China Analysis Digest #121
A weekly curated list of new China-related analyses.
Articles published: September 3-11, 2023
Sources scanned: 104
Publications: 249
China Watching
China Neican
- Official China Digest #16: August 2023 Documents
- August Politburo Meeting: Cadre Education and Training
China Brief
- Coalitions of the Week: BRICS, ASEAN, the G20
- PLA Social Media Warfare and the Cognitive Domain
- Political Drivers of China’s Private Sector Demise
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"A regulatory clampdown has mired the main driver of Chinese economic growth [the private sector] since 1978 in uncertainty and jeopardy. It is now clear that policies instigated in 2021 by Xi are having negative effects. In an effort to shore up regime stability and protect strategic industries, Beijing has ironically found itself in a position in which its economy is instead weakened and its strategic sectors hamstrung by external controls from the United States and allied countries. It is unclear how this will play out in the long-term, but what is unambiguous — and has been for a long time — is the policy direction of Xi’s government, and its deleterious effect on the private sector."
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"There is a fundamental contradiction between Xi Jinping’s desire for modern governance and his need for authoritarian control. He wishes ...[to] constrain his government, but [not] him. This system of “socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics” has a form of limited governance, individual rights (in the ability to vote), and juridical legitimacy. [14] But Xi’s ability to set the legislative agenda, to use the security apparatus to eliminate any perceived threat, to violate the rights of citizens en masse...and to stifle any mention of violation of rights, all without legal recourse, demonstrate that the true potential power of the PRC state is unlimited by law."
China Heritage
- Shades of Mao — Children Spying on Parents, Fragile Hearts in Patriotic Drag and the Fish Wife Who Trolled Ukraine
- Celebrating Geng Xiaonan
- With Jack Kerouac in Chiang Mai — Planet Speakeasy & the Other China
Reading the China Dream
Opinion Pages
Project Syndicate
- The Age of Big Shovels
- The China Factor
- After the Beijing Consensus
- India’s Quiet Rise
- China Must Avoid a Debt-Deflation Spiral