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

On November 23, the latest summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was held in Minsk. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan snubbed the meeting over a rift with the Kremlin. The leaders of the five other members—Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan—were present, including... MORE

On November 15, an important event took place in Latvia involving Russian émigrés. A conference was held for the “Free Ingria” movement, where participants met to collaborate on a plan to separate St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, or Ingria, from the Vladimir Putin regime... MORE

Editor’s note: Tables at the end of the PDF version of this article detail a selection of the officials who have been investigated as part of probes into the health and financial sectors this year. On September 27, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over a... MORE

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has come to recognize the important role of social media in modern conflict and peacetime operations. As such, PLA researchers have begun using the term “social media warfare” (社交媒体战) to describe the extension of non-kinetic military activities onto social media... MORE

A steady drumbeat of ominous data and troubling commentary on the state of China’s economy has punctuated the summer months. Reports from the commentariat in the anglosphere have provided diagnostic analysis and detailed potential policy solutions that the Chinese government might pursue. However, China’s central decision... MORE

Introduction In July, the US Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) visited South Korea for the first time since 1981. Not one, but two of the 560-foot-long warships—which carried a payload of 24 long-range Trident ballistic missiles—surfaced in South Korean waters (Korea JoongAn Daily, July 24, 2023).... MORE

Introduction In many ways, China’s history is one of water management. As Chinese historiographers often remark, the unique hydrological conditions within China led to the creation of three historical miracles: China, Chinese civilisation, and the Chinese people. In both ancient and modern times, Chinese rulers... MORE

At first glance, it may appear that the Kremlin has managed to alleviate the consequences of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s revolt. Sociological surveys conducted by the Russian Field company reveal that support for the founder of the Wagner Group has plummeted by over half within Russian society,... MORE

Reading into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny is comparable to entering a baffling alternate universe where messages are sent with symbols, cues and nonverbal communication (Medialeaks.ru; T.me/strelkovii, June 29). Take, for example, the Russian president’s first post-coup visit, which... MORE