Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com There is evidence that after two years of no-holds-barred projection of Chinese power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership under President and Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping has softened its diplomatic rhetoric. Recent statements by senior officials have emphasized Beijing’s willingness to abide by international norms laid down by the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Chinese pundits have a nickname for the Communist Party’s Central Commission on Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI): the “Eastern Factory.” The “Eastern Factory” is a notorious spy agency which emperors and eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) used to bring down, torture and kill their enemies. While General Secretary and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Despite reports that the China’s GDP is about to surpass that of the United States, much of Chinese politics is still governed by Maoist norms of the 1930s and 1940s. One of Chairman’s Mao Zedong’s most famous dictums — “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The impending default — and possible collapse — of the Russian economy has not only caught the Xi Jinping administration by surprise but also cast doubt on Beijing’s two-year-old “Russia first” foreign policy. Despite the fact that one of the first diplomatic acts of President Xi was to […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com [Willy Lam is traveling.] A Chinese professor enraged three Chinese senior officers at an official newspaper’s end-of-year panel by suggesting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest was genuine. On Dec. 16, the communist newspaper the Global Times hosted a panel on the color revolutions dedicated to the official party propaganda […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com [Willy Lam is traveling.] The Chinese state media launched a major propaganda campaign to explain the landslide defeat of the ruling KMT party in the recent Taiwan election. The outcome had nothing to do with the current Taiwan administration’s pro-China policies and everything to do with bad economic […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The year 2014 will go down in Chinese history for the way in which the Chinese Communist Party leadership throws it weight around the world in an effort to reshape the global order. Yet China’s alarming weakness in soft power will detract from the Xi Jinping leadership’s unprecedented […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The Beijing leadership has signaled tighter control over the Internet on the occasion of the First World Internet Conference, whose ostensible goal is to promote inter-connectivity between China and the world via the Net. For three days – Nov. 19 to 21 – censorship on Google, Facebook and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com President Xi Jinping has taken advantage of the global attention that has been focused on Beijing during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference to vow that the Occupy Central Movement in Hong Kong will soon be crushed with force. At a joint press conference with President Obama after […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com China-American relations, which have the past decade been characterized by “cold politics and hot economics,” could take a serious drubbing at the on-going Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Beijing. While geopolitical contention between China and the U.S. has been exacerbated particularly in the Asia-Pacific Region, bilateral ties […]