While President Xi Jinping laid out his vision for China at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2022, sitting quietly behind him was the introverted and discreet professor-turned-politician who crafted ‘Xi Jinping Thought’: Wang Huning 王沪宁. Since the late 1990s, Wang has served three General Secretaries at the … more
The ‘Ballad of Mulan’ (circa 400-600), which recounts the story of a young woman disguising herself as a man to take her father’s place in the army, concludes with a musing on the difficulties of telling the sex of rabbits: The male hare wildly kicks its feet, The female hare has shifty eyes, But when … more
Two things stand out to us when thinking about public protests in today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC). First, although it is easy for outsiders to view the PRC as having become such a tightly controlled, surveilled, and censored place that there is no room for dissent, this has never been the case — as … more
‘🌈,’ I message my friend, who is an LGBTQI+ activist in China, on WeChat. ‘I’ll be there in a minute!’, she answers to let me know that she is online and available to connect to a VPN and talk to me via an encrypted platform. A clever code of rainbows and secret words that … more
In September 2021, the Minister for Water Resources announced in a press release that under the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), centralised water supply and tap water coverage in rural areas had risen from 82 percent and 76 percent respectively, to 88 percent and 83 percent in 2020. The long-standing predicament faced by rural residents in … more
On the internet, one may get the impression that the Chinese youth is increasingly nationalistic and hostile towards the West. But this is an oversimplification. Multiple national sample surveys find that Chinese youth are adopting Westernised values, with a greater preference for individualism and self-expression, and are less nationalistic. Yet, they are far from embracing … more
1. History resolution At the recent 6th Plenum, the Party Central Committee adopted a resolution on history. The Party made this document public last Tuesday (November 16). We told you that the 6th Plenum communiqué lionised Xi and whitewashed history. The text of the resolution confirms this assessment. The resolution praises the Party’s achievements, downplays … more
1. 6th Plenum: outcomes The 6th Plenum concluded on Thursday with a communiqué [Chinese | English] that held little surprises: Xi was lionised and history whitewashed. We put together a bilingual side-by-side version of the communiqué for those of you preferring to work with both languages: Click here to download the PDF The most significant … more
1. Sixth Plenum preview The Sixth Plenum is currently underway in Beijing and will run until Thursday. For background on plenums and how they fit into China’s political system, see our explainers (written | video) from last year. The outcome of this Plenum is important to both policies in China as well as Xi’s prospects … more
1. Hostage exchange Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were finally released this week, after being arrested and detained in China for almost three years. The release of these two Canadians occurred at the same time as the release by Canada of Meng Wanzhou 孟晚舟, the CFO of Huawei and the daughter of Huawei’s founder. This … more
