This edition of China Currents covers an exceptionally broad swath of terrain, a reflection of the expansive changes taking place in China and their effects on the world. Stephen Herschler provides a unique contextual analysis of President Xi Jinping’s 19th Party Congress Report. Katherine Peavy takes us into the present and future world of big data, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence and explains how retailers in China are adjusting to coming changes. Michael Wenderoth offers insights into what seemed at first like an impossibility: a private, foreign-invested western hospital in China. Fei-Ling Wang zooms out to 30,000 feet with a piece that argues the rise of China offers a double-barreled challenge of a shift of power in the international system and re-ordering of how nations align within the system. And John Garver reviews Parama Sinha Palit’s book, Analyzing China’s Soft Power Strategy and Comparative Indian Initiatives, which he terms “an interesting and solid study of an important but under-researched aspect of China’s rise in Asia.” We invite you to linger and learn with each of these essays.
