As the Chinese Communist Party’s year-end congress approaches, competition among the party factions is heating up. Not only will the five-yearly party congress, set to begin on 16 October, appoint a new Politburo Standing Committee, …
Articles by: "Robert Wihtol"
The war in Ukraine has put economic sanctions in the global spotlight. The West’s sanctions on Russia are perhaps the most comprehensive ever imposed, limiting trade and investment, restricting energy imports from Russia, closing Western …
In the three months since its tanks rolled into Ukraine, Russia has caused massive death and destruction and triggered a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. It has razed urban infrastructure and housing, laid waste to …
When Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, many were afraid that a Chinese assault on Taiwan would be next. After all, President Xi Jinping had indicated that he wanted to resolve the ‘Taiwan question’ while …
Fifty years ago this week, US President Richard Nixon visited the People’s Republic of China and met with Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. Nixon was the first president of the United States ever to …
A week before Red roulette was due to be published, in September 2021, its author Desmond Shum received two phone calls from his ex-wife Whitney Duan, who had been detained by Chinese authorities and hadn’t …
On 11 November, the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party adopted a ‘historical resolution’ extoling party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s achievements. Similar resolutions have been adopted only twice before, for Mao Zedong and Deng …
Does China intend to displace the United States as the world’s leading superpower? Henry Kissinger has frequently argued that China approaches foreign relations from a long-term perspective, while Western countries are tactical, focusing on short-term …
Could Xi Jinping be toppled by a coup d’état? In China coup, Roger Garside describes precisely such a scenario—a coup mounted by Xi’s rivals to push him into retirement prior to the November 2022 national …
When Zhou Enlai, China’s newly appointed premier and foreign minister, in November 1949 addressed the initial recruits for China’s Foreign Ministry, few of the 170 assembled graduates, local administrators and peasant revolutionaries spoke a foreign …
Whenever Scott Rozelle visits a Chinese village, he offers his students a small reward if they can find a healthy male aged 18 to 40. They seldom succeed, because most working-age men and many women …
In 2034, a small American flotilla on a routine ‘freedom of navigation’ patrol in the South China Sea encounters an unflagged trawler in distress, with smoke billowing from its bridge. What follows is far from …