On September 4, China’s State Council announced a series of ambitious and wide-reaching reforms of the Chinese college admissions system, designed to increase fairness and reduce pressure on China’s high school students. China’s infamous college admissions test, the gaokao, will be restructured, replacing a single... MORE

Following deadly attacks in Beijing, Kunming and Urumqi over the last year, the Xinjiang government has intensified its efforts to regulate Uyghur religious activities. The provincial government has once again reinforced its ban on Ramadan fasting for Uyghur civil servants and students in 2014, as... MORE

Since 2013, increasing numbers of Uyghurs from Xinjiang Province have attempted to migrate illegally through China’s South Asian neighbors—Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia—to Thailand and then Malaysia, often with the hope of flying to Turkey. This trend marks a change from the 1990s and mid-2000s,... MORE

In March 2013, China passed legislation integrating four of its five maritime law enforcement (MLE) agencies into the newly-created China Coast Guard, under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) (see also China Brief, March 28, 2013). [1] This decision, long called for by people both in... MORE

China’s November 23, 2013 announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) covering much of the East China Sea sparked both controversy and questions about China’s underlying motivations (Xinhua, November 23, 2013). Beijing’s decision to create the ADIZ unilaterally, without prior notice and intentionally encompassing... MORE

This July, Chinese President Xi Jinping embarked on state visits to Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela and attended a summit of the loose group of major developing countries known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Fortaleza, Brazil. This was his second trip... MORE

Celebrating reform-era leader Deng Xiaoping’s 110th birthday two days early on August 20, China’s leaders sought to harness his legacy for today’s politics by claiming him as a socialist and a uniquely Chinese thinker. While Deng is best remembered for implementing market reforms and opening... MORE

While the downfall of “big tiger” Zhou Yongkang has proven the extent of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s power, it is not clear whether his anti-corruption crusade will continue—or, more importantly, whether Xi will push forward real political reforms that could permanently reduce rent-seeking, abuse of... MORE

President Xi Jinping of China proposed a new Asian security concept on May 21, 2014 at the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). He called on Asian countries to pursue “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” based on... MORE

A series of seemingly unprovoked actions in the South and East China Sea has been described as an abandonment of the “second charm offensive” launched last year by Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, China has continued to pursue economic and diplomatic cooperation with its Southeast... MORE