Tag: Communist Party of China

Xi Jinping Is the Second Coming of Mao Zedong

Chin@Strategy

Mao is widely regarded today in the West as, at best, a flawed patriot and, at worst, a brutal dictator. The Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1962, his misguided attempt at rapid industrialization, contributed to a famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese. So intent were ordinary Chinese on raising steel production that they melted down hoes, plows and other iron implements in crude backyard furnaces, leaving them nothing to work the fields. Less than a decade later, Mao instigated the Cultural Revolution: Students turned in their teachers…

A U.S. ‘Ships Act’ Would Break China’s Control of the Seas

Chin@Strategy

Soon after President Xi Jinping of China took power, he instructed top Communist Party leaders in a 2013 speech to turn the country into a “maritime superpower.” China already has the world’s largest navy, though its ability to contend with U.S. naval forces remains in doubt. But leaders in Beijing have realized that maritime strength is not measured solely in firepower. Success in commercial shipping would have “great and far-reaching significance” for Chinese national strength and security, Mr. Xi told the Politburo then, reminding the party that throughout history the…

In Central Asia’s ‘Great Game,’ China Seeks the Advantage

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — As Xi Jinping, China’s leader, visited Central Asian countries this week, he stepped off planes to rousing performances by rows of dancers, musicians and ceremonial guards. Uzbekistan’s leader called him “the greatest statesman,” Chinese state media declared, while the leader of Turkmenistan praised his “wise leadership.” They draped him in medals. For Beijing, the pomp and fanfare that greeted Mr. Xi, as well as the effusive rhetoric of his counterparts, served to show that China is not isolated despite coming under pressure from the United States and much…

Challenges for Russia and China Test a ‘No-Limits’ Friendship

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — The summit this week between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China is a show of force by two autocratic leaders united against what they consider American hegemony. It is also a moment of mutual weakness as Russia suffers losses in Ukraine and China endures an economic slowdown. They come to the meeting, expected to take place later this week in Uzbekistan, with their own agendas and their own challenges that will test an important relationship both have described as a friendship with “no…

China Imposes More Covid Lockdowns, Stoking Anxiety

Chin@Strategy

In the hours before the southern Chinese city of Chengdu entered a coronavirus lockdown, Matthew Chen visited four vegetable markets in an attempt to stock up on fresh food. But seemingly the entire city had the same idea, and by the time he got to each place, most of the shelves had been stripped bare, except for hot peppers and fruit, he said. Mr. Chen, a white-collar worker in his 30s, managed to scavenge enough cherry tomatoes, meat and greens for about one day, and since then has been ordering…

For China’s Xi and Other Strongmen, Gorbachev Showed Exactly What Not to Do

Chin@Strategy

In much of the West, Mikhail S. Gorbachev is hailed as the farsighted visionary who brought the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion. But for autocratic leaders in other parts of the world, his legacy stands as a cautionary tale of power discarded quickly and, by some estimates, cavalierly, with little or nothing in return. This lesson has been taken most to heart in China, where Xi Jinping is expected to be anointed to a third term as the country’s top leader during a Communist Party congress announced for October.…

Xi Jinping Poised to Win 5 More Years at China’s Congress in October

Chin@Strategy

A Communist Party congress that is poised to anoint Xi Jinping as China’s top leader for another five years will open in Beijing on Oct. 16, officials announced on Tuesday. The starting date of the party’s 20th congress — a pivotal event in China’s political life cycle — was revealed after the Politburo, a council of 25 senior officials, settled on plans for the event. Such congresses are choreographed rituals held every five years, bringing together about 2,300 delegates who rarely, if ever, dissent. This one will reveal China’s broad…

China Pushes Its Vision for Taiwan As U.S. Delegation Visits

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — As tensions in the Taiwan Strait reached their highest level in decades, China held the world rapt with a show of military might, deploying its largest-ever military exercises to intimidate Taiwan and its supporters. But the message that China has sought to convey involves far more than warships and fighter jets. Alongside its flashy display of raw power, China has been laying out its most forceful vision — political, economic, cultural — of a future unified with Taiwan. Under that vision, guided by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, not…

In Turbulent Times, Xi Builds a Security Fortress for China, and Himself

Chin@Strategy

Over informal, private meals with American leaders, China’s Xi Jinping let his guard down a little. It was a decade ago, relations were less strained, and Mr. Xi, still cementing his power, hinted he worried about the Chinese Communist Party’s grip. Speaking privately with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Mr. Xi suggested that China was a target of “color revolutions,” a phrase the party adopted from Russia for popular unrest in the name of democracy and blamed on the West. The recent “Arab Spring” uprisings across the…

China Is Not the Biggest Threat to the World Order. It’s Russia.

Chin@Strategy

In a speech on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed the long-awaited outlines of the Biden administration’s official posture toward China. Rather than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Mr. Blinken said, it is China that represents the most potent and determined threat to the American-championed world order. Only China, he continued, has “both the intent to reshape the international order” and the power to do so, he said. The United States will seek to rally coalitions of other nations to meet Beijing’s challenge. The writing had been on the wall. Just…