Latest Articles about China
China Overhauls Diplomacy to Consolidate Regional Leadership, Outline Strategy for Superpower Ascent
At the Central Work Conference on Foreign Relations held on November 29, China’s leaders outlined the most sweeping changes in decades to longstanding guidance on foreign policy. Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined instructions to consolidate China’s leadership of Asia and strengthen international support for Chinese... MORE
China’s “Server Sinification” Campaign for Import Substitution: Strategy and Snowden (Part 1)
On January 22, 2013, Guangming Daily reported the market launch of China’s first independently developed high-end computer server, the Tiansuo K1, and touted the homemade server’s leading role in “breaking a long-term import situation” (Guangming Daily, January 22, 2013). [1] The Tiansuo K1 represents the... MORE
Building Think Tanks with Chinese Characteristics: Current Debates and Changing Trends
China has the second largest number of think tanks in the world (426), behind only the United States (1,826). [1] On October 27, at the sixth meeting of the Leading Group for Overall Reform, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new type of think... MORE
Taiwan’s “Vote of No Confidence” For KMT (and China Too)
Taiwan’s largest election ever, on November 29, led to a rousing, if not expected, defeat of Taiwan’s governing and pro-status quo party, the Kuomintang (KMT), by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), dealing a crushing blow to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration. Moreover, the election... MORE
China’s Espionage Against Taiwan (Part II): Chinese Intelligence Collectors
Chinese intelligence operations have long been understood in the West as somehow different than more familiar forms of espionage: inscrutable, undirected and largely run by amateurs. Like most modern states, China, however, has entrusted intelligence to professional organizations. This second installment on China’s espionage against... MORE
China’s Soft-Power Deficit Widens as Xi Tightens Screws Over Ideology
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
Xi’s Military Reform Plan: Accelerating Construction of a Strong PLA
Chinese President and Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping’s military reform plan, announced at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee in November 2013, will take form over the next several years (see China Brief, November 20, 2013). The reforms, which appear... MORE
Assessing China’s Afghan Peace Play
Breaking with decades of distancing itself from Afghanistan’s various armed conflicts, the Chinese government has offered to facilitate peace talks between the Afghan national government and the Afghan Taliban insurgency movement. On November 29, Sun Yuxi, China’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, for the first time... MORE
Special Issue on China’s Fourth Plenum
As Editor, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing a special issue of China Brief, focused on the Chinese Communist Party’s Fourth Plenum and its theme of yifazhiguo, often translated as the “rule of law,” though, as one contributor notes, the term is better translated... MORE
China’s New National Constitution Day: Is It Worth Celebrating?
In one of its few precise actions, the recent fourth plenary session of the current Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party declared December 4 to be “National Constitution Day” (China News, November 1). The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, ever responsive to... MORE