Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam served up a cringe-inducing display of self-criticism on 18 June, no doubt prepared by Beijing strategists and resembling a watered-down Cultural Revolution struggle session,… Read more »
What explains China’s almost unique path to wealth without democracy? Fareed Zakaria asks. Yuen Yuen Ang of the University of Michigan argues that over the past few decades, China has… Read more »
For Communist party officials, it was an embarrassing rebuke: as many as 2m residents of a major Chinese city marching to demand the resignation of its Beijing-appointed leader. And because… Read more »
Larry Diamond has spent 40 years circumnavigating the globe promoting democracy in Nigeria, Venezuela and some 70 other countries. Yet today he is aghast, notes Gary J. Bass, a professor… Read more »
The 30th anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests has brought the realization that a prosperous middle-class China will not necessarily turn against the ruling Communist party, as many outside… Read more »
In hindsight, the crushing of the 1989 democracy movement was a clear indication that China’s leadership understood and rejected the cost of moving onto “the right side of history” and… Read more »
In the realm of global power distribution, as in any area where human agency remains paramount, trends need not become outcomes, notes Andrew A. Michta, dean of the College of… Read more »
China is using “concentration camps,” electronic surveillance and persecution in an Orwellian war on religion, Nicholas Kristof writes for The New York Times. This is the vision of high-tech surveillance… Read more »
A Taiwanese artist has created a giant inflatable depiction of the iconic “tank man” scene to mark 30 years since China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests. The photo of… Read more »
China’s President Xi Jinping is now invoking cultural diversity as a pretext for opposing democracy and asserting Beijing’s sharp power, reports suggest. Xi repeated his rallying cry on Wednesday as he… Read more »