Growing personality cult around Xi Jinping noted by enemies, has few precedents

Growing personality cult around Xi Jinping noted by enemies, has few precedents

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Even as Xi Jinping is extending the parameters of his anti-corruption drive, the official media is building up a personality cult around the President that is unprecedented since the demise of Mao Zedong in 1976. Since early July, the official media such as Xinhua News Agency and the People’s Daily […]

Xi Jinping puts the lid on Hong Kong ‘autonomy’ in departure from Deng’s guidelines

Xi Jinping puts the lid on Hong Kong ‘autonomy’ in departure from Deng’s guidelines

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The Xi Jinping leadership has tightened the screw on Hong Kong by setting limits to the autonomy that the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Hong Kong can enjoy. On Tuesday, the State Council or central government published a White Paper on “The Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy […]

Xi Jinping appears less powerful than his PR agents wanted us to believe

Xi Jinping appears less powerful than his PR agents wanted us to believe

Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The latest “terrorist” attack in China — the stabbing incident at the Guangzhou Railway Station on Tuesday, May 6 — resulted only in six people injured. Yet coming hot upon the heels of bombing and stabbing mishaps in cities including Kunming and Urumqi, the Guangzhou case has made […]

Top ‘princeling’s U.S. visit clouded by defection try, intel debate over succession

Top ‘princeling’s U.S. visit clouded by defection try, intel debate over succession

Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping conducted a four-day visit to the United States which got generally benign press reviews in the U.S. and back home. But China analysts were buzzing about the signs that Xi’s rise to power might not be going as smoothly as is widely expected. As the Chinese […]

Secret of the Chinese Communist Party’s success? Evidence seems to support the ‘brute force’ theory

Secret of the Chinese Communist Party’s success? Evidence seems to support the ‘brute force’ theory

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Since the mid-2000s, “authoritarian resilience” has been a fashionable theory put forward by a host of famous Western Sinologists for explaining the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ability to hold on to power. The theory goes that the authoritarian regime has strengthened its proverbial “mandate of heaven” by making smart policy adaptations […]