Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s virtual meeting yesterday evening appears to have been relatively friendly and promises more stability for the U.S.-China relationship. There were no breakthroughs, but Chinese media reported that an agreement had been reached to issue journalist visas, starting with the U.S. side.
Bloomberg, a news service owned by a New York billionaire, ranks Xi Jinping, chairman of everything.
The sixth plenum, a top Communist Party leadership meeting that started in Beijing today, is expected to approve a resolution that codifies General Secretary Xi Jinping’s image as an indispensable figure in Chinese history and governance, and set the stage for his “third term” that would begin at the 2022 Party Congress.
Wang Huning is the most important political theorist in Xi Jinping's China. But what kind of ideology does this man, who ascended to the Politburo Standing Committee after decades of advising different CCP leaders, actually believe in?
Beijing is very unhappy with statements in the last two days from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the future of the island nation that China sees as a breakaway province.
“There is something major afoot in China right now,” says Kaiser Kuo, but single-lens analysis that lacks empathy won’t cut it in providing insight into the complexity of the changes. What The China Project has called the Red New Deal could mark the start of a new phase in Chinese history, and it deserves to be taken seriously and seen from multiple perspectives.
China’s new five-year pilot program for property taxes is thin on details — including where it will be introduced, who will have to pay, how high, and how often. But Beijing is hoping the long-dismissed continuation of trials last implemented in 2011 is a way to safely and smoothly deflate the real estate bubble.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Chinese leader Xi Jinping both gave speeches over the weekend that addressed the future of Taiwan. Xi described “Taiwan independence” as a “grave hidden danger” to his future plans, while Tsai insisted, “nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us.”
The news of an expected virtual meeting came on the same day as a six-hour in-person meeting in Zurich between top U.S. and Chinese officials, after which both sides released statements assuring the world that they are being responsible.