Introduction China’s top annual economic policy gathering, the Central Economic Work Conference (中央经济工作会议, Zhongyang jingji gongzuo huiyi), or CEWC, was held between December 10 and 12 in Beijing. This year’s CEWC focused on the theme of “achieving developmental progress on the basis of first ensuring... MORE

Introduction On July 8, 2019, a group of 22 states issued a joint letter to the 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which condemned China’s mass detention of Uyghurs and other minorities in the Xinjiang region of northwest China. [1] In... MORE

In order to maintain its independence and freedom of action, Belarus has long sought to develop relations with a variety of countries beyond the Russian Federation. In recent years, its efforts to establish and widen economic and even political ties with the European Union and... MORE

Introduction The year 2019 has seen a gradually escalating crisis in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The territory has seen continuing unrest since mass protests first broke out in June, in response to a draft extradition... MORE

Author’s Note: This is the first part of a two-part briefing series that will address new directives issued in November 2019 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the field of ideological “education.” This first part examines a new set of directives for intensified “patriotic... MORE

Introduction The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the central component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South Asia, has been a source of significant attention and controversy (China Brief, January 12, 2018; China Brief, February 15). Parts of South Asia, the Middle East, Central... MORE

Introduction China’s military ambitions in the Arctic, and its growing strategic partnership with Russia, have rung alarm bells in many governments. In May 2019, for the first time, the U.S. Department of Defense annual report on China’s military capabilities had a section on China’s military... MORE

Since 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow has worked hard to reduce cargo traffic via seaports in the three Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—to punish them for what the Kremlin sees as their unfriendly policies. Moscow has been doing this by building up its own... MORE

Russia has long counted on its geographic location between the Asia-Pacific region and Europe to cement its relationship with China. However, Beijing increasingly views Russia as merely a supplier of raw materials (Svobodnaya Pressa, April 27)—a view reinforced anew on Monday (December 2), by the... MORE

On November 7, at 3:30 A.M., a westbound train from Xi’an, China, for the first time ever used Istanbul’s $4 billion Marmaray sub-Bosporus railway tunnel to dispatch goods to central Europe (Haber.sol.org.tr, November 7). The train’s voyage represents another of China’s attempts to shave time... MORE