Beijing has unleashed an unprecedented diplomatic blitz while the new Obama administration battles doubts about its stimulus packages to salvage the struggling American economy. For the first time, both Chinese State President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Xi Jinping were on trips abroad earlier this month—the... MORE

Even as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership pulls out all the stops to resuscitate the economy, it is grappling with the even more daunting task of maintaining social stability. Apart from familiar issues such as rising unemployment (see Pieter Bottelier’s article in this issue),... MORE

Even as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is projecting hard power across the four corners of the earth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is mapping out a multi-pronged strategy to publicize globally the apparent viability of the “China model.” The administration of President Hu Jintao... MORE

The year 2009 is set to become a watershed in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) development into a force capable of long-distance, multi-pronged power projection. This is despite the perception that owing to the global recession, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership under President Hu... MORE

While expectations for policy changes are not high as Beijing marks the 30th anniversary of the reform era, a clutch of forward-looking cadres and intellectuals are taking advantage of the occasion to press for bolder measures particularly in political liberalization. This is despite the fact... MORE

China’s $586 billion (4 trillion yuan) stimulus package, which was announced before last weekend’s G20 Summit in Washington, has been hailed as indicative of Beijing’s commitment to stave off further bleeding from the global recession. World Bank Vice-President Justin Lin noted that the resuscitation effort... MORE

The just-concluded Third Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 17th Central Committee has pledged a "new deal" with Chinese characteristics for the country’s 730 million-odd farmers through boosting their “material benefits and democratic rights.” The plenum communiqué promised that the party would raise... MORE

For the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao leadership, the party is pretty much over. After the coming-out extravaganza of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hoped to extend the festive mood through to late September for the launch of the country’s third manned space flight,... MORE

China’s formidable state machinery was able to stage the largest Olympics in history and to have a “Taikonaut” perform a 20-minute “spacewalk” last week. Yet the world-scale scandal emanating from contaminated milk products has exposed the worsening malaise in the country’s political and administrative structure.... MORE