Journal of International Studies

It almost looks as if they did it on purpose. Immediately after the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, a terse statement was released about wannabe reforms. Western corporate media screamed their dissatisfaction (actually concealing great satisfaction that stereotypes about China were about to stay safe and sound). Then the suggestion that more reform plans would follow in a week put a bug in  laowai  (foreigners') ears, and finally a comprehensive roadmap for radical change was published.  At the beginning of the weekend, foreign media in China rushed to write about the abolition of forced labor camps ( laojiao ), lands given to the peasants, the end of the one-child policy, the birth of a private banking system, the reduction of crimes punishable by death, reform of the residence system ( hukou ) and more.  The meaning of such momentous and diverse reforms can be summarized in one particular way: China is pushing...

BEIJING - After the Plenum that concentrated powers in the hands of China's top leadership and especially President Xi Jinping, the big questions concern how effective these powers will be how much power will go to the central leadership group tasked with designing and implementing reforms and how effective the National Security Council, in charge of external and internal security matters, will be.  Most of the opposition is likely to come from localities, which have the most to lose in this program of concentration of power in Beijing. For this reason, the new role of the judiciary, which according to the Plenum communique will be "authoritative" ( quanwei ), is significant.  This does not mean that the judiciary will be independent from the top leadership of the Party. The Party will give freer rein to judges and prosecutors at the provincial level in going after cases of corruption, which so far have mostly concentrated on the unhealthy ties between local a...

Recent news reports underscore the need for progress on transparency if reforms are to really succeed.

Both inside and outside of China, many expect great things from Xi Jinping. And he knows it.

The third plenum of Chinese Communist Party Congresses is often the time when the country’s rulers introduce major policy shifts. The Eighteenth Party Congress in November and, crucially, implementation over time of policies announced there offers the U.S. an opportunity to reassess China, to see whether top leaders Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are interested in pursuing reform or will hew to the course of their predecessors. This opportunity could be wasted if the persistent myths that have long plagued American views of China are not dispelled. The key myths feature overstating Chinese economic prowess and understating clashing security interests between the China and the U.S. Myth #1: China is well on its way to surpassing the U.S. economically Reality: China is far from surpassing the U.S. and can do so only if helped by our failures. This is the generative myth, from which the others flow. In less than a generation, the world economy is supposed to have a new leader. Chi...

Who are the people that matter most to Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang? Who are the `core constituents’ that they have to keep on their side in the coming months and years as they govern a China that is on its way to becoming a middle-income country in the next decade? Of course, the Central Committee of the Communist Party is immensely important to them. But with just under 400 full and alternate members, it remains a drop in the ocean of the vast polity they preside over. In many ways, the Central Committee lives or dies on the fortunes of Xi and Li, and so they are the most deeply embedded and integrated of all the forces the top leadership needs to control. The business elites are important, because wealth is so closely linked to power in this system, and the day the Party is not seen as creating this wealth is the day that the true loyalty of its citizens gets tested. It is unlikely that this loyalty is anything more than opportunistic. Thus, it is crucial that the state play a...

Beijing must control local leaders if it is to pass vital economic reforms. It won’t be easy. Can the Chinese Communist Party Still Reform? China: Urbanization and Hukou Reform Despite Crackdown on Dissent, Can Vietnam Reform? China’s Misguided Religious Battle Reforming China’s State-Owned Enterprises No story out of China over the last year and a half has received as much attention as the  Bo Xilai case . Much of what intrigued people about the Bo case was unique to it, including Bo’s flamboyant personality and the Hollywood-like drama of his downfall. Yet one aspect of his case, though largely ignored by foreign press accounts, had deep roots in Chinese history: namely, the rise of the local strongman. A reoccurring theme in Chinese history, captured in the proverb “The mountains [heavens] are high, and the emperor is far away,” has been the struggles of the central government to maintain control over the vast territory it nominally ruled. Time and again in Ch...