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Decoding China’s economy — Part I
CHINA HAS BEEN facing economic headwinds for some time now. Its domestic problems are long-standing – high local government debt, low consumption, and overcapacity in several industries, among others. This is the broad context against which Chinese…
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Making sense of China’s anti-corruption agenda
CHINESE PREMIER LI QIANG presented his first government report on March 5 at the annual legislative session of the National People’s Congress, one-half of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament…
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China and India’s Intense Contest for Influence
UNDER A NEW defense cooperation agreement with the Maldives, China is set to offer free military assistance to the island nation. Coming soon after the presidential order to remove Indian naval personnel from the Maldives and after a so-called Chinese research vessel visited Malé, the agreement is no doubt a provocation to India…
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Xi Jinping, Not The PLA: A Simpler Explanation for India-China Tensions
The principle of Occam’s razor states that if you have two competing ideas to explain a phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one. In other words, the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one…
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When an admiral gets to helm China’s PLA
AS 2023 WOUND to a close, China announced a new defence minister in place of General Li Shangfu, who had been removed from the post several months earlier. On December 29, Admiral Dong Jun, who had just stepped down as the head of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was announced as Li’s replacement…
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Taiwan defies China through the ballot. India must bite the bullet on its security concerns
AS EXPECTED, LAI CHING-TE has won the Taiwanese presidential elections gaining for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) an unprecedented third successive term in the post. Lai succeeds Tsai Ing-wen, the first woman to serve as President, who will step down after serving the constitutional limit of two terms…
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Xi Jinping’s civilizational claims: foreign policy strategy and domestic panacea
It is important not to dismiss Xi Jinping’s reference to China as “a great country with a great civilization” as nothing more than domestic grandstanding.
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Threats in Xi Jinping’s ‘civilisational’ claims
While the Chinese economy will continue to face problems because of the country’s political structure as well as the international context, what the rest of the world must pay attention to is how the Chinese leadership seeks to overcome these challenges.
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Can a polarised India deter China?
IF THE SMARTEST thinkers in the US can worry about its political dysfunction and can call for ‘rebuilding support at home’, Indians should worry too, about how our country’s external aspirations are articulated and achieved…