In early 2017, CCP Secretary General President Xi Jinping announced his desire to build a “Great Wall of Iron” to apparently promote security and peace in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (Xinhua, March 10, 2017). This is likely a continuation Beijing’s focus on implementing strict... MORE

On May 11, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan passed the Cybersecurity Management Law, Taiwan’s first national cybersecurity law (iThome, May 22). This law, which mandates cybersecurity requirements for Taiwan’s government agencies and operators of critical infrastructures, represents the latest initiative in the Tsai administration’s push for cyber... MORE

China has firmly established itself as the world’s dominant manufacturer of clean energy technologies, having been the largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells and modules for at least a decade (Energy Policy, February 2011). The country now accounts for half of all solar manufacturing (International... MORE

Since its inception at a 2013 speech in Kazakhstan, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has touted his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a platform for “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit,” through economic and cultural exchange. (State Council Information... MORE

For well over a decade, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have understood that excess lending by China’s state-directed banks to unproductive, state-linked companies could spark a future financial crisis. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has made the fight against excess leverage a... MORE

“Though we're geographically distant, we're all developing countries and the progress and well-being of our populations are common objectives,” Liu Biwei, vice-president of the China Public Diplomacy Association, a soft-power-focused organisation, said on opening the China-Latin America & Caribbean Press Center in Beijing last month... MORE

‘Sinified’ religion has a role to play in Xi's elevation of the United Front (UF) into a foreign policy tool. Informed by Qing imperial policy, CCP voices highlight the potential of state-managed Buddhism to advance PRC policy in Mongolia, where it has become a salient... MORE

The hard edges of China’s global soft power projection have been put under the microscope in a June 19 White House document entitled How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World. The 35-page statement, attributed to... MORE

US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on foreign washing machines and solar products in January touched off a cycle of trade escalations between the United States and China, with immense domestic pressure on both sides to avoid appearing weak. A temporary ceasefire was declared... MORE

What do international espionage concerns, a Chinese truckers’ strike, and the smart cities of the future all have in common? All are part of the story of how the commercial ambitions of Huawei—one of the PRC’s leading developers of high-tech electronics and telecommunications equipment—could be... MORE