Tough talk at the Pentagon by a high level visitor interested in buying U.S. tech

Tough talk at the Pentagon by a high level visitor interested in buying U.S. tech

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Defense Minister Gen. Chang Wanquan has adopted a tough posture while meeting with counterpart Chuck Hagel and other U.S. officials in Washington earlier this week. Chang’s visit was geared toward fleshing out what Beijing calls “a new type of power relationship” between the world’s two most influential countries. […]

Beijing’s new policy for Tibet: ‘Winning hearts and minds’ of ordinary people

Beijing’s new policy for Tibet: ‘Winning hearts and minds’ of ordinary people

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has sought to boost stability in Tibet by vowing to grant more economic benefits for ordinary Tibetans. Yu Zhengsheng, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of both Tibet and Xinjiang, paid a visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) early this […]

Dictators’ Club: Xi Jinping blocks predecessors on choice of his successor

Dictators’ Club: Xi Jinping blocks predecessors on choice of his successor

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com While General Secretary and President Xi Jinping has not yet been in office for one year, different factions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are already jockeying for position regarding the identity of Xi’s successor. It was late patriarch Deng Xiaoping who started the tradition called the “cross-generation […]

Xi Jinping’s track record thus far establishes him as mainly a military strongman

Xi Jinping’s track record thus far establishes him as mainly a military strongman

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com President and commander-in-chief Xi Jinping has bolstered his hold over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by promoting six officers to the rank of full general on the eve of August 1, China’s Army Day. Two of the six, the commanders of the Nanjing and the Guangzhou Military Regions […]

Beijing warns of ‘cold confrontation’ in not-so-graceful response to major Abe win in Japan

Beijing warns of ‘cold confrontation’ in not-so-graceful response to major Abe win in Japan

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The landslide victory won by the Shinzo Abe administration in last weekend’s parliamentary elections is unlikely to lead to a detente in Japan’s difficult relations with China. Just the opposite. While senior Chinese officials have remained reticent, the official media have zeroed in on the fact that with […]

Why Beijing is targeting multinationals in new phase of the anti-corruption campaign

Why Beijing is targeting multinationals in new phase of the anti-corruption campaign

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The high-profile exposure of alleged corruption practices by the China division of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) indicates that Beijing’s anti-graft campaign has entered a new level. That official mouthpieces such as CCTV, People’s Daily and Global Times have come out with bitter attacks against GSK, however, suggests that […]

Xi Jinping spares top party leaders whose scale of corruption qualified them for execution

Xi Jinping spares top party leaders whose scale of corruption qualified them for execution

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com It’s a case of plus ça change with President ’s nine-month old campaign to rectify the “work style” of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through means including cracking down on big-time corruption. Earlier this week the protagonist of the one of worst scandals in PRC history – former minister […]

Beijing blames religion and ‘hostile foreign forces’ after bloodbath in Xinjiang

Beijing blames religion and ‘hostile foreign forces’ after bloodbath in Xinjiang

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Bloody outbreaks of violence in eastern Xinjiang have shattered two major slogans associated with the current and former Chinese presidents: Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” and ex-president Hu Jintao’s “harmonious society.” Some 40 people, mostly Han-Chinese police and residents in Xinjiang, 44 percent of whose population of 22 million […]

More Maoist than thou: Xi Jinping is in, Bo Xilai is out, but the CCP is still thoroughly corrupt

More Maoist than thou: Xi Jinping is in, Bo Xilai is out, but the CCP is still thoroughly corrupt

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping marked his 60th birthday last weekend by launching a Mao-style “mass line political education” campaign in an apparent effort to raise the moral standards of the 83 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The official Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as […]

The PLA has much bigger concerns in Hong Kong than what to do about Edward Snowden

The PLA has much bigger concerns in Hong Kong than what to do about Edward Snowden

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The case of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has drawn the world’s attention to the extent to which Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership can influence the decision of the authorities of the Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR). Yet Beijing’s concern over the former British colony goes way beyond […]