Is the anti-corruption campaign slowing down?

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• China corruption prosecutions drop for first time in five years / Financial Times (paywall)
  Expulsion from the Party and prosecution in public court, one of the strictest forms of discipline for corruption in China’s Communist Party, was 20 percent less frequent in 2016 than in the year before, according to an annual government report. Analysts noted that this signaled a shift away from a largely anti-corruption-focused campaign and toward a more direct effort to instill political discipline ahead of the upcoming 19th Party congress this autumn.
• Opinion: China Can Thrive in the Trump Era / NYT (paywall)
  An op-ed by Yan Xuetong, the influential Chinese scholar of foreign policy, security, and U.S China relations, repeats a point many commentators have made about Trump’s scrapping of the Trans-Pacific Partnership being an opening for China to write the rules of trade in the Asia Pacific. He also sees hostility from the Trump administration as a push to the Chinese government to end its policy of not forming military alliances, which Yan has long argued would benefit China. Finally, he argues that “an illiberal turn in the United States” could drive talented Americans and others to settle in China instead.

• Beijing Pushes Back on Trump Admin Over Disputed Islands in South China Sea / NBC
• As Trump stresses ‘America First,’ China plays the world leader / Reuters
• Trump’s climate stance threatens to worsen China relations / Bloomberg
• Chinese billions fail to sway Taiwan’s last two allies in Africa / Bloomberg