xi Jinping has adopted a number of tactics to consolidate his power. Xi, who is also CCP General Secretary and Chairman of the policy-setting Central Military Commission (CMC),... MORE

The recent Chinese stock market crisis has exposed the fallacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) contention that it is possible to seek economic development and reform without commensurate political changes. That the authorities have to use a barrage of executive fiats–including deploying the police... MORE

As the world observed the 26th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the focus has remained on how this cataclysmic event has rolled back reforms and exacerbated the trend of major clans in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) monopolizing the nation’s economic and political resources.... MORE

Much of the world’s interest in China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) strategy—a reference to the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR)—is focused on the geopolitical implications of one of the most ambitious initiatives of Chinese President Xi... MORE

A recent foreign policy debate in the Chinese media has thrown into sharp relief the extent of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) generals’ influence on the country’s diplomacy. Wang Zhanyang, a liberal academic at the Central Institute of Socialism, caused a stir when he argued... MORE

Having been in office for just over two years, President Xi Jinping has already laid claim to being the third most powerful politician of post-liberation China, just after Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic reforms. Having gained control over what... MORE

“There is no quota for the anti-graft campaign, and there is no upper limit [regarding the rank of cadres to be disciplined].” This is the latest instruction given by Chinese President Xi Jinping on the clean-governance crusade that has shaken up the Chinese Communist Party... MORE

President Xi Jinping has marked his two years in office by masterminding a thorough loyalty drive among the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is deemed the princeling’s primary power base. On the ideological front, Xi and his lieutenants have played up the imperative of the... MORE

Even for a country that is notable for its myriad contradictions, the gap between China’s hard and soft power has never been more pronounced. The year 2014 has witnessed the kind of global hard-power projection that is unprecedented in recent Chinese history. The two-year-old Xi... MORE

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pledged to promote rule of law with Chinese characteristics at the Fourth Plenary Session of its Central Committee. President Xi Jinping, also Party General Secretary, promised that the CCP would lead the nation in “strengthening the implementation of the Constitution... MORE