Journal of International Studies

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...

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

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...

A new wave of Chinese investment in Central Asia is turning the region's focus from Russia toward the east.  In a far-ranging regional tour, President Xi Jinping swept through four Central Asian nations in September, bringing billions of dollars in energy and other deals. Xi's 10-day diplomatic circuit included summit meetings of the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies in St Petersburg and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek.  But the visits, beginning and ending in Central Asia, underscored the rising importance of the region to Beijing. In Turkmenistan, Xi sealed an agreement to boost China's gas imports by over 60%, raising Turkmen supplies to 65 billion cubic  meters annually by 2016. In Kazakhstan, Xi marked China's plans to acquire a share in the giant Kashagan oilfield for US$5 billion as part of a package of contracts valued at some $30 billion. In Uzbekistan, China agreed on building a fourth strand of its Central ...

Analysts who expect China's new leader Xi Jinping to implement a more assertive foreign policy have failed to address adequately the constraints that domestic politics place on his power in the international arena.  China's foreign policy is an extension of its internal political system. Whether or not China becomes more assertive is not dependent upon Xi's personal political orientation, but whether it is in line with the interests of the Communist Party of China (CPC). There is ample evidence to suggest that a more assertive foreign policy will do more harm than good to the core interest of the CPC - maintaining the one-party system.  As the leader of the CPC, Xi is required to focus on domestic issues in a peaceful international environment. China's grand strategy in the post-Mao era is two-fold: to promote modernization and to ensure China's peacefully rise in a global context. The two objectives are interrelated, but making domestic peace is t...

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have toppled Barack Obama at the very top of the list, but China’s Xi Jinping has claimed the  highest ranking among Asians  (and third overall) in  Forbes  magazine’s latest survey of the world’s most powerful people. Gaining six places from 2012, when he assumed the Chinese presidency, Xi ranked highly for ruling over 1.3 billion people, or nearly a fifth of the world’s population, as well as possessing a  vast family fortune . Xi’s other titles include Communist Party general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, giving him control over the key levers of power in the world’s second-biggest economy. The next highest Asian on the list was Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, in 14th place, down one place from the previous year’s survey. “Despite being a communist party loyalist, Keqiang has been credited with economic liberalism and a push for reforms such as greater market access and support for smalle...