Ahead of the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), scheduled to begin on October 18, media attention has focused on top-level personnel changes. While the selection of China’s new group of leaders is certainly important, recent announcement that current CCP General Secretary Xi... MORE

In late August, China’s annual conscription (征兵) period ended. This years’ newest group of PLA recruits was reportedly among the worst in recent memory, with widespread reportage across Chinese and international media about the recruits’ health issues. As an article in the Chinese military’s official... MORE

Over the last year, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Party Secretary Chen Quanguo (陈全国) has dramatically increased the police presence in Xinjiang by advertising over 90,000 new police and security-related positions. [1] This soldier-turned-politician is little known outside of China, but within China he has... MORE

Political leaders normally like to convert “either/or” issues into “more or less” ones because the latter permit compromises while the former typically do not. However, the fight over the requirement that all residents in Tatarstan study Tatar fall into the former category. And as much... MORE

Russia watchers had collectively identified Kaliningrad as a serious anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) “bubble” by 2016 (see EDM, October 12, 2016; Neweasterneurope.eu, August 2, 2017). Now, this westernmost Russian region may be on its way to becoming a training ground where the most advanced methods of warfare... MORE

Speaking at a joint session of Kazakhstan’s parliament, on September 4, President Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed the importance of speeding up the implementation of the “Cyber Shield” information security project, one of the priority tasks he had set before the government in his January 31, 2017,... MORE

What occurred on September 10, at the Medyka-Shehyni crossing on the Polish-Ukrainian border, is remarkable. Earlier that day, Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia and a Ukrainian opposition politician, declared his intention to reenter Ukraine after having been deprived of his Ukrainian citizenship on... MORE

The reaction of Russia’s Islamic community to the ongoing prosecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar occurred suddenly and unexpectedly. Groups organized unsanctioned rallies in front of the Myanmar embassy in Moscow, in Makhachkala (Dagestan) and in Grozny (Chechnya), on September 3 and 4. Some demonstrators... MORE

After the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine failed, on the last day of its July session, to approve health reform bill #6327, a vote on the second reading awaits approval by the legislature. Addressing the Rada, on September 5, Speaker Andriy Parubiy cautiously mentioned the... MORE

Undeniably, Belarus and Russia are culturally close. In and of itself, this closeness is no liability except for its lopsidedness. Russia’s pervasive sway in every critical aspect of Belarusian life, from the economy to language and from historical memory to people’s worldview, keeps in check... MORE