Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Who is in charge of China’s macro-level financial and economic policy? Most observers will say President Xi Jinping, who is head of the two highest-level decision-making bodies: the Central Leading Group on Finance and Economics (CLGFE) and the newly set up Central Leading Group on Comprehensively Deepening Reforms […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Despite reports about challenges to his power, President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has quietly — and relentlessly — built up his personal faction centered upon cadres associated with the prosperous coastal province of Zhejiang. Members of the so-called Zhejiang Clique are tipped for large-scale promotions […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Remember the “One Belt One Road” (OBOR), a multi-trillion-dollar intercontinental project that underpins President Xi Jinping’s ambition to catapult China to super-power status? The “Silk Road Economic Belt” links China with Central Asia, Turkey and all the way to Eastern Europe through a series of high-speed railways, highways […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The apparent leitmotif of this year’s meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the top advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), consists of ways and means to resuscitate the Chinese economy. However, political issues – particularly differences among members of the Politburo Standing Committee […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Dr. Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Efforts by the Xi Jinping administration to suppress embarrassing stories about his career in Fujian Province in the late 1980s and 1990s were behind two of the most brazen overseas acts of Chinese state-security agents. In October this year, four Chinese state-security agents kidnapped Hong Kong-based publisher […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com A series of internal speeches has confirmed President Xi Jinping’s arch-conservative view that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will choose its own survival over “subversive” reforms. A 10,000-word story in the Friday edition of the reformist Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily has revealed the psychology behind Xi’s refusal […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The ostensible motive for the historic handshake last Saturday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan counterpart Ma Ying-jeou is to anchor cross-Strait relations on the “one China” principle. Yet there are more urgent – and politically significant – considerations as well. Presidential elections are coming up in […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com President Xi Jinping has shocked even pro-establishment academics and businessmen by openly calling on officials to “attain the goal of Communism.” Xi’s exhortation came in the form of an address he made earlier this year to county-level cadres who were attending courses at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Just before China’s Army Day on Aug. 1, President and Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman Xi Jinping elevated ten senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers to full generals. This was Xi’s most significant military move since the formal arrest of Gen. Guo Boxiong, the former Politburo member and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Much of the discussion of the People’s Liberation Army’s just-released White Paper — China’s Military Strategy — has focused on a leap forward in China’s global hard-power projection, particularly new emphasis being put on enhanced naval, space and cyberwarfare capacities. Equally important for the long-term development of the […]