No one can ever accuse China of thinking small. When it decided to enter into commercial aircraft manufacturing, it knew that it was going up against one of the world’s greatest duopolies: the Boeing-Airbus stranglehold on the medium-to-large jetliner business. These two companies produce nearly... MORE

General Secretary and Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping has lost no time in establishing his stamp of authority over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is deemed an important power base of the princeling leader. Barely two months after he took over the chairmanship of the policy-setting... MORE

Ever since the Japanese government bought several of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands from a private owner, Sino-Japanese relations have been in a downward spiral. Japan’s change of government following the mid-December elections that returned power to the Liberal Democratic Party has seemed only to exacerbate the... MORE

On December 4, 2012, the deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, Kabdulkarim Abdikazymov, said to the press that Jund al-Khilafa was a “real threat” to Kazakhstan’s national security (Tengrinews, December 4, 2012). Similarly, on November 26, 2012, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on... MORE

While the concept of a “New Silk Road” of trade, transport and telecommunications connections across Eurasia was formally endorsed by the US State Department, it is Beijing and Chinese companies that have taken the lead in realizing the immense infrastructure projects that will tie the... MORE

The long-delayed, Chinese-funded Entebbe expressway in Uganda once again is running into delays as government funds are insufficient to compensate the citizens who will lose their land to the highway. Although construction began only last month, Entebbe claims it has only sufficient funds to buy... MORE

The newly-appointed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping’s talk of China’s national rejuvenation has generated a lot of concern in foreign analyses about the implications of the just-completed leadership transition. Although “The Great Renewal of the Chinese Nation” (zhonghua minzu weida fuxing) is... MORE

When Chinese President Hu Jintao paid his most recent state visit to Cambodia in April 2012, both sides agreed to designate 2013 the “China-Cambodia Year of Friendship” in a lavish commemoration of the 55th anniversary of their relationship (Xinhua, April 2, 2012). Although Cambodia remains... MORE

Hopes for reform in China have risen in recent weeks. Xi Jinping’s decision to make Shenzhen the site of his first formal inspection tour as party general secretary spurred predictions that he will seek to assume Deng Xiaoping’s mantle as an economic reformer (“Xi Jinping’s... MORE

China has reshuffled the party and administrative leaderships of a dozen-odd provinces and directly-administered cities in the wake of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress. The traits and political orientations of the new regional chiefs reflect the authorities’ priorities about seeking gradual changes while... MORE