Xi Jinping

If President Xi Jinping’s team carries out annual job appraisals, China’s overseas propaganda team will surely be found to have performed catastrophically.  Whether it is Hong Kong or Xinjiang, Huawei or the trade war with the United States, the Chinese regime has had a string of notable public relations failures this year. While the regime’s propaganda efforts have worked quite well on the domestic audience, mainly because of the Great Firewall, the overseas propaganda arm has suffered major defeats.  Despite deploying numerous resources via official and unofficial channels, the regime has not only failed to achieve its intended purpose of interacting well with the rest of the world but als

China’s Xinjiang autonomous region has attracted international attention for all the wrong reasons – police crackdowns and reports that local ethnic Uygur people are being held in internment camps.  What hasn’t gained much attention is the difficulty Beijing has drafting staff to execute its policies in the far northwest area. The measures targeting Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have triggered “widespread discontent among Han Chinese officials and citizens,” a source close to the central government told the South China Morning Post.  The source said Chinese President Xi Jinping was aware of the problem because he had been briefed by the country’s chief Xinjiang policy coordinator, Wan

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the US Congress’ 150-odd other pieces of China-related legislation underscore elder statesman Henry Kissinger’s recent assertion that the US and China are “in the foothills” of a new cold war. Perhaps we’re even further up, above the tree line. As recriminations beget more recriminations and new fronts in the ideological battle seem to open every week, Washington’s wannabe cold warriors need to pause and reassess. The non-stop news around the advance of the Hong Kong act and the stand-off at Polytechnic University last week obscured new data released by the Institute of International Education and the State Department showing that the number o

Too little, too late. That has been the prevailing reaction from both the protesters and pro-government lawmakers after Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive Carrie Lam made a sudden about-face on Wednesday, announcing that she would formally withdraw the extradition bill which sparked the city’s worst political crisis in decades. Indeed, her withdrawal offer would have had a much bigger impact had it come immediately after the protests turned violent in mid-June. But after nearly three months of violent demonstrations, protesters appear to have moved beyond the extradition bill and have since vowed to press on with demonstrations until the rest of their demands are met. Lam seems to sugges

Widespread waste and fraud associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been revealed after the country’s state railway group admitted that a significant amount of cargo containers shuttling between China and Europe were empty. The admission by the state-run China Railway, the sole operator of the lines, followed an investigation by the Chinese Business Journal, which found that in one extreme case only one of 41 containers on a particular train actually carried goods. The belt and road plan, masterminded by President Xi Jinping, is the central government’s initiative to link economies into a China-centred trading network to grow global trade. This led to many local governments rushi

China held an elaborate televised ceremony on Tuesday to celebrate the centenary of student protests in 1919 known as the May Fourth Movement, which helped transform the country and pave the way for the birth of the Communist Party. But the government will disregard the 30th anniversary of another student demonstration in 1989 that preceded its bloody crackdown on June 4. The latter protest may be less seminal in China’s modern history, but its core spirit should not be obscured. In an hour-long speech at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square, President Xi Jinping hailed the student protesters 100 years ago as patriotic heroes who took a stand against imperialism and f

Chinese President Xi Jinping is a fan of Game of Thrones, and he watches a version specially made to fit in his busy schedule, according to Chinese officials. The leader surprised both his aides and guests when he brought up the HBO hit series during a meeting with foreign visitors in Beijing last week, a person at the meeting told the South China Morning Post.  “We must all make sure the world we live in does not descend into the chaotic warring seven kingdoms of Westeros,” Xi said, referring to the fictional land depicted by George R.R. Martin in his epic fantasy, where seven kings have battled for dominance. The context of his quote is unknown. While strengthening the Communist Party con

China’s liberal thinkers have simmered with anxiety since Beijing stunned the world last March by scrapping a term limit on the Chinese presidency. But few have stuck their necks out quite like Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University who openly criticized what he saw as Beijing’s dangerous march toward strongman rule under the Chinese Communist Party. But while many of his peers saw the rebuke as an act of bravery, given the mounting pressure on China’s intellectuals to toe the party line, Xu is now paying the price for speaking out. Xu has been barred from leaving the country, people familiar with the situation told the South China Morning Post. Earlier this mon

President Donald Trump said that he called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a “king” during a visit to China in November 2017, and said his Chinese host “liked it.” At a Republican fundraising dinner on Tuesday, Trump cited what he said was a conversation he had with his Chinese counterpart that had taken place more than a year ago. Trump has been known to flatter strongman leaders, and this is not the first time Trump has associated Xi with royalty.  But Trump’s assertion that Xi enjoyed being called a monarch puts the Chinese president in an awkward position, as Beijing has fought criticism that the president has turned into “emperor Xi” after Beijing removed a two-term limit on the Chin

President Xi Jinping has seen all of China’s problems coming, and he’s got everything under control. At least, that’s what the Communist Party wants to make people believe. The party’s propaganda apparatus has released a speech Xi delivered more than six years ago, in what analysts say is an attempt to quell growing distrust over the leader’s authoritarian rule. In the speech, published Monday on the front pages of most state-run papers and news sites, Xi argued that the party’s current, socialist approach would guarantee China’s success, despite criticism from in and out of China.  “Our system will become more mature, the superiority of socialism will further manifest itself, our path will