Tag: Communist Party of China

At G20 Summit, Xi and Biden Offer Rival Visions for Solving Global Issues

Chin@Strategy

BALI, Indonesia — While President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have eased tensions between their countries, they are vying for influence in Asia and beyond, offering competing stances on how to address poverty and the war in Ukraine. Mr. Xi has cast China as a steadfast partner to the region, rejecting what he described as the United States’ “Cold War mentality” of forming security alliances. At the Group of 20 summit on Tuesday, he spoke loftily about China’s “global initiatives” to fight poverty and strife, while remaining publicly…

Xi Jinping Opens a New Chapter for China

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Chris Buckley contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman,…

What Happened to Hu Jintao?

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It was the lone disruption in one of the most closely choreographed events in China: The country’s former top leader, Hu Jintao, was suddenly led out of the closing ceremony of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress. The congress, where China’s next leaders are anointed, is the single most important political event for a ruling party fixated on control. Every detail, whether it is the outcome of its elections or how servers pour tea, is planned. Nothing unscripted happens. Nothing unscripted is allowed to happen. Except this year, it did.…

A Godfather of Chinese Nationalism Has Second Thoughts

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Wang Xiaodong once gave a speech declaring that “China’s forward march is unstoppable.” He published essays calling on China to build up its military. He co-wrote a book, bluntly titled “China Is Unhappy,” in which he said the country should aim to control more land and shape global politics. “We should lead this world,” he said. Now, Mr. Wang, a 66-year-old Beijing-based writer once called the standard-bearer of Chinese nationalism, has another message: That nationalism has gone too far. For years, it was Mr. Wang whom many Chinese dismissed as…

An Era Just Ended in China

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On the economic front, he faces smoldering crises, including an economy that is slowing sharply, a property sector meltdown and record-breaking youth unemployment. These problems have been exacerbated by the Covid controls and by Mr. Xi’s “common prosperity” campaign — a strategy for narrowing inequality and addressing monopolistic behavior by big tech firms and other private companies, which was punctuated by an abrupt and sweeping regulatory crackdown last year that has alarmed investors. The market backlash was intense: Within months, more than a trillion dollars in value at many of…

Why People Are Flocking to a Symbol of Taiwan’s Authoritarian Past

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ringed by barbed wire and high gray walls, and once the site of a secretive military detention center, the museum just south of Taipei makes for a surprising tourist hot spot. The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, housed on the campus of a former military school, is a chilling reminder of the excesses of Taiwan’s not-so-distant authoritarian past when its rulers imposed martial law for four decades. The moldering concrete buildings with fading paint were once the site of secret tribunals where political dissidents were tried and…

Xi Jinping Now Holds Near-Absolute Power in China, Creating Risks

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When China’s leader, Xi Jinping, led six dark-suited men onto a bright red stage on Sunday, the scale of his victory became clear as one by one he introduced the country’s new ruling inner circle. Each was an acolyte of Mr. Xi, making his grip over China’s future tighter than ever. Mr. Xi’s groundbreaking third term as leader, following a weeklong Communist Party congress, was entirely expected. But even seasoned observers who thought that they had taken the full measure of Mr. Xi have been astonished by how thoroughly he…

A loyal aide in Shanghai takes a leading role in Beijing.

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A two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year looked at the time as though it might doom the political career of the city’s Communist Party leader, Li Qiang. Confined in their homes or in shoddy quarantine facilities, residents struggled to obtain food and fought with police officers clad in white hazmat suits. Despite the lockdown, Mr. Li, 63, retained the support throughout of the one man who really counts: Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. And on Sunday, Mr. Li emerged on the stage at the Great Hall of the People…

Hu Jintao’s Departure Causes Stir as Xi Elevates Loyalists in Congress

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Poised to take a groundbreaking third term in power, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has advanced a contingent of Communist Party loyalists ready to defend him, expand state influence over the economy and bolster national security. Mr. Xi opened the new phase of his authoritarian rule with a clutch of victories at the end of a party congress on Saturday. He hurried into retirement two top officials from a more moderate political mold. He positioned allies to dominate the new leadership. He kept officials who have promoted his muscular approach in…

China Hangs on Xi’s Every Word. His Silence Also Speaks Volumes.

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As China’s leader, Xi Jinping, laid out his priorities this week for a breakthrough third term in power, officials parsed his words for signs of where the country was headed. What he did not say was as revealing. The omission of two phrases from his key report to a Communist Party congress exposed his anxieties about an increasingly volatile world where Washington is contesting China’s ascent as an authoritarian superpower. For two decades, successive Chinese leaders have declared at the congress that the country was in a “period of important…