Announcing Peace, Enforcing Violence: Xi Jinping's V-Day Speech

Decoding the historical revisionism in the V-Day parade, and understanding the implications of Xi Jinping's proposed military scaleback.

Xi the Reactionary: A Concerning Reversion to Maoist Ideology

Westerners have almost uniformly understood China since Mao as a liberalizing country. No longer do political campaigns bypass liberal principles in the name of revolution. And no longer does China pursue policies that limit foreign influence in the Chinese economy. Perhaps the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre awakened some to the lack of liberalization in China, but 25 years is long enough to foster forgetfulness or enable some to lessen the Massacre as an aberration in a liberalization narrative decades in the making. Such beliefs are easily understood but entirely misleading.

The Ruler of Law

“Like the fall of Bo Xilai before it, last week’s announcement of a disciplinary investigation into former security chief Zhou Yongkang has been hailed by state media as a demonstration of China’s rule of law. Such a conclusion, even given Beijing’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the phrase, is at least premature,” writes China Digital Times’s Samuel Wade.

China's New National Secuirty Commission Strengthens Xi's Grip Over Domestic Security

China’s National Security Commission, the establishment of which was announced at the Third Plenum in November, met for the first time on Tuesday. As expected, President Xi’s comments about the substance of the meeting indicate that the commission will focus heavily on domestic security issues.

Wall Street Journal: Newly Created National Security Commission Likely to Focus on Domestic Security

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Erickson and William McCahill argue that recent political developments and official pronouncements indicate that China’s new National Security Commission will focus primarily on maintaining state security and social stability in order to promote economic growth. Chinese Communist Party officials often speak of “maintaining social stability” as a euphemism for vigorously suppressing dissent.

Xi Jinping Seeks Greater Control Over Courts

Although some Chinese legal experts recently expressed hope that the Communist Party might implement reforms that would enhance judicial independence and rule-of-law, as Shannon Tiezzi argues in The Diplomat, it seems that pr

Xi Jinping's Anti-Corruption Drive Underwhelms

Despite President Xi Jinping’s stern rhetoric on the seriousness of his anti-corruption campaign, recently released official data shows that the Communist Party did not significantly increase the number of corruption investigations in 2013. Rather, corruption investigations are only up 4% over last year and 6% since 2011.

Xi Jinping Consolidates Power at the Third Plenum

Writing in The Telegraph, Malcolm Moore argues that the recently held Third Plenum enabled Chinese President Xi Jinping to further cement his grip on power a year after being appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party. Xi achieved this through establishing a new security agency that will oversee China's vast domestic security apparatus and foreign policy decision making.

Xi Jinping Revives Maoist Self-Criticism Sessions

In a move reminiscent of Mao Zedong's practice of forcing suspected "rightists" to participate in self-criticism sessions, President Xi Jinping has urged government officials to publicly criticize their past bad behavior.

Xi Jinping: The Pitiful “Real Man”

A new group of leaders recently took power in China. After becoming the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November, Xi Jinping just received another official title: President of the People’s Republic of China. This new group of leaders also includes several Politburo members, each tasked with overseeing political, military, economic and cultural affairs in China.