Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com While China’s new supremo has made rhetorical pledges about following in the reformist footsteps of Deng Xiaoping, General Secretary Xi Jinping has adopted measures that smack a lot more of the philosophy of Mao Zedong. Mao launched in 1951 the so-called “Three Antis movement” against corruption, a wasteful […]
Sol W. Sanders Perhaps more than Westerners, Chinese have a gambling streak. Even during the darkest hours of Maoist oppression and pretended Puritanism, Beijing tolerated gambling on its southern flank in the Portuguese colony of Macau. Now reincorporated into China, in 2012 the world’s largest casino, holding the country’s only legal gambling monopoly, raked […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Less than one month after becoming general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the country’s commander-in-chief,Xi Jinping has displayed a flair for catchy slogans — and superior public-relations skills. The new chairman of the policy-setting Central Military Commission has also demonstrated a readiness to project China’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com One of the biggest foreign and national security questions regarding the new Chinese Communist Party leadership is whether newly anointed General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping will sponsor a foreign “adventure” to consolidate his relatively weak power base. Historical parallels are not lacking. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Since territorial disputes erupted between China and Japan in the early 1970s over the Diaoyu islets (called the Senkakus in Japan), Beijing has stuck to late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous dictum: “Leave the question of sovereignty for the next generation; let’s put the emphasis on joint [economic] development.” […]
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 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 […]
Sol W. Sanders Old friend columnist Joseph Alsop once told me of arriving in China with a clanking sword he had hassled across the Pacific, given him by his cousin, FDR, along with an instant “Inside-the-Beltway” Navy commission. President Roosevelt sent him immediately after Pearl Harbor to Chungking as “political adviser” to Claire Lee Chenault […]