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Kant began with impossibility. Critique of Pure Reason opens with the assertion that, for much of its history, Western philosophy was dedicated to answering fundamentally unanswerable questions, to proving the...
Introduction: From the China Order to the China Race In an admittedly immodest manner, I have published “The China Trilogy” on China: The China Order: Centralia, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power...
Donald Trump 1 took office as the Forty-Seventh President of the United States on January 20, 2025. Before his inauguration, the world, learning from the unpredictability and transactional proclivity of...
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, allegations of Chinese collusion with Russia’s war aims have proliferated. They have ranged from assertions that Beijing wasn’t cooperating with Western...
This issue of China Currents once again offers a wide-ranging look at significant issues involving China, some of which are prominent in the public discourse on China and some of which are more obscure but...
Stand-up comedy thrives on the art of the punch. When aimed upward, a well-executed punch can earn cheers and sharpen stand-up’s impact, using wit and precision to challenge privilege, authority, and...
How three recent 3 rd plenums have changed China All Communist parties in the world followed the Soviet model of governing — convening national party congresses to select leadership and adopt policies. The...
Vectors of Chinese Economic Policy and Central Asia Traditionally dedicated to economic issues, the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China continues to attract heightened global...
In 2014, Prime Minister Li Keqiang declared an all-out war on air pollution (Zhang et al, 2021). For the next eight years, the data proclaimed China’s victory. In 2019, the average annual concentrations of PM...
Introduction In October 2017, Xi Jinping told the delegates to the Nineteenth Party Congress that during the past five years, the Party’s “anti-corruption campaign has built into a crushing tide and is being...
The 3rd Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), held in July 2024, issued a Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform...
Most people probably have heard the proverb about the blind men and the elephant, each describing a very different animal depending on the part of the animal by which they stood. Revision 1: let’s swap out the...
The excerpt was taken from an interview Dr. Marketus Presswood, an assistant professor of history at Spelman College, did on Jan. 25, 2024 with the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations...
After three decades of economic reform along with relatively lessening of political control and ideological restraint, the Chinese government in recent years has tightened the party-state grip. From the second...
Liu Cixin’s 刘慈欣 2006 novel, The Three-Body Problem 三体, first found a global audience through the publication of Ken Liu’s English translation in 2014. The novel, the first in a trilogy collectively known as...
Introduction 1 India's development strategy in recent years has been "India for India" and "Make in India." A form of self-reliance, or "strategic autonomy," India's policy approach is a reaction to...
The Information and Communication Technology revolution has transformed the very nature of contemporary public diplomacy (PD), which M. Holmes defines as “the use of digital information communication...
This issue of China Currents is eclectic in nature, but the featured articles all relate to how China is trying to influence the world, how China’s historical experience weighs on the present, and how those...
My book, China on my Mind, is both an autobiography and the story of access to China for 50 years. Today we are engaged in a huge debate about U.S.-China relations – how they should continue in the years...
China's President, Xi Jinping, did not attend the G20 meeting held in New Delhi, India, the weekend of September 9-10, 2023. While we do not know why he did not attend, relations between the two countries have...
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. That war is still raging. Instead of sending troops, Washington is shoring up the war effort by sending weapons and cash. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a...
As a liberal democracy that protects human rights, the only country in Asia that legalized same-sex marriage and adoption, a longstanding U.S. ally, and the lynchpin of the world’s high-tech industry, Taiwan...
In recent years, U.S.-China relations have experienced unprecedented challenges. While both Beijing and Washington publicly deny the coming of a second Cold War, strategic competition, if not rivalry, is now...
There is a Chinese proverb about a smart rabbit, 狡兔三窟,jiǎo tù sān kū in Mandarin. A smart rabbit has three burrows. If one is endangered or destroyed, the rabbit can seek safety in the other two. The story was...
This issue of China Currents provides analysis and insights into frictions that have arisen by virtue of China’s emergence as a major force in the world. In our lead article, Doug Barry argues that the...
This is an updated version of an article that was originally published on the website of the now-defunct ERA Institute. Inner Mongolia, officially an autonomous region stretching across a wide area of north...
Return to Dust (2022) is director and screenwriter Li Ruijun's (born in 1983) sixth feature film. Similar to Li’s earlier films, including The Old Donkey (2010), Fly with the Crane (2012), and River Road...
Does the Public’s Opinion Toward China Matter? Public opinion polls over the past several years reveal a significant shift in the American public's attitudes toward China. The public increasingly believes that...
1. Introduction In recent years, China has faced complex and severe challenges: a trade war in 2018, the start of a pandemic in 2020, the real estate turndown in 2021, and the end of “Zero-COVID” in 2022...
Introduction China’s Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), has developed its own digital currency. The electronic China Yuan, or e-CNY, results from a six-year effort and follows a crackdown on...
The five articles in this issue of China Currents deal with current and unfolding topics. Vijaya Subrahmanyam’s piece explains how China’s new digital currency differs from commonly used virtual payment...
From mid-October to early December, potentially radical events impacted cross-strait relations between the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China (China). It started when Xi Jinping gave...
Historian Michael Hunt believed the relationship between the U.S. and China is different from all the other American bilateral relationships because it has been buttressed by two pillars that are still central...
On October 22, 2022, Xi Jinping was elected to a third term as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Even though his elevation violated what many observers had come to believe was a new norm...
This multimedia issue follows a format initiated early this year when we engaged three leading scholars in discussing China’s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine. In this issue, Dr. Andy Wedeman , Professor of...
Concurrent with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have increased in the Taiwan Strait. Tensions had, in fact, been on the rise for several years with the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force repeatedly...
Seven months into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the consequences of the war remain unclear. Russia might regain the upper hand or be forced off Ukrainian soil. No less certain is the length and...
As 2022 began, the year was shaping up as one of great significance for China. It appeared that the nation had successfully contained COVID-19 and could become the first country in the world to return to...
Special Issue on China and the war in Ukraine We’re delighted to offer something new for China Currents — a special, multimedia issue on China’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The issue features...
William D. Frazier’s company, Shanghai-America Direct Import & Export, is based in Shanghai (xmftrade.com). He is the author of Black American Entrepreneur in China: Connecting Industry and Cultural...
The early 1980s saw the first glimpses of China's domestic reforms and interactions with people and economies outside China. This loosening was dangerous territory for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which...
The “Xinjiang question” poses one of the most controversial issues for China scholars today. A significant portion of the region’s Turkic Uyghur Muslim population claims that Xinjiang possesses a distinct...
A brief look at the parallels, precedence, and paradoxes Between 2012 and 2018, a few colleagues and I studied next-generation innovation ecosystems globally. We observed a number of patterns and...
The rise of China has been one of the clearest, most predicted, and most predictable realities in a century of international politics. Rather than the result of a sudden shift like the decline of Britain after...
This issue of China Currents focuses on a broad question that has been long discussed and likely will profoundly shape the world in the coming decades: what are the implications of the rise of China? John...
This is an edited version of the original book review published in the U.S. China Perception Monitor , November 15, 2021. https://uscnpm.org/2021/11/15/review-desmond-shums-red-roulette/ Book Review: Desmond...
This article is based on a presentation given to the International Club of Atlanta on December 7, 2021. Putting aside the political noise (as much as possible), both China and the U.S. face similar threats and...
[caption id="attachment_5895" align="alignright" width="300"] The author with her classmates at their MBA graduation from National Taiwan Normal University in 2021.[/caption] I recently returned to the United...
The security and economic landscape in the Indo-Pacific is increasingly difficult to navigate. While trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the...
On March 13, 1988, at the height of Gorbachev’s glasnost’ policy, an elderly teacher from Leningrad named Nina Andreeva published a letter in a conservative (i.e. anti-perestroika) Russian newspaper, defending...
Every year since the death of Mao, it has become increasingly clear that China is on the rise and likely – though never certain – to emerge as a superpower. These four-and-a-half decades were not without...
China Currents has always been dedicated to peeling back the layers of complexity in the quest to understand contemporary China, and this issue is, in my humble opinion, a shining example of how we do that. In...
Thank you very much for the kind introduction. I want to thank the World Trade Center, The Carter Center and the China Research Center for inviting me to be here with you. I am honored there are many people on...
Introduction The last few years have been unsettling for Sino-American relations as administrations on both sides have steadily ratcheted up tensions — intentionally or unintentionally — with domestic politics...
At a time when U.S.-China relations are spiraling downward, a fracturing of global supply chains is underway, and countries are struggling to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, interest in the possible...
This essay is a response to the The Carter Center’s Report, “Finding Firmer Ground.” The Carter Center recently released a report, entitled Finding Firmer Ground: The Role of Civil Society and NGOs in...
Describing Taiwan as an island is appropriate both literally and figuratively. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it lies about 100 miles off China’s southeastern coast. It is surrounded by the South China...
Introduction In February 2012, it was revealed that Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai — a Politburo member and Party Secretary of Chongqing, a provincial-level city in southwest China — had been arrested and...
It is not an understatement to say that the immediate future of the world will hinge largely on how China evolves and interacts with the rest of the world, and in particular the United States. Many questions...
[caption id="attachment_5651" align="alignright" width="296"] Nanjing University Professor Xu Xin (on left) and University of West Georgia Professor Jonathan Goldstein (on right) at October 2019 meeting of the...
On September 3, 2015, the Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and The World Anti-Fascist War military parade was underway...
Introduction Business Angels (BAs) are typically high net worth businessmen and women who invest both their personal money and time in high-growth potential, unlisted, early-stage ventures. The BA investment...
1. Introduction Although the relationship between China and Myanmar goes far back in history, the energy relationship between two countries is quite new. Myanmar became the first non-Communist country to...
In January 2020, Charles Lieber, the Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was led into a federal court in Boston in a yellow jumpsuit and handcuffs. Lieber, whose...
This issue of China Currents features an eclectic mix of topics that would capture more of our attention if the world were not obsessed with the coronavirus pandemic. In that world, U.S.-China relations are...
Two years ago, I flew back to a small town in Minnesota, the unlikely place that sparked my interest in China more than two decades ago. I went to see friends and former professors, and learn about the...
Editor’s note: Dr. Barry Naughton, the China Research Center’s 2020 annual lecturer, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with China Currents Managing Editor Penelope Prime and Center associates John Garver...
Introduction Ethiopia has emerged as one of China’s closest political and economic partners in China’s wider engagement in Africa. In exchange for infrastructure development and support in its ambitions for...
Like a bull in a china shop, COVID-19 has shattered lives and wrecked economies worldwide. With millions of people in lockdowns, quarantines, or other forms of restrictions on mobility because of the ongoing...
Introduction COVID-19 has proven to be a great disruptor. First it caused the national shutdown of China as factory after factory turned the lights off, sending Western firms scrambling for goods of all kinds...
The COVID-19 pandemic has done more than cause the Chinese economy to contract. It also raised the real possibility of China decoupling economically from other parts of the world and dealt a blow to the China...
In an interview with Fox Business News on May 14, U.S. President Donald Trump said, "There are many things we could do (to China). We could cut off the whole relationship." He went on to say, "Now, if you did...
Making sense out of the current moment is challenging to say the least. The coronavirus pandemic has overtaken and overshadowed everything, which is why this edition of China Currents is dedicated to examining...
My six-year-old daughter learned about grading during my year-long sabbatical in Beijing. Grades and testing had been a foreign concept in her short educational experience in the U.S. The only tests she and...
What to think about China and its rising power? What is the historical background and contemporary rationale behind the many and varied views about the emergence of China on the global stage? How to understand...
Introduction Over the past decade, governments around the world have begun adopting policies that make data they collect openly available to all users at no cost — notably information from Earth observation...
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He after signing the trade agreement. AP Photo/Evan Vucci Penelope B. Prime , Georgia State University U.S. President Donald Trump signed a...
Introduction Over the past two years, U.S. officials have frequently pointed out China’s negative effects on the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region’s development and stability. U.S. Secretary of State...
The full-fledged economic ties between China, Latin America, and the Caribbean are important indicators of China’s role as a global player. In the ongoing and heightened debate about China’s rise, China’s...
Introduction Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s presence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been substantial in practically all socio-economic fields: cultural, bilateral, and...
This edition of China Currents offers three distinct types of articles. The first group of three essays focuses on China’s expanding relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. All three were first...
An Interview with Yawei Liu conducted by Sun Lu Liu Yawei is the director of the China Program at The Carter Center in the United States and member of the China Research Center’s Board of Directors. Sun Lu is...
Introduction Since Prime Minister Li Keqiang declared war against air pollution in March 2014, five years have passed. Last year, reports were coming out spreading good news. For example, concentrations of...
This essay analyzes new trends in China’s media control mechanism and public diplomacy efforts in the past five years since the country issued its media and cultural policies pertaining to the 18th Party...
This essay is a reflection of what I wrote five years ago on the Decisions of the 11th Party Congress’ 3rd Plenum of China’s Communist Party in 2013 (Liu, 2014). In the original essay, I pointed out that the...
In late 2012, early 2013, newly selected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping ordered an intensification of the regime’s ongoing attack on corruption. Party investigators and the...
Since the publication of my review of Chinese administrative reform in China Currents five years ago, significant changes have happened in China’s governance system. Most notable is the debut of a new round of...
One of the benefits of being a member of the China Research Center is ready access to colleagues possessing wide-ranging expertise on Chinese affairs. Five years have passed since I last drew upon these...
Dr. Deborah Davis is the China Research Center’s 2018 annual lecturer. Dr. Davis is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Yale University and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai as...
Honestly, I’m a kung fu and action film fan, but I really enjoyed Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians , a film that proved to be a compellingly funny action-filled romantic comedy that economically sifted through a...
Wu Jing, 44, the director and action star of Wolf Warriors (2015) and Wolf Warriors II (2017), did not set out to make China’s highest-grossing film in history. He reportedly had to take out a second mortgage...
Centuries before President Donald Trump began withdrawing from multilateral trade agreements and retreating from international leadership roles, while promising to build a “big, beautiful wall,” there was...
Suing the Rural Chinese State and the Shift from Tax Reform to Land Seizures Introduction Beginning in the 1990s, both scholars and central officials repeatedly suggested that taxes and fees imposed on...
This issue of China Currents once again covers a wide swatch of intellectual territory for anyone interested in tracking contemporary China, from the political economy of Chinese agriculture, to the economics...
Review of Parama Sinha Palit, Analyzing China ’ s Soft Power Strategy and Comparative Indian Initiatives , Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, SAGE, 2017. Because India is situated at the very geographic center of...
Students of international relations have long pondered the question of world political order and its changes. It is generally believed that either a shift of the distribution and concentration of power in the...
Earlier this year I interviewed Roberta Lipson , CEO and Chair of United Family Hospitals ( UFH ). To learn more about the premium healthcare network, I visited its headquarters in Beijing and spoke to the...
Imagine this: Sitting in your living room in Shanghai or Beijing, you realize that the final Game of Thrones season is a week away. You decide to splurge on upgrading your entertainment system so you can host...
Xi Jinping's 19th Party Congress Report Just after the 19 th Party Congress in October, when a second volume of Xi Jinping’s Thoughts was published, I quickly moved to order my own copy through Amazon. Weeks...
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...
China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative is perhaps the most ambitious development plan ever devised by any nation-state. Plans call for trillions of dollars to be invested in roads, railways, and ports to...
Three issues bedevil Sino-Indian relations at present. These are the long-pending boundary dispute, the huge trade deficit in favor of China, and the Chinese initiated “One Belt, One Road” proposal, which –...
Introduction Metersbonwe is a company with humble beginnings. In true rags-to-riches form, founder Zhou Chengjian created a brand that is now a household name across the country. Now, he is looking outward...
The following is an address Dr. Bullock prepared for the third annual Young Scholars Forum at Nanjing University. The forum, held on September 21-22, 2016, was sponsored by The Global Times and the Carter...
This year marks the 20 th anniversary of Beijing United Family Hospital, the first western-standard joint-venture hospital to open its doors in China. Started as a women’s and children’s hospital, Beijing...
China is nothing if not ambitious, and ambition is a theme that suffuses the articles in this issue of China Currents. Starting with perhaps the most ambitious development plan in human history, Yawei Liu...
This issue of China Currents covers a wide range of timely issues. Andy Wedeman’s piece analyzes China’s protracted anti-corruption campaign led by President Xi. While many analysts had expected the campaign...
This piece was first published by All China Review . The history of Chinese advertising in the broad sense can be traced back to the Song dynasty when stores used signs and words to advertise services (Wang...
The year 2016 is an important milestone for China’s social development. China’s first charity law was passed in March and became effective in September. Moreover, China’s Foreign NGO Management Law was passed...
Iran is emerging as an arena of rivalry between China and India. Beijing is using its substantial leverage with Tehran to persuade Iran to expand cooperation in economic, connectivity, political, and security...
This piece was originally published by the China Policy Institute: Analysis , based at the School of Politics and International Relations, the University of Nottingham. An earlier article in China Currents...
Dr. Penelope Prime, Director of the China Research Center, interviewed Dr. Lei Fang on October 18, 2016, about intellectual property right (IPR) protection in China, and the new trend of Chinese companies...
Penelope B. Prime , Georgia State University Chinese goods seem to be everywhere these days. Consider this: At the Olympics in Rio this summer, Chinese companies supplied the mascot dolls, much of the sports...
The articles in this edition of China Currents shed light on some major economic and political challenges to China’s continuing transformation and development, both by examining specific issues and by...
Center Director, Penelope Prime, talked with former CNN correspondent, Mike Chinoy, via Skype on April 15, 2016, about his recent project on the process of understanding China through the media. This interview...
A review of China’s Future? David Shambaugh, London: Polity Press, 2016. John W. Garver, Emeritus Professor Georgia Institute of Technology A leading U.S. authority on China’s politics, David Shambaugh of...
The photo depicts Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meeting President Hu Jintao in 2006, and is from TV footage from Times Now in India. This photo is used in the cover art for the book Are We Deceiving Ourselves...
Rap propaganda is the latest manifestation of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s campaign to consolidate power using soft culture tropes to massage his image with audiences in China. Early in 2016, an official rap...
Introduction Western executives are accustomed to long, deliberate planning cycles to research, develop, and launch products in their mature home markets. Many of them find it hard to manage the size...
Chinese Companies Invest in the U.S.: Cross-Cultural Challenges from a Tax Consulting Perspective Center Director, Penelope Prime, spoke with Mitchell Kopelman, Tax Practice Group Director, and Wendy Lu, Tax...
Let me say it right here: The China-US Partnership to Prevent Spina Bifida – The Evolution of a Landmark Epidemiological Study , by Deborah Kowal, is a monumental work. And here is why. The book is a vivid...
China has amazed the world once again, not with economic growth, but with the closing of its education gap. There has been tremendous transformation in Chinese education over the past three decades. With the...
Macau, first established in 1557 and the oldest former European colony in East Asia, is again facing challenges to its recently established status as the world’s largest gambling center. Enormous revenues...
The Fall of Chinese Courtyard Houses China’s rapid economic growth coupled with an unprecedented level of real estate development have resulted in an almost wholesale destruction of traditional siheyuan (四合院)...
The history of Christianity in China is a remarkable tale of the encounters between two very different civilizations and of how a foreign religion survived, revitalized, and became a vibrant torrent in China...
Contributions to this edition of China Currents highlight different aspects of the monumental and often wrenching changes sweeping Chinese society, some related directly to China’s engagement with the western...
The allegation of child labor did not exactly fit the picture I was looking at — a photo of a toddler sitting next to a box with my client’s logo on it. Accompanying the photo, a whistleblowing email from the...
Introduction Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce firm, raised $25 billion from its initial U.S. public offering (IPO) in September 2014 putting China on the e-commerce world map. This exemplified China’s ongoing...
A 2011 biography of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah or king of Iran from 1941 to 1979, lays out a number of haunting similarities between Iran’s experience under the shah and the Chinese Communist Party’s rule...
The new documentary film “The Land of Many Palaces” examines planned urbanization in China from the vantage point of Ordos in Inner Mongolia. Ordos is a vast, newly built city populated by people who have...
The overarching themes that emerge from the offerings in this edition of China Currents will be familiar to anyone who follows China closely. Our authors all deal with the complex relationship between the pull...
“Unrealistic Expectations” On September 29, 2013, China officially opened the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, or FTZ, an outwardly ambitious project to bring a new wave of foreign investment and reduction in...
In November 1978, Deng Xiaoping presided over the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which launched China’s reform and opening up. Thirty five years later, the...
China watchers are to Third Plenums of Chinese Communist Party Congresses as film buffs are to the Oscars. One reason is the storied history of Third Plenum Decisions in the post-Mao era. Two of them marked...
The Communist Party of China has been grappling with corruption almost from its birth. Corruption was one of the major issues during the 1989 anti-government demonstrations. The leadership, in fact, responded...
State-building seems to be a never-ending task for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since its founding, the government has revamped its administrative system more than 10 times. Reform has sped up...
Introduction In 2008 and 2009 if I asked a Beijing taxi driver or anyone on the street about air quality on a hazy day, I was normally told that it was fog. No matter how much I tried to convince them that it...
Stress on Internal Stability and National Security The political direction outlined by the Third Plenum in November 2013 for China’s international relations embodied a contradiction. It coupled a call for...
One issue that stands out in the Decision concerns the relationship between market forces and the power of government in the Chinese economy. In previous government statements or reports, the market was...
Reforming the Financial Industry The Eighteenth Party Congress’ Third Plenary Session’s Decision of November 2013 lists a new round of financial reforms aimed at introducing more market forces into the...
The Eighteenth Party Congress’ Third Plenary Session’s Decision maps out the country’s plan for cultural and media development. There is nothing on the surface that suggests a radical departure from the tight...
China’s handling of the Putin-engineered annexation of Crimea from Ukraine into the Russian Federation reflects deeply competing Chinese interests. On the one hand, Beijing values its strategic partnership...
China’s Currency Reforms from a Banker’s Perspective: A Conversation with Henry Yu, Managing Director of Fifth Third Bank, Atlanta, Georgia. Introduction As China’s economy moves ever closer to surpassing the...
The South China Morning Post headline jumped out at me: Steel Princess ’ s trading company in liquidation . I leaned a little closer to my neighbor on Hong Kong’s Star Ferry to read over his shoulder. The...
China’s political leaders are grasping for ways to clean up a notoriously polluted environment without sidetracking economic growth plans. For longtime observers of the East Asia scene, this evokes a sense of...
(Editor’s note: The following are the author’s verbatim notes for a speech he delivered to the Atlanta chapter of the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association in October 2013.) Xinan Lianda – Southwest...
China, with a rapidly increasing middle class, has drawn tremendous attention from foreign retailers and become one of the hottest markets in today’s global economy. By some measures foreign retailers have...
China’s accomplishments in economic modernization, urbanization, industrialization, and science and technology are legion. The question to which China watchers, as well as the Chinese state, have now turned is...
Comprehending behaviors of nation-states has never been easy. Understanding China is particularly difficult given the great divide in terms of language (yu yan) and culture (wen hua). Beijing is conscious of...
The U.S. and China share many fundamental interests. Their economies are so tightly inter-twined that any disruption would be extremely painful to both sides. There are no substantial, quantifiable...
The enduring significance of history, culture, and perception in China’s contemporary scene is amplified by the articles in this issue of China Currents . David Blair writes about the role that historical...
Editor's Note : Keylingo, founded in 2004, is a global translations services company with many locations throughout the U.S. and Canada and is one of the China Research Center’s corporate sponsors. Center...
Urbanization has been the new buzzword in China ever since the opening of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) in November 2012. Former President Hu Jintao’s report outlined the...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being currently negotiated by eleven economies from both sides of the Pacific is an exceptional trade agreement in its ambitious coverage of issues and the emphasis on new...
In early 2012, China's government, in cooperation with the World Bank, issued a major white paper on the economic and social challenges facing the country in the period through 2030. The report called for a...
The breathtaking scope and pace of change in China may leave the impression that the most populous nation on earth is rocketing into uncharted space, challenging ordinary notions of what can be achieved in any...
Ever since Deng Xiaoping started opening China’s doors and building “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (a euphemism for authoritarian-style capitalism), it has been an article of faith in many Western...
On November 14, 2012, after a week of listening, discussing and “electing,” the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) finally came to an end. The next day, the new Central Committee had...
After the beginning of the post-Mao reform period in 1978-79, China experienced a marked worsening of corruption. The pre-reform period was not free from corruption, but a series of large-scale mass campaigns...
Over its history of 91 years, the Chinese Communist Party has held 18 national congresses. Seven came before 1949 when the CCP came to power and 11 were convened since then. Only 12 delegates attended the...
Introduction Chinese policymakers are considering reforms to open China’s equity markets to foreign capital. A proposed International Board would allow both foreign firms and China’s domestic private firms to...
The rhetoric about China’s faults vis-à-vis the challenges facing the U.S. continues to escalate. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama chose to lead the attack, blaming China for some portion of our...
>On October 8, 2012, the U.S. House Select Committee on Intelligence issued a report warning all American companies against using equipment from the Chinese telecom manufacturers Huawei and ZTE. The Committee...
Introduction In recent years online shopping has grown rapidly in China. According to Sina, online commerce has become an important sector in China’s economy, accounting for 3% of total retail volume in 2010...
Negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program moved to a crucial stage in May and June of 2012. Unless Tehran accedes to international demands that it open to international inspections that verify that Iran’s...
Introduction As the U.S. presidential election draws nearer and the People’s Republic of China also faces a year of leadership change, the issue of Chinese currency revaluation has garnered an increasing...
China has achieved remarkable economic success since Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms in the late 1970s. For more than three decades, China’s GDP growth rate averaged 10% per year, accompanied by...
Examining continuity and change in China is an endlessly fascinating pastime and a theme that ties together the issues explored in this edition of China Currents. Zhenhui Xu and Lee Taylor Buckley look closely...
Introduction One of the most controversial macroeconomic issues of this decade is the question of how China has run such massive trade surpluses and has accumulated so much in foreign reserves over the past 20...
In the waning days of their colonial existence, Hong Kong and Macau were like mismatched cousins. Hong Kong was a roaring entrepôt of commerce while Macau was a sleepy backwater sustained mainly by gambling...
Introduction The soft landings program developed originally by the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA 2011) was designed to help a company from one country land softly into the market of another...
The agreement between China and Vietnam on the process to guide the settlement of maritime issues signed in October 2011 may be a first step in easing tensions over the contentious issue of who controls the...
The first three articles in this issue of China Currents each point out some of the unusual, and perhaps unexpected, characteristics of China's stunning economic development, and the following two pieces...
An Interview with Scott Ellyson, East West Manufacturing, Inc. Ten years ago, Scott Ellyson and Jeff Sweeney co-founded East West Manufacturing (www.ewmfg.com) in Atlanta to bring U.S.-based companies both the...
China’s successes have created new demands on its political culture, economy, and global role. The five articles in this issue each touch on some aspect of these new demands. Liang Yao argues that China’s...
With the successful launch of the Shenzhou V on October 15, 2003, China became the third country in the world that could independently send people into space. The accomplishment enkindled a worldwide debate...
The turmoil in Libya that began in February 2011, together with the need to evacuate an estimated 30,000 Chinese from that country, led to the deployment of a PLA-N frigate to the eastern Mediterranean. The...
Introduction A major talking point in the U.S. media today is the alleged weakening of American influence in the world. The common perception is that power is shifting to East Asia, and particularly to China...
Introduction The late 1980s and early '90s saw unprecedented rapprochement between Taiwan and China. The two sides went from being at a technical state of war to having citizens from both sides visiting one...
Introduction China's vast rural areas and lesser known cities have become a focus of attention both for China's banking industry and foreign banks. A major signal of this trend came in 2010, when AgBank of...
Rapid change in China is nothing new. Headlines highlight daily the growing importance of the country in the global economy and increasingly, on the political scene. The effect of these changes on a typical...
Introduction Since the advent of economic reform in China, the Chinese government has channeled most of its resources to the development of its coastal provinces. Northwestern China has lagged behind in...
As a unique type of virtual communication, customer-to-customer interaction on the Web has been considered more effective in influencing consumer purchasing behavior than advertising or personal selling...
In China, Jia Zhangke's films, like other underground (dixia) and independent (duli) films, are more accessible in the little-known film clubs in big cities like Beijing and the living rooms of film critics...
Chinese born in the 1980's, known as 80 hou (baling hou in putong hua), are famous to Westerners as the first generation born during the enforcement of China's one-child policy. The 80 hou is a generation of...
Education reform in China has reached a new and crucial stage. The driving force is the need to produce an increasingly knowledgeable workforce equipped to handle the challenges of an economy that is not only...
Xi'an, famed for its Terracotta Warriors of ancient times and as a strategic interior location in Maoist China, is rising again, as a provider of producer services. Historic Roots Xi'an's importance as the...
When I was a Chinese Studies major in the early 1990s, the most popular Asian language to study was Japanese. There was little interest in studying Chinese on college campuses, and virtually none at all at the...
As 2008 ended and 2009 dawned, China seemed poised to move into political and social normalcy. The previous year had been filled with unprecedented challenges, but 2009 was supposed to be fun and festive, a...
Shanghai Spatial Development Shanghai, the giant “Head of the Dragon” at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta, supports a population of over 20 million that more than doubled over the previous 20 years. Its...
Article on CNN By Tom Evans, CNN, November 3, 2009 2:38 p.m. EST China today, say many analysts, is in a comparable position to U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century... an emerging power that the dominant...
China is walking a tight-rope in handling the 2009 Iran nuclear crisis. On the one hand, Beijing's overriding strategic interest is to ensure a favorable "macro-climate" for its highly successful post-1978...
As the world begins to emerge from the worst economic recession in recent memory, stimulus packages enacted by various governments around the world are very much in the spotlight. The early verdict on China’s...
China’s stunning economic growth since 1978 has resulted in a ten-fold increase in real GDP per capita, with an average annual growth rate of 8.6% in the past three decades (China Statistical Yearbook, 2008)...
China is both a partner and a rival depending on the venue and issue. Both the U.S. and China have benefited from their economic interactions via trade and investment--probably China has benefited more simply...
Labor Contract Law of People’s Republic of China In 2003, research on drafting a Labor Contract Law began. In February 2005, it was announced that the Peoples Republic of China’s Labor Contract Law would be...
Within walking distance of the Beijing community where I live is a strip of road brightly lined with seasonal flowers and plants from late March to October - the outdoor plant market. I have purchased my...
Views in China about America's new president range from the superficial ("He's so handsome!") to the thoughtful ("He's extremely smart but we worry that his policies may not help China"). While there is no...
The recent thaw in relations between mainland China and Taiwan shows encouraging signs of producing results. Efforts by China's President Hu Jintao to reach out across the Strait, Taiwan's presidential...
China saves, the U.S. consumes-or so the headlines say. Many analysts (including this author) have written about China’s high savings rates and therefore low consumption, which reinforces China’s dependence on...
Last year's Beijing Olympic Games witnessed a breathtaking makeover of the city's environment. Beijing's sky became blue almost overnight. Anyone who had visited the Chinese capital just a few months before...
Throughout 2007 and 2008, I served as Counsel for Asia for a US public company. During that period, we negotiated contracts with both private and government joint venture partners, as well as established our...
As China celebrates 30 years since the starting point of Deng Xiaoping’s economic and political reforms, the Southern Center for International Studies and the China Research Center held a joint program to...
"Xinfang," or petitioning to authorities, has been one of the channels for the Chinese people to air grievances and seek justice since ancient times. But it has taken a new and disturbing shape in the current...
China may be the second largest trading partner of the U.S., 1 but the road to this increasingly close relationship has not been smooth. There have been a lot more failures and struggles in these cross-border...
In recent years, but especially since the 1990s, the U.S. and China have become increasingly economically interdependent. For most of that time, both economies have been doing well, and for much of it, growing...
My introduction to Chinese scientists was at Dulles Airport in April 1974, two years after President Nixon’s historic visit. My assignment – actually my very first job -- was to escort Chinese seismologists...
In 2000, a meeting at a prominent Atlanta school about the possibility of starting a Chinese language program concluded with a question about the need to study “Red China.” Additional questions followed, about...
China’s new labor contract law, adopted by the National People’s Congress in June 2007 and put into force in January 2008, is a landmark in the effort to achieve better labor standards in the country. It can...
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games offered a spectacular demonstration of the success and prosperity achieved by Chinese reform policies that opened the door to the outside world. However, as China enjoys...
January 2008 was my ninth year working in China, and it also marked the implementation of China’s new labor law. This law has had an immediate impact on foreign companies in China, and will influence business...
China's Economy & Financial Market Context In 1980, as Chinese reforms were just getting under way, the country's gross national income amounted to 9% of the figure reported by the United States. Last year...
Questions have been raised over the years about the will and ability of China’s governmental and industry actors to comply with national and multilateral trade regulations. More than ever before, Beijing has...
Restaurant Franchising is an operations strategy that works in various locations around the globe. It is essentially a contractual relationship between a franchisee and a franchisor trading rights and...
China's nuclear power expansion "faster than planned"-Xinhua News Agency Nowhere is the resurgence of nuclear energy as evident as it is in China. The country is buying nearly every power plant design...
In 1988, China began allowing villagers to elect their leaders in an experiment that democracy advocates hoped would eventually lead to more pluralism throughout the political system. Today, the Communist...
When the private Chinese computer company Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC unit for $1.75 billion in December 2004, the deal made headlines around the world. But that was only one of a number of high-profile Chinese...
Local-central government relations are a hot issue in China today. Many problems result from fuzzy division of responsibilities and the difficulty of designing incentives to achieve multiple goals. These...
China may think of itself as a turtle coming out of its shell into the international arena, lumbering along and minding its own business on the long road to modernization. Trouble is some may see it more as a...
Enough time has passed since the 17th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in March, 2007, to begin the assessment of a political event that the Chinese president referred to as being...
On Friday, November 9, 2007 five China specialists sat down at Atlanta’s Carter Center to discuss China’s 17th Party Congress. The roundtable discussion focused on China’s future, specifically with regard to...
Introduction After decades of debate, China enacted its long-awaited Anti-Monopoly Law on August 30, 2007, the first comprehensive antitrust law in history of the People’s Republic. The law was the product of...
We are all used to reading about tension and controversy between China and the United States. It seems a product made in China is recalled almost every day. Then there are disputes over intellectual property...
A May 22, 2007 report in the German newspaper Handelsblatt said China’s Chery Automobile wanted to re-examine its agreement to build small cars for Chrysler to be sold in the U.S. under the Dodge brand. In...
Stunning development According to "Science, Technology and Industry Outlook" released in late 2006 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, China has become the world’s second-largest...
October's meeting of the 6th plenum of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) concluded by passing "The Resolution on Some Issues in Building a Harmonious Socialist Society." This...
With world leaders acknowledging that innovation will be the well-spring of economic development in the 21st Century, over one hundred participants from places as distant as New Delhi, Beijing, and Jerusalem...
On 27 February 2007, Chinese equity markets fell almost 9%. Hours later other global markets plunged far and fast, including those in Europe and the U.S. Such a link between China’s equity markets and others...
(This article first appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the International Relations Center (IRC, www.irc-online.org ) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, www.ips-dc.org )...
China’s political development is undergoing an important transformation. Beijing’s latest emphasis on the need to address social and economic concerns of the average person has led to a series of new policy...
(This article first appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the International Relations Center (IRC, www.irc-online.org ) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, www.ips-dc.org )...
Taiwan’s democratization process and its implications on economic, political and social fronts are of great importance to understanding the key to Taiwan’s future and a resolution of the Cross-Straits crisis...
It seems axiomatic that vibrant economies are driven by innovation and that innovation can be taught and nurtured in schools and colleges. Certainly, world leaders have embraced these notions. Early in 2006...
Two weeks of travel by hired vehicle in Xinjiang during June-July 2006 left a deep impression of rapid development underway in China’s westernmost region. Very large amounts of money are clearly being poured...
Not long ago, Georgia students had to look far afield to get to China for short study courses. No more. Georgia's state and private universities now have numerous programs with a wealth of subject choices for...
Taiwan and China Must Unite in Order for Both Nations to Prosper. (This article first appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on September 19, 2006; reprinted with permission from Fei_Ling Wang)...
In 1979, China initiated a landmark economic reform and opening-up policy with the aim of transforming a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy. Since then the nation has sustained a high economic...
A major part of China’s current reform efforts involves strengthening the financial system and re-structuring and re-capitalizing, or selling, most of the companies still owned by various levels of government...
My purpose in these short comments is to lay out one useful idea for China’s relations with each of these three big neighbors. What follows is not intended as a survey of contemporary Sino-Russian...
Legislators from both sides of the Taiwan Straits normally stay in the backdrop in the cross-Straits relations. However, interestingly, in the past several months, two legislature-related events marked...
The relations between China and Southeast Asia have experienced a great leap forward since the 1990s. Bilateral and multilateral level political and cultural exchanges have become more common, and trade...
Zoo Atlanta has been working with Chinese counterparts on conservation and education projects for many years, and represents one of Georgia’s key links between the State and China. One of Zoo Atlanta’s major...
Proclamation of China’s “Great Western Development” policy ( Xi Bu Da Kaifa ) in June 1999 signaled a major escalation in resources and attention focused on decreasing the development gap between the east...
On September 2, 2004 when Teddy Kaufmann, President of the Tel Aviv-based Association of Former Jewish Residents of China, recited the prayer for the dead at the grave of Harbin’s long serving Rabbi Aharon...
The Summer Study in China-General Studies Program is sponsored by the Asia Council of theUniversity System of Georgia (USG). The program will be conducted over four weeks beginning in mid-May at Zhengzhou...
The Summer Study in China--Chinese Language Program is sponsored by the Asia Council ofthe University System of Georgia (USG). It is an intensive six-week language program, which offers three courses with 9...
Georgia Tech will offer a new broad based Shanghai Summer Program in 2005. The program willbegin on May 23, and end on July 23, 2005. The location-Shanghai, China-is a dynamic metropolis. The program is...
On-line Chinese is designed for students who want to learn Chinese on a flexible schedule. All course materials are delivered online. In addition to working on the online materials at students' own...
In the summer of 2004 and now almost two years after the 16 th Communist Party Congress of November, 2002 affirmed a succession of leadership in China with a new team drawn from the younger fourth generation...
As first proclaimed in 1999, China’s policy of encouraging development in its western provinces continues to receive attention from analysts to assess the impact of central government economic incentives to...
One of the main news stories of 2002 was China’s economic rise within Asia. With Japan’s continuing malaise, and other Asian countries still working their way out of the 1997 crisis, China served as the...
While many American furniture companies are complaining bitterly about the fierce competition from Chinese imports of low-cost home and office furniture, some American companies have quietly begun their...
The Presidential elections on 20 March 2004 were Taiwan’s third direct presidential election. The first in 1996 saw Lee Teng-hui lead the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) to continued rule of the...
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December, 2001. This event—the culmination of years of difficult negotiations and compromise—was historic. China’s membership meant the largest economy...
The China Data Center at the University of Michigan is dedicated to providing official data on China for scholars, practitioners and students around the world. The Center disseminates official statistics for...
The First Session of the 10th Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) was held in Beijing between March 5 to March 18, 2003. This meeting marked the completion of the largest power transfer in a decade in...
One of the great challenges facing China in its drive for sustained economic growth is the question of how to integrate the assets and employees of state-owned enterprises into a liberalizing economy. The...
Less than a month after retiring, former Georgia Tech environmental scientist C.S. Kiang was named dean of the newly established College of Environmental Sciences at Peking University, one of China's most...
The recently concluded 16 th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could well become another major milestone in China’s political history. It elected a group of younger party leaders, endorsed...
On 15 July 2002 the U.S.-China Security Review Commission submitted to the U.S. Congress its first Report under legislation of October 2000. The commission was made up of twelve "commissioners," three each...
Welcome New Research Associates Dr. Yawei Liu and Mr. Ken Jin has joined the China Research Center, and become our new research associates. Dr. Yawei Liu is associate director of The Carter Center's China...
The week-long visit to the United States by Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao in late April-early May 2002 was a major step toward Hu's expected appointment as successor to Jiang Zemin as Secretary General of...
On March 20 the China Research Center sponsored, together with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a program examining China’s changing decision-making processes in foreign and security policy...
Quarterly essays on greater China by scholars who study the region closely, plus notice of our Atlanta events. Published continuously since 2002.