China News

What’s the takeaway from President Obama’s meetings with Chinese president Xi-Jinping? While the Obama administration has been trumpeting an agreement by both sides to limit greenhouse gas emissions, news reports suggest that an agreement also was reached to limit the prospects of military confrontation. This would entail prior notification to each other of military exercises,…

China announced on Tuesday that third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth had slowed to 7.3 percent, the slowest since the 2008–2009 global recession. This slowdown means that Beijing will most likely fail to meet its annual growth target of 7.5 percent for the first time since 1998. With the U.S. and China at odds…

The University of Chicago recently dealt a blow to the Chinese government’s aggressive efforts to spread overseas propaganda by refusing to renew its Confucius Institute on campus. Subsequently, Penn State announced it was following suit. Confucius Institutes parade as academic programs for the teaching of Chinese culture and language and are offered globally to universities…

Finally, it is official. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund announced China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy. The U.S. has held the distinction since 1873, when it overtook Great Britain. Given growth trajectories of the last few decades, this should come as no surprise. Neither is it necessarily anything for…

The violence erupting in Hong Kong amid what had so far been peaceful pro-democracy protests is being carried out by criminal gangs controlled by China, according to Hong Kong politicians and media sources. If true, this would mark a new, potentially more violent phase in a story that has already attracted global attention. Violence broke…

As thousands of protestors flood downtown Hong Kong in opposition to Beijing’s efforts to control the political future of the “Special Administration Region,” there is growing concern about how this situation will be resolved. For the people of Hong Kong, the issue is straightforward. Under the terms of the Basic Law, negotiated between the People’s…

In terms of the direction of China’s economic future, think of Hong Kong as the “canary in the coal mine.” As the protest movement in Hong Kong grows over concerns about the island’s democratic future, the question is whether Beijing will intervene. A crackdown, Tiananmen-style or otherwise, would not be wise because Hong Kong remains…

China’s overreaction to legitimate demands for democracy in Hong Kong, where police are teargasing peaceful protesters asking for universal suffrage, leaves no doubt how the Communist Party sees its future. Regrettably, the Obama administration is saying it will “not take sides.” Beijing’s Communists are making their position clear — they are not interested in sharing…

China is missing out on its biggest economic asset: its people. Economist Nicholas Eberstadt estimates that, even if Beijing were to eliminate its one-child policy today, Chinese economic growth would still decline in the 2020s, because the next generation’s working-age population is already so markedly small. Since implementation in 1979, the one-child policy has reduced…

Few can forget the image that circulated online a few years ago. A young Chinese woman lay exhausted in a hospital bed, staring hopelessly at the body of her baby girl, reportedly killed after a forced abortion at seven months. Feng Jianmei and her baby daughter were victims of China’s coercive, unrelenting one-child policy that…