Day: September 28, 2022

Advertisement On September 7, three days before the national Mid-Autumn holiday weekend, my husband and I received separate phone calls from the pandemic prevention office in the Shanghai district where we live. We were informed that we had become sub-contacts to a recently confirmed COVID-19 case and were required to be taken to a centralized quarantine facility. Having lived through the excruciating two-month lockdown of the city, we have adapted to the new post-lockdown reality: lining up for PCR tests every two or three days, scanning venue codes posted outside…

Advertisement A former top graft buster at China’s ministry for intelligence and counterintelligence has been indicted on bribery charges, just weeks before a major congress of the ruling Communist Party whose leader Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption a signature issue. Wednesday’s indictment of Liu Yanping, who headed the State Security Ministry’s branch of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, was a further reminder of Xi’s vow to attack corruption “amongst both the flies and tigers.” State media said Liu had accepted “huge” amounts of property from others in…

Advertisement Capability and intent are the two fundamental lenses that can best predict risk and conflict. While there is ample space for misjudgment on the part of two adversaries, capability is much easier to evaluate than intent. In foreign policy, China’s rise has gone through a number of iterations, each marked by a rhetoric of intent and suggestions about its capability. The 12-character Chinese aphorism quoted by Deng Xiaoping – “Hide your brightness, bide your time” – is long dead. The late Chinese leader was fond of quoting the famous…