China’s formidable state machinery was able to stage the largest Olympics in history and to have a “Taikonaut” perform a 20-minute “spacewalk” last week. Yet the world-scale scandal emanating from contaminated milk products has exposed the worsening malaise in the country’s political and administrative structure.... MORE

On September 26, 2008, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie met with Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the Army Staff of Pakistan, in Beijing. The meeting, which called for the enhancement of bilateral strategic partnership, was held against the backdrop of deteriorating U.S.-Pakistan relations as a... MORE

The agency that serves as China's economic bellwether, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has indicated that it will undertake new statistical reform and development. Ma Jiantang, the new NBS chief, stated that the financial turmoil facing the global economy "had increased the uncertainties of... MORE

China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1976, was a period of immense turmoil in Chinese society during which millions were killed or persecuted. A majority of the 11 new officials appointed to China’s elite 25-member 17th Communist Party Politburo in... MORE

After inviting two Russian strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons to land in Caracas as part of a joint military maneuver—whose significance was downplayed by the Russian authorities—Caracas expelled U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy on September 11. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has since embarked on... MORE

At the upcoming second meeting between Chen Yunlin, president of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARAT) in charge of handling cross-Strait negotiations, and Chiang Ping-kun, chairman of Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF), in October, official media in Taiwan and Hong Kong are... MORE

The transfer of responsibility for the approval of medium- and long-term corporate bond issues by listed companies from NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) to CSRC (China Securities Regulatory Commission) may turn out to be a watershed decision in China's transition to a more market-oriented... MORE

Over the last few weeks Iran has amplified its threats that, if attacked, it would immediately close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint nestled between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (Al-Siyasa [Kuwait], July 7). Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Mohammad Ali... MORE

Americans will decide in November whether a Democrat or Republican will become the 44th president of the United States, and the whole world is weighing how the two political parties' platforms and presidential candidates’ persona of “change” will impact the orientation of the world’s superpower... MORE

“Sharpening Sword 2008,” the code name for the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) month-long multi-service and multi-arm joint training counter-strike military exercise, is underway at the Zhurihe Joint Tactical Training Base under the Beijing Military Area Command in the Inner Mongolia grassland. Particular to this year’s... MORE