The last quarter of 2022 saw an outburst of Chinese people power. Citizens in as many as 28 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, and Chongqing staged spontaneous protests on their campuses or out on the streets. The underlying cause was Beijing’s draconian lockdown measures, which led... MORE

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping called for tighter Party and state control of the financial sector in the quinquennial Central Financial Work Conference that ended in Beijing on October 31 (Xinhua, October 31). All seven Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) members as well... MORE

Paramount leader Xi Jinping (习近平) has been widely blamed by foreign governments and media for failing to take effective measures to remedy an economy hurt by excessive leverage, weak exports, anemic consumer spending, and the massive withdrawal of investment by multinationals (Foreign Policy, September 6).... MORE

It appears that the influence of the radical patriots in Russia has declined as of late. Around the same time as the arrest of war criminal and regime critic Igor Girkin (Strelkov) (Interfax.ru, July 21), communications about the need for peace negotiations with Ukraine began... MORE

*Read Part One. On June 23 and 24, the notorious Wagner Group and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin conducted an unsuccessful revolt against the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and its ultimatum that Wagner, and other entities like it, had to sign a contract (by July... MORE

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka may soon be repeating these words that are commonly attributed to Mark Twain. Less than two weeks after unsubstantiated rumors about Lukashenka’s health condition subsided (see EDM, May 24), a new rumor captured... MORE

On May 26, during an episode of one of the countless political shows on state-run Russian television, Boris Nadezhdin, a local politician from Dolgoprudny near Moscow and former member of the State Duma, declared that, to restore Russian relations with Europe, it will be necessary... MORE

The Kremlin continues to experience failures on the frontlines in Ukraine at a time when conflicts between various private military companies and the regular Russian army are turning sharper and more public. The founder of the so-called Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recently recorded an emotional,... MORE

Recently, the so-called “national-patriotic” elite in Russia have intensified their attacks on the government’s financial and economic bloc. On April 21, well-known Russian propagandist and economist Mikhail Khazin revealed, “Liberals remaining at their posts in the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance significantly contribute to... MORE

Executive Summary Growing concerns exist in the US and other Western countries that there are systematic efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to undermine their societies. This concern has arisen from the developing observation and analysis of more offensive-based CCP activities outside of the... MORE