For some the pandemic has accelerated China’s shift towards being the dominant superpower, Yet, other note that it has triggered resistance to what the Communist Party call China’s ‘inevitable rise’. So how should we think about this? Economically, China is doing relatively well. A stringent lockdown has suppressed Covid, limiting it to periodic and random […]
At the dawn of the 2020s, China is facing challenges that are perhaps the most serious since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Until relatively recently, these were predominantly home-grown problems gathering momentum slowly over the last decade or so. They have become accentuated, though, by the emergence of a new, repressive governance system […]
You would need to have a heart of stone not to have been moved by the sight of hordes of protestors — the organisers claimed 2 million — swarming through Hong Kong over the weekend. It was the third public display of opposition to the Hong Kong government’s proposed Extradition Law in a week, and […]
China loves anniversaries. In October, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic will be celebrated with public displays of military strength, and admiration for the Party’s accomplishments. Some anniversaries, though, are shunned. While citizens of Hong Kong will doubtless note June 4 to remember the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests […]
While many of us are trying to piece together the details of a trade deal between China and the US, which Presidents Xi Jinping and Trump would have to agree eventually, the focus this week is on important meetings taking place in Beijing. It is the first week of the so-called ‘Two Sessions’, the annual […]
There had been much speculation about President Xi Jinping’s long-awaited speech in the Great Hall of the People marking the 40th anniversary of ‘Reform and Opening Up’. Although the recent detention of Huawei’s CFO undoubtedly upset China’s leaders, Beijing looked as though it was warming to compromise following the temporary trade war truce agreed at […]
