In The News

Caixin: Xi Offers Clues to China’s Future Economic Policy

Wang Tao October 21, 2017
China will soon be the world's largest economy, and the world’s eyes are on China’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, which lays out an agenda and priorities for the next five years. President Xi Jinping admits that “uneven and inadequate development” is at odds with “people’s ever-growing demand for a better life.” China will not embark in any major policy shifts and aims for...

TechCrunch: WeChat Censors Users Ahead of China’s National Party Congress

Jon Russell October 18, 2017
China’s leaders are convening for the National Congress, held every five years for outlining policy priorities, and government censors are taking no risks. The goal is to prevent internal protests or external disruptions from outside trolls who used social-media messages to influence the 2016 US election. Posting anonymous content is banned in China, and social-media platforms WeChat and Weibo...

Diplomat: How North Korea Could Win War With US

Franz-Stefan Gady October 11, 2017
The United States may represent 36 percent of the world’s total military expenditures and North Korea does not approach 2 percent, with most military analysts assuming the smaller country would quickly be defeated. Such assessments focus on the quantifiable, such as hardware, rather than less tangible factors like leadership and motivation – overlooking military stalemates the larger power...

The New York Times: China Hastens the World Toward an Electric-Car Future

Keith Bradsher October 10, 2017
The world’s most populous nation is the largest maker and buyer of electric cars. China applies specific rules to guide markets – for example, more than half of cars sold by automakers must rely on alternative energies. Manufacturers around the globe are forced to adjust and add electric models to their product lines. “Propelled by vast amounts of government money and visions of dominating next-...

Reuters: Russian Firm Provides New Internet Connection to North Korea

Jeremy Wagstaff, Eric Auchard and Maria Kiselyova October 6, 2017
A state-owned Russian company has given North Korea a second internet connection. The first one was provided by China Unicom. North Korea has thousands of trained cyber specialists, and the new connection could increase North Korea’s hacking capabilities while helping the country evade similar attacks from the United States. “Dyn Research, which monitors international internet traffic flows, said...

Asia Sentinel: Pakistan’s Costly Plunge Into China Debt

Salman Rafi Sheikh October 4, 2017
The Asian International Investment Bank and other Chinese banks finance One Belt One Road projects in developing nations – with more funding than from the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank combined. “While Pakistan has been receiving Chinese capital in the form of aid and loans for quite some time, the speed and scale have both increased in the wake of implementation of the China-Pakistan...

Caixin: China’s Quest for “World Class” Universities

Chen Shaoyuan, Xu Zhuang, Kong Xiangfeng and Li Rongde September 27, 2017
The ideas, studies and research pursued at the world’s top-ranked universities stimulate innovation and economic growth. China has targeted 42 universities for increased funding to improve their global rankings – Peking and Tsinghua universities may not have far to go, ranked 27th and 30th, respectively, by World University Rankings. Another 96 universities have been ordered to improve their...