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While reaffirming China's longstanding "peace and development" line and offering a more positive take on many developments in Asia, the 2019 Defense White Paper highlights many negative features of the global security environment. This suggests an unresolved internal contradiction in China's security views and policies. Such an apparent contradiction is perhaps resolved by the Defense White Paper's description of strategic competition as driven largely by the U.S., not by China, and out of step with deeper global trends. Indeed, the PLA under Xi Jinping is depicted as working with other countries to realize Xi's "shared community for mankind" as it strengthens its deterrence capabilities. Yet this propaganda-laden take reinforces the suspicions of many regarding China's "real" goals. Beijing must inject a much more pragmatic, hard-power perspective into its public security stance and engage Washington on that basis in order to realize a meaningful level of stability based on mutual accommodation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduced in April 2022, China's "Global Security Initiative" is now two years old. This essay takes stock of the GSI's development since its introduction, examining and assessing how the GSI's content has been fleshed out, how it has been received by other states, and how its implementation has progressed. To date, the GSI's content remains vague and broad, most likely to increase support, pursue opportunistic implementation, and discredit the United States as a security actor. Formal support from other states, as reflected in including the GSI in joint documents, is limited. The GSI's implementation has been uneven, especially in Asia, with few regional organizations offering unqualified support and or pursuing cooperation under the banner of the initiative. Looking ahead, the prospects for the GSI and its implementation are mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's leadership has modified the military's formal role in national strategy, which is known as its "historic missions." The change reflects an appreciation of both the opportunities and the perils posed by China's rise as a great power as well as by anxiety about the intensifying domestic political vulnerabilities that stem from economic deceleration and persistent official malfeasance. Paradoxically, the government's expanded view of national security has meant a diminution in the role of the military in security policy toward one of "strategic support." As non-military threats intensify, the role of the People's Liberation Army in national strategy will likely focus on modernization and assistance to non-military efforts to protect an expanding array of interests along China's periphery and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the deterioration of China's external environment in general, and its escalating tensions with the United States in particular, the Chinese government has readjusted its economic development strategy. As delineated in Beijing's 14th Five-Year Plan, which was unveiled in mid-March of this year, China will invest in efforts designed to strengthen its economic security and better protect its economy from external economic threats. These initiatives include science and technology self-sufficiency, secure supply chains in its manufacturing economy, growth sustained by domestic demand, and food and energy security. Although these efforts seem attractive on paper, China will likely encounter immense challenges in trying to implement its new development strategy. Chinese leaders may have underestimated the potential costs of strengthening national security at the expense of global integration. Beijing's disappointing records in executing industrial policy and rebalancing its economy also raise doubts whether it will be able to meet its ambitious goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government began to implement a new form of social control - grid management - about fifteen years ago. On paper, the country has largely finished setting up more than one million grids in local communities. Grid management, which entails dividing communities into small units (1,000 residents per unit, as in most cases) and equipping them with information and surveillance technology, appeals to the top Chinese leadership because it promises to provide the party-state a new and more capable instrument of social control and delivery of public services. Publicly available materials suggest that most localities adapt their existing local organizations, such as neighborhood and village committees, into grids to comply with the central government's order. As fully effective grid management requires enormous investments in well-trained manpower and reliable technology, it will likely take years for China to build such a system. At the moment, only wealthy cities seem to have made genuine progress in the development of grid management, while most grids are likely no more than relabeled neighborhood committees. Like China's social credit system, grid management is evidence, but not yet reality, of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's aspirations to construct a well-organized and technologically sophisticated surveillance state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessments of China's efforts to promote indigenous innovation will be fruitless without clear metrics for technological self-sufficiency. Yet, indicators of indigenous innovation are more ambiguous than other scientific and technological indicators, which complicates such assessments. Indeed, clear-eyed evaluations of China's drive to reduce foreign dependence in information-technology domains are muddied by confusion over the definition of indigenous innovation and the widening "gray zone" between domestic and foreign companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is experiencing a rapidly declining fertility rate and increased life expectancy. Most people attribute China's structural deceleration to its demographics, but the reality is that the still-incomplete urbanization is helping to offset the negative impact of aging on growth. In fact, until 2035, China's labor force is only projected to contract in the rural areas, while the urban labor force will continue to grow, which is much more productive than in the rural areas. This is why aging will not have a negative impact on growth until urbanization is completed, which is estimated to happen around 2035. From that year onwards, the rapid fall in labor supply will shave off 1.3 percentage points of growth each year. By then, China is likely to grow only 1 percent per year, in line with Japan's potential growth today. Nevertheless, rapid robotization and artificial intelligence may mitigate the negative impact of aging in economic growth. Robotization has been ratcheted up in China - as well as in Japan much earlier - but neither in Japan's case nor in China's have we so far seen productivity increase, on the contrary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the People's Liberation Army (PLA) achieve its ambitious modernization goals in an era of economic stagnation? Fewer national resources for procurement combined with technological restrictions imposed by the United States and temptations to use force in regional disputes could all hinder modernization timelines that extend through 2049. Nevertheless, gloomy assessments are premature. This essay argues that the PLA will probably stay on track. China's overall defense burden is far smaller than that of the Soviets during the Cold War or that of the U.S. today, meaning that funding will continue to flow. The impact of U.S. restrictions on the PLA will be diminished by domestic innovation and inconsistent participation by U.S. partners. Additionally, China's leaders have generally followed a military strategy that encourages a focus on long-term modernization priorities and avoidance of strategic distractions. Consequently, Beijing will probably not see the PLA as a diminishing asset that must be used during this decade, and competitive strategies to weaken China's military might from the outside are likely unrealistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese policymakers have been aware that financial security is part of national security since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. During the past decade, especially since the escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions since 2018, anxieties among Chinese policymakers over the country's financial security have increased. In this context, China has accelerated development of an alternative global financial system with the goal of reducing its strategic vulnerabilities to potential sanctions. This article presents three primary strategies that the Chinese government has pursued to achieve this goal: supporting and expanding regional and multilateral currency and financial cooperation through various non-Western partnerships; increasing broader use of the renminbi in international trade and investment while also promoting the building of a renminbi-based international financial infrastructure; and, as the global economy is decarbonizing, improving the role of the renminbi in global commodities pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has two security services responsible for domestic surveillance. The "political security protection" bureau of the Ministry of Public Security and its local equivalents perform most of the duties of domestic political spying. The Ministry of State Security and its local outfits play a largely secondary role in domestic political spying, with a remit to target individuals suspected of external connections or being ethnic minorities. Not much is known about the organization, size, and operational tactics of these two secret police services due to the secrecy surrounding them. This analysis uses open-source materials to construct a basic profile of their organizational structure, missions, and activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan's election in January 2024 was the first to focus primarily on domestic policy rather than national identity or relations with China. The presidential candidates' platforms converged to support protecting Taiwan's sovereignty and rejecting China's formula for unification. Meanwhile, Taiwan's complex domestic problems, including unaffordable housing, stagnating wages, an aging population, energy insecurity, and unsustainable entitlements, were prominent election issues. The Democratic Progressive Party won an unprecedented third term for the presidency, but the legislature was split among three parties. Although Beijing will likely continue its economic coercion and military build-up, it will also need to develop different strategies to win hearts in Taiwan. Taiwanese are also increasingly skeptical of the US, which has been upgrading political relations with Taiwan but without enhancing Taiwan's international role or offering it tangible economic benefits. With no single political party securing a majority of seats in parliament, Taiwan will be unable to balance its interests between China and the US or expedite the implementation of reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Xi Jinping is widely seen, both inside and outside of China, as a vigorous centralizer of political power, the party-state responded to the sudden emergence of COVID-19 with an arguably less visible but dramatic shift in the opposite direction: a sudden delegation of power and authority to lower-level organizations in order to maintain social governance and control at the grassroots. This unprecedented rapid downshift of authority greatly empowered the urban subdistricts (街道) and neighborhood organizations (社区) that operate just outside the margins of official state power. Such a downward shift to the margins was supercharged by a rapid buildup of the high-tech capacities of the urban grassroots that included a proliferation of digital instruments to control and restrain the movement of ordinary residents on a grand scale, resulting, during the period of the pandemic, in the strictest social control since the Maoist era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy has emerged from "zero-Covid" without the inflation that occurred in some other major economies but with reduced consumption, minimal private investment growth, a weakened real estate sector, high youth unemployment, and constrained local government finances. Beijing is banking on a surge of new household spending and is planning only marginal new stimulus measures. Chinese leaders, however, are sending contradictory signals to entrepreneurs and foreign investors. China will almost certainly achieve its conservative growth target of 5 percent this year. But in the next few years, Beijing's prioritization of national security over economic reforms will pose a risk to China's economic trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between China and Russia have deepened since 2022, although each country is now more careful in messaging, especially to foreign audiences, about their partnership. The priority of Russia for China comes at the expense of its previous partnership with Ukraine and Chinese economic interests there. China now aspires to take on a role in any future peace process for Ukraine, but Xi and Putin, by and large, speak with one voice on what they call "the Ukrainian crisis." The deepening partnership is reflected in their synergy in the information space, their ongoing cooperation in technology and defense, and energy and agriculture deals. Despite these trends, their partnership is also one of interdependence, whereby Beijing is willing to accept costs to derive perceived benefits. Even as Russia becomes more economically dependent on China, Xi's ability to restrain or even influence Putin's thinking remains untested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xi Jinping has intensified his patriotic education campaign to reaffirm the CCP's authoritarian rule and he has nurtured a new generation of nationalists who are intolerant of any criticism of the CCP regime and who are muscularly hostile to the Western powers and to Western values. The campaign has fueled ever-sharper demands for deference to China's wishes by foreigners, making compromise extremely difficult if not impossible on issues China deems to be its core interests. But nationalism has been a double-edged sword. Chinese people have become increasingly disaffected, directing their anger to the regime and to Xi personally. After the collapse of Xi's zero-COVID policy, it has become increasingly difficult for Xi to engage young people through nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a decade of rapid credit growth, China is now much more indebted than countries at similar levels of economic development. The slowdown in the economy over the past year has increased pressure on overleveraged borrowers, posing risks for the financial system. China has three main options to address these problems: using the central government's balance sheet, readjusting the fiscal balance sheet, or selling state assets. If instead Beijing chooses to simply muddle through, it faces the risk of a Japanese-style lost decade. Policymakers should embrace the debt challenge as an impetus to reform China's fiscal system and adjust the role of government in the economy. These changes could once again set China on a path to more rapid growth. Doing so, however, would require a major shift in the Xi administration's ideological approach to the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese economy has been undergoing a structural slowdown during the past decade, due to aging, decelerating productivity, and lower returns on assets. The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with China's dynamic Zero-Covid policies, have worsened that trend, together with two other important factors, namely the demise of China's real estate sector as well as the much more difficult external environment stemming from growing U.S.-China strategic rivalry and the war in Ukraine. China's Covid experience started well but it is ending poorly. With much better economic performance in 2020 compared to the rest of the world, China managed to attract large amounts of capital while keeping its borders closed. However, doubling down on the Zero-Covid strategy with a much more contagious virus, while the rest of the world was opening, changed China's fortunes for the worse. In fact, China is bound to grow barely half of what the government promised for 2022 (5.5 percent). Moving forward, as the Chinese government starts to show some signs of opening-up, the question remains whether a strong recovery should be expected. The answer is "no." The factors behind China's structural deceleration are still intact. In addition, Covidrelated scarring effects are bound to hurt the Chinese economy in terms of human capital and innovation. Finally, the 20th Party Congress has made it crystal clear that the role of the state - and the party - in the economy is bound to increase. All in all, even if the Covid restrictions are lifted, China might see a temporary recovery but the structural deceleration will still lead to growth at around 2 percent by 2030. This implies that any convergence with the U.S. economy will not continue for long. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowhere is the effort to control the flow of digital information more extensive and sustained than it is in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses a wide range of tools and strategies to achieve two related, but distinct, goals of digital information control: to shape public knowledge and to "guide" the public in the aftermath of sudden, unexpected events. Controlling social media is especially relevant to the second goal, and the CCP uses strategies of content removal (censorship) and content generation (propaganda) to pursue this aim. Recent studies of the Chinese internet and social media show that the CCP has adapted quickly to new digital communication technologies, though it is in sometimes unexpected ways, and CCP control of Chinese social media is integral to its efforts to shape public beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines China's diplomatic responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It argues that the war created an immediate diplomatic "trilemma" for China as it sought to balance three competing interests: alignment with Russia, adherence to core principles of Chinese foreign policy and need for stability with the United States and Europe. To manage this trilemma, China adopted a policy that I term a "strategic straddle" in which China tries to balance these competing interests at the same time. In practice, this straddle has manifested in strong rhetorical, informational and diplomatic support for Russia while, at the same time, Beijing has been very careful, to date, to avoid providing substantial material support to Russia. Maintaining this balancing act will be difficult as Russian needs grow. In relations with the United States and Europe, China has sought to put a floor under worsening relations but has had limited success doing so. The one area where China has sought strategic advantage is in its ties with the Global South, which is suffering from economic dislocations associated with the war. China has sought to use these deprivations to generate greater solidarity in resisting U.S.-led rules, norms and institutions. China's ability to maintain this straddle will be challenged the complexities of managing competing ties with these different countries, regions and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual circulation may sound like a buzzword without much relevance, but it is not. It actually enshrines China's long-standing ambition to become self-sufficient. Such an ambition was made known to the world in 2015 after the launch of China's industrial policy masterplan, Made in China 2025, even though the world at the time was still in full engagement with China. Since Trump's push for a trade and technology war against China, the Chinese leadership has been relying on a dual circulation strategy to support China's growth. This basically means insulating the domestic market from the rest of the world by eliminating any bottlenecks, whether in terms of natural resources or technology, so as to vertically integrate its production and achieve self-reliance served by China's huge domestic market. A relevant consequence for the world, though, is that China will no longer need to import high-end inputs, with obvious negative consequences for major exporters of technology, such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. As if this were not enough, the second aspect of dual circulation, boosting external demand, in a context of Western containment, will increase the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to ensure open markets in the emerging world. In essence, dual circulation is part of China's masterplan to become self-reliant in terms of resources and technology but also in terms of demand through its huge market as well as through third markets available through the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese president Xi Jinping has put forth a set of significant commitments in response to the threat of global climate change. He has called for China to achieve peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, to enhance the role of renewable energy in its energy mix, to increase forest cover, and to make use of market mechanisms, such as an emissions trading system, to incentivize industry to decarbonize. Several of these initiatives, however, face design and implementation weaknesses that raise questions about their efficacy. In addition, the international community and the Chinese expert and NGO communities have called on Beijing to provide a more detailed action plan with benchmarks for realizing its climate targets and to end the export of coal plants through its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. China's climate commitments are notable, but ultimately, its efforts will be judged by the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There seems to be a growing consensus in Beijing that U.S.-China relations will remain rocky for the foreseeable future. Even so, President Xi Jinping and others have been touting that time and momentum are on China's side in its quest to move closer to the center of the world stage. Chinese officials recognize that they will need to overcome obstacles in their country's pursuit of its national goals. To do so, China appears to be pursuing a three-pronged medium-term strategy: maintaining a non-hostile external environment in order to focus on domestic priorities; reducing dependence on America while increasing the rest of the world's dependence on China; and expanding the reach of Chinese influence overseas. At the same time, China's actions are generating significant reactions, both at home and abroad. Whether China can learn from this feedback loop to address its own vulnerabilities remains an open question, one that only China will be capable of answering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015 China announced the ambitious target of eliminating poverty by 2020. Since then China has launched an all-out, campaign-style push to meet this goal, using a "Precision Poverty Alleviation" strategy that targets individual households and monitors their progress using a nationwide poverty database. Investments of financial and human resources in this program have been considerable. Although the poverty reduction target is ambitious, it is also pragmatic. It applies only to the rural population and it is based on a low poverty line. Funding for the program, while large in absolute terms, is a small percentage of government revenue. Thus, the target is achievable. Reaching the target, however, will not mean that China has won the war on poverty. Many households will remain vulnerable to poverty, and the government's current definition of poverty does not adequately reflect what it means to be poor in China going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past eight months of the global COVID pandemic, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been active in promoting China's claims in the South China Sea. This essay evaluates PLA statements, military exercises and operations, and deployment of relevant platforms and weapons in the South China Sea during this period. I leverage Chinese-language sources in addition to my own operational knowledge from over a decade of military experience to provide greater context for these activities. I argue that the greatest change in the PLA's role in the South China Sea has not been operational. Instead, the most interesting development has been the fact that the PLA has taken on a more significant signaling role. Specifically, the Chinese military seems to be purposefully using, and perhaps even exaggerating, its capabilities and activities to enhance deterrence against the United States. This may be seen as necessary as the US increases its own efforts to push back on China's militarization of the South China Sea. In other words, the PLA has taken a more active role in China's South China Sea strategy, but not necessarily a more aggressive one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has overseen a significant transformation of China's domestic economic system, undergirded by important new reforms that have drastically expanded the reach of the Chinese state into the economy and Chinese firms. This has included the integration of CCP organizations into public and private firms, the regulatory shift of SASAC from "managing enterprises" to "managing capital," and the role of government guidance funds in driving industrial policy. The overall change in China's economic and regulatory structure - and the political control wielded by the CCP - combined with the Xi era blending of the public and private, and market and planning, is of such a proportion that it marks a new paradigm in China's development trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is leading the major economies in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. But for a variety of reasons there is unlikely to be a quick "V-shaped" recovery back to the old growth path. Prolonged global weakness plus the U.S.-China trade war mean that exports will not play the same role as they did in the past. The buildup of debt to risky levels also sets limits on the role that investment will play. Furthermore while uncertain at this moment, there is a good chance that people will be more cautious about many activities even after a vaccine is developed, so it is likely that private consumption will be lower than it was on the previous growth path. China can turn all of these factors to its advantage, but it will take an acceleration of reform to do so. Particularly important will be new trade agreements, financial sector reform, and expansion of social services to migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xi Jinping has been unremitting in his efforts to turn China into a national security state. New institutional, doctrinal, and regulatory mechanisms have been established along with a substantial beefing up of internal and external coercive capabilities. No single seminal shock triggered this security turn, but Xi regarded externally focused realpolitik perspectives, upon which the country's national security posture have traditionally been, based as partial and too rosy. His top security concerns revolved around domestic stability and Party resilience. To build a national security state under his direct control, Xi pursued an indirect approach employing unconventional methods, such as a no-holdsbarred discipline-enforcement campaign, consisting of a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown and a political discipline crusade. Running parallel was a far-reaching reform of the civilian national security and military apparatuses. Chinese authorities argue that this building of a national security fortress is prescient in the face of the acute challenges presented by COVID-19, unrest in Hong Kong, and deteriorating U.S.-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes trends in Chinese views of U.S.-China interdependence from Xi Jinping's rise to the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows how Xi Jinping put forward an expansive vision of national security that highlights the risks of interdependence, while also expanding China's use of its leverage in interdependent relationships to coerce others. These efforts have intensified significantly due to the Trump administration's coercive actions on trade and technology. Xi's and Trump's shifts also accelerated a reassessment of the risks and benefits of interdependence among a broader set of Chinese elites. Most significantly, many former officials and prominent thinkers appear to be newly convinced that longstanding forms of interdependence with the United States pose intolerable risks to China. This essay concludes by assessing the evolution of elite Chinese views of U.S.-China interdependence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which many see as a potential opportunity for China to reset its interdependence with other countries on more favorable terms for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is in the midst of an ambitious rectification campaign. Since 2014, Xi Jinping has launched an aggressive effort to reassert party ideological controls over art, culture, and higher education that had partially slipped during the more relaxed atmosphere of China's post-1978 reform era. Within Chinese universities, intellectuals are facing intensified pressures for political conformity--through political education, funding pressures, and direct repression. Such efforts resemble the early stages of the campaign to re-establish party dominance over the bar and legal profession in the early 2000s. These pressures are likely to steadily worsen in the near future, with significant negative implications for intellectual life in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S.-China trade war has had a huge impact on the supply chains in China, accelerating their relocation that had already begun due to rising taxes, costs of labor, and other input factors. The exodus reported in the past year is only the tip of the iceberg, as more serious effects will not become apparent immediately. A major effect of the relocation on China is job losses, which may reach as many as 5 million in the coming years. Given the unlikeliness of a quick end to the trade war and the reluctance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to make structural changes, the long-term prospects for supply chains in China are not promising because not only will existing firms gradually reduce their exposure to political and economic uncertainties, but also potential newcomers are likely to avoid China. Although the CCP rolled out some policies that may help alleviate the shock, it has yet to come up with specific policies to effectively address the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) remains a topic of great interest. But there is little knowledge about China's internal voices. Dissent remains rare, yet there has been considerable pushback on BRI policy and decision making. This is because there is an array of structural problems with the BRI's design. BRI is entirely an economic program, run by various parts of the economic bureaucracy. But it does not give bureaucrats sufficient mandate to pursue their interests within China's internal politics. So the BRI is attractive for central SOEs and dealmakers but unattractive to local leaders who are held accountable for whatever goes wrong in their respective areas. Although overt criticism is rare, failure to carry out orders is common. China's leaders have responded to critiques of the BRI, radically changing its official focus and policy. It has moved from a geoeconomic export policy to part of China's toolkit in the current US trade war. But there is no indication that the structural problems will be addressed, thus limiting the BRI's ability to achieve its goals, and as such, pushback will continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After becoming the leader of China in late 2012 Xi Jinping rapidly launched his signature foreign-policy campaign--the Belt and Road Initiative--to project China's economic and geopolitical influence. Whether the BRI has improved China's external environment, especially in its immediate periphery, will be subject to debate for years to come. However, the U.S. threat perception of China as a result of the BRI has unequivocally heightened, leading to the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy since 2017. In an era defined by U.S.-China great power strategic competition, a central theme of Xi's foreign policy has been a recalibration and realignment of relations with Asian countries in order to effectively counter the U.S. role in Asia. As a result, China has adapted its policy to pursue a closer alignment with a like-minded Russia, to improve relations with India to prevent a potential U.S.-India alliance in Asia, to steer the souring relations with Japan toward cooperation, and to consolidate Southeast Asia as part of China's sphere of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia and New Zealand have emerged in recent years as frontlines in clashes between the West and China. In some respects, the two countries make for unlikely combatants. Both economies are heavily trade-dependent, have long looked to Asia to do business, and have enjoyed a boom in commercial ties with China over the past two decades. But both countries, to differing degrees, along with other robust democratic cultures willing to criticize undemocratic practices, have a deep ambivalence about Beijing's growing political and security role in the region. The true test of their resolve will come when there will be a substantial economic price for challenging China. For Beijing, the two countries are valuable economic partners but, particularly in the case of Australia, troublesome politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in late 2017, Xi Jinping found himself facing a new and daunting foreign policy challenge: The Trump Administration had adopted an openly confrontational policy towards China. This unfolded with a barrage of U.S. actions, such as naming China "a strategic competitor" and adopting successive rounds of tariffs, among other actions. This article analyzes China's diplomatic response to the shift in U.S. policy, as reflected in China's approach to the United States as well as to other countries. It argues that China did not adopt a confrontational strategy of its own. Rather, Beijing's response focused on avoiding confrontation and preventing escalation with the United States, including by deferring major internal debates about the need for a new diplomatic strategy. Towards the rest of the world, Beijing took steps to stabilize its immediate Asian periphery and ties with Europe to limit its exposure to confrontation with Washington; it looked for opportunities to expand its presence and influence (especially in places where the United States had stepped back); and it invested further in ties with countries, notably Russia, that share China's desire to constrain U.S. power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the 19th Party Congress last fall and the recent "two meetings" in March, the party-state has now completed its quinquennial leadership turnover and announced a major restructuring of a number of party and state entities. This institutional restructuring will alter slightly the functional hierarchies involved in coordinating Xinjiang policy, but there is no indication that it--or the new leaders in place--will affect the content or tone of that policy. Whether regional Party Secretary Chen Quanguo himself is the progenitor of increasingly repressive measures now employed in Xinjiang, or whether he is simply the most ruthless tool by which to implement them, he is still the logical endpoint of the party's broader policy trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In advance of the leadership reshuffle this fall, with five of seven Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) members expected to vacate their seats, observers' focus is trained on the top candidates for advancement and the intense competition between them. Yet little is known of any given politician's personal policy preferences, leaving us unable to estimate how his elevation might influence the development or implementation of domestic policy. In the absence of such information, this article offers a framework for projecting the policy trends that are likely to continue on no matter who finds his way to the PBSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xi Jinping has seized the initiative in economic policy, making himself the dominant actor in financial regulation and environmental policy, among other areas. These precedent-breaking economic policy roles provide Xi clear political benefits. They strengthen the central government's power over local actors, and confirm Xi's personal dominance of the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the work performed over the past few years by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee--the body that "turns the party's propositions into the will of the state"--can provide a clear synopsis of the Chinese Communist Party's governance priorities, and confirms the importance of two major Chinese Communist Party objectives: addressing traditional and non-traditional national security challenges as well as boosting citizens' identification of the Chinese Communist Party's ideological narratives. It also reveals the enhanced role of the National People's Congress Standing Committee in the process of authorizing pilot governance reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the run-up to the 19th Party Congress in the fall of 2017, Xi Jinping has a strong interest in sustaining three narratives: the Chinese economy is growing stably, economic reform is moving forward, and a rising China is playing a more important role on the global scene. Xi has a good chance of sustaining all three of these narratives to his domestic audience, in part because of the valuable gift given him by the new U.S. president, Donald Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing's update of national-level religious regulations is part and parcel of a larger governance effort. This effort is designed to construct a latticework of legislation for managing citizens' activities and minimizing international influences. If these regulations are implemented uniformly--which is always a big if in the PRC--in some cases they will offer greater certainty about what is allowed under the law. In others, they will restrict activities that previously had not been clearly regulated. Beijing's negotiations with the Vatican over bishop ordinations reflect the same desires: to cement the party's role in defining the permissible in Chinese religious life, to check foreign influence, and to continue to regularize social-management efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of a new article by "Authoritative Personage" on May 9, 2016, threw into the open two unresolved issues of Chinese policy: Who is making economic reform policy? What is the mix between reform and growth? These two unresolved issues lie behind the enormous difficulty policy-makers have had in coming up with a coherent reform strategy lately. This difficulty is most manifest in the case of state-owned enterprise reform, which is floundering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her May 20 inaugural address Tsai Ing-wen laid out in stark terms the daunting economic and social challenges that Taiwan faces in the months and years ahead, as well as her determination to meet those challenges. Addressing cross-Strait relations, which will have a significant effect on her ability to realize domestic goals, Tsai took further steps, in her speech and through actions, to try to allay Mainland concerns about any "Taiwan independence" aspirations. But she still refrained from openly embracing the "1992 Consensus" or any other form of "one China," and from disowning "Taiwan independence." In response, Beijing gave her partial credit for her "incomplete test answer" but suspended some links and made clear that it is looking for a more definitive commitment to "one China" before existing institutional relationships can continue unhindered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This year's presidential election, like past ones, features China and U.S.- China relations as a talking point for candidates from both parties. In the following text we will show that Chinese elite and public views toward Clinton and Trump are varied and divided. Authoritative views tend to be cautious in their commentary on both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Trump's perceived straightforwardness, decisiveness, and strength of character have earned him fans in China, the irrational and irresponsible nature of many of his comments is also well recognized and regarded as a potential threat to stable U.S.-China relations. In comparison, while some Chinese analysts view Clinton's more predictable and establishment-based foreign policy beliefs as a positive attribute, most Chinese hold very negative views of Clinton's stance on human rights and maritime security issues, and expect her presidency to pose serious challenges to bilateral relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRC Policy-making with respect to economic reform has been extremely inconsistent since early 2015. Some of this inconsistency can be traced to different conceptions of reform, and some to different centers and channels of policy-making. The recent introduction of "Supply-side Structural Reform" is an important development best understood in the context of the problems that emerged over the past year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent weeks all parties within Taiwan and across the Strait have focused on consolidating their positions. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, holding a commanding lead in polls, focused on gaining control of the legislature. Her Kuomintang (KMT) opponent, deputy Legislative Yuan (LY) speaker Hung Hsiu-chu, formally nominated in July, espoused a number of controversial positions and has not yet recovered from the fallout. Hung also lost ground to a new entry, veteran conservative politician and former KMT elder James Soong, who presented himself as the candidate of reason and experience. Beijing left no doubt about its continuing insistence on adherence to some form of "one China" if cross-Strait relations are to go well under the next Taiwan administration. It also continued to raise warning flags about the impact of heightened cross-Strait tensions on U.S.-PRC relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]