While Chinese President Xi Jinping is busy greeting world leaders this week at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing, here in the quiet, old Dutch town of Galle, Sri Lanka, Chinese tourists are visiting one of the best preserved colonial-era cities in Southeast Asia.
Industrial espionage has been a constant source of tension between the U.S. and Chinese governments; however, last year, it was China that was on the defensive for the theft of American trade secrets.
As the largest trading partner of all Southeast Asian countries, China has long exerted enormous influence over the economic and political agendas of governments throughout the region.
China has made a badge of honor out of Zheng Bijian’s term coined in a seminal 2005 Foreign Affairs article, which described the Middle Kingdom’s path toward modernization as a “peaceful rise.”
Beijing’s formidable display of aggression this year has once again backfired, as its neighbors continue to beef up their military capabilities and forge defensive pacts both within and outside the region.
On Jan. 5, 1930 Mao Zedong wrote the essay, “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire.” Yet over 80 years later, the phrase still rings true in today’s fragile and fractured China. One such recent example, although not nearly as serious in scale to what Mao was contemplating, occurred when CCTV, the state broadcaster, […]
In a time of heightened tensions between Asian nations with claims to the waters of the East and South China Seas, the deployment of an offshore oil rig back in May by Beijing in disputed waters with Vietnam was not going to be an event without ramifications. The rig’s deployment by the Chinese National Offshore […]
Beijing’s formidable display of aggression this year is backfiring, as its neighbors scramble to beef up their military capabilities and forge defensive alliances both within and outside the region. One such notable alliance making the headlines this past week is between the U.S. and Vietnam. Vietnam, much like U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines, is […]
Chinese President Xi Jinping, certainly has a huge task before him – not only cracking down on rampant corruption, but attempting to change the mindset of a population which some say has lost its moral compass. A recent circular from the Communist Party’s powerful Organisation Department stated that party officials must be prevented from “being […]
As open as China has become in some ways (as it would like the rest of the world to think it has become), it continues to keep a tight lid on its citizens use of the Internet and media. In 2011, a 22-year-old Chinese reporter named Kang Xia launched a website dedicated to sharing foreign […]
On July 1, the U.S. simultaneously engaged in a naval exercise of co-operation with Chinese units, and one implicitly aimed at resisting China. On the same day, Hong Kong protesters marked the anniversary of China’s re-assumption of sovereignty there with their annual demonstration for democracy. Japan reinterpreted its constitutional restrictions on the use of defense forces, […]
The Boston Global Forum (BGF), a non-profit forum for international scholars, hosted its opening session on July 2, aiming to engage leaders from the United States, Asia, and the United Nations to discuss the crisis in the South China Sea. BGF Chairman and Co-Founder Michael Dukakis moderated the discussion, with the active participation of Professor […]
Ever since it became a rising economic power, China started to realize the need for soft power in order to increase its global competitiveness. In Africa, Beijing found itself competing with Western companies backed by development agencies imposing good governance and human rights restrictions. Beijing sought to appeal to some African nations by offering to […]
Incoming Chinese president Xi Jinping’s first trip as head of state took him to Russia, Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo late last month. His inaugural trip was much heralded back in China as an assertion of Beijing’s growing soft power, and its ability to develop friendly relations with resource-laden nations. Xi began […]
Amidst all that is happening in the Arab world (escalating violence in Syria, and nuclear brinkmanship by Iran) and the never-ending (epic) saga of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, comes the delayed EU-China summit in Beijing this week (February 14, 2012). Held on Valentine’s Day, it was full of promises for mutual love, respect and […]