The news from Beijing is historic – nothing less than a political earthquake with repercussions around the world. At its upcoming “parliamentary session” (the National People’s Congress, NPC, which starts next week), China will remove the two-term limit for the presidency and vice presidency. This confirms what was widely expected;...
The Chinese dictatorship’s massive infrastructure plan is the spearhead for its whole economic and geopolitical strategy. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has assumed increasing importance for the regime of China’s ‘strongman’ Xi Jinping.
The sweeping crackdown on dissent in China under Xi Jinping is well known. While most international media reports focus on repression against liberal dissidents it is not unusual for left activists also to be targeted. This is highlighted by an ongoing case in the southern province of Guangdong.
A nine-minute video made by the New York Times may cost Tibetan language rights activist Tashi Wangchuk fifteen years in prison. He is the latest victim in an unprecedented crackdown in which hundreds of dissidents and rights advocates have been arrested, abducted, ‘disappeared’, tortured, forced to appear in televised ‘confessions’ and...
The word environment was mentioned 89 times by Xi Jinping in his report to the 19th Congress of the ruling “communist” party, even more than ‘economy’. He has sent out investigative teams from the central government to the provinces to check on the progress of anti-pollution measures. Reports indicate that over 12,000 officials and...
The 19th Congress of the CCP, held in October, adopted the party leader’s doctrine of iron dictatorship. China’s “great power” status is enshrined in the party constitution but stable government is still by no means guaranteed.
Xinjiang is the vast Muslim-majority region in China’s far west where Turkic speaking Uighur Muslims are the largest ethnic group. Under Chinese rule it has been transformed into a 1.7 million square kilometre prison. Rich in mineral wealth and almost twice the size of Pakistan, Xinjiang has assumed even greater strategic importance for...
Donald Trump's cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase on 6 April, during a round of "beautiful chocolate cake" with China's president Xi Jinping, marks a reckless and dangerous escalation of tensions in the Syrian conflict.
