Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com A ferocious power struggle among three of China’s most powerful figures — former President Jiang Zemin, current President Hu Jintao, and expected President Xi Jinping — has resulted in top generals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) acquiring unprecedented power. The extraordinary clout of the top brass of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration has good reasons to feel the heat on the geopolitical front. Even as Beijing is embroiled in sovereignty disputes with a host of its neighbors over islets in the South and East China Seas, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta earlier this […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai’s alleged conspiracy to usurp Vice President Xi Jinping’s status as heir apparent to the Chinese Communist Party leadership has served to tighten ties between Xi and the current supremo, President Hu Jintao. This has been seen as one of the few “positive […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Judging by the rhetoric of the official Chinese media and military commentators, the Chinese Communist Party authorities seem to be readying a small-scale naval skirmish to “teach the Philippines a lesson.” Yet at the same time, Beijing is brandishing non-military solutions, such as joint development of oil and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The Chinese Communist Party leadership is set to use dollar diplomacy to prevent the Yangon (Rangoon) regime from falling into the embrace of the United States. Beijing’s uneasiness toward the liberalization policies of Burma’s President Thein Sein has been reflected in its low-key reaction to the landslide victory […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Hong Kong was returned to China from Britain in 1997 absent an established democracy. Now, a closed-circle election among about only 1,200 Hong Kong elites, most with vast business and political interests in China, has resulted in a Beijing loyalist, widely suspected of being a secret member of the Chinese Communist Party, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The Bo Xilai bombshell has not only shattered the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) façade of unity but also exposed serious problems in the system due to the two decades-long moratorium on political reform. Rumors are circulating in Chinese Cyberspace that Bo, the charismatic Party Secretary of Chongqing who […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com A new factor has been injected into factional intrigue within the Chinese Communist Party. Thanks to the wonders of Chinese geriatric medicine, the health of 85-year-old ex-president Jiang Zemin and head of the powerful Shanghai Faction has improved — and he is determined to have a say in […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com While much of the Chinese media is still bashing the U.S. for a new round of “anti-China containment policy,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is much more nervous about the potentially explosive results of the country’s ever-widening rich-poor gap. Calls for ending China’s worsening social inequality are […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel The Chinese authorities have reacted angrily to a World Trade Organization ruling that criticized Beijing for using administrative methods to limit the exports of strategic raw materials. A WTO panel said on Jan. 30 that China had violated accepted trading practices by artificially curbing exports of raw materials […]