Filipino children form the words “China Out” on a beach on a remote Philippine-held island in the South China Sea during a week-long protest against Beijing’s claims in the disputed waterway, December 31, 2015.
On the surface, 2015 came to a close in a moment of relative tranquility after a turbulent year for China’s neighborhood. But the calm is misleading: the optics of regional diplomacy have become increasingly detached from the reality of the underlying tensions; this risks obscuring deepening fault lines.
China has changed dramatically over 30 years, and command-and-control economic management will not produce the results of the past.
The recent disappearance of publisher Lee Po—allegedly kidnapped from Hong Kong and rendered to Mainland China—has prompted widespread alarm about the state of Hong Kong’s autonomy, both within the city and internationally.
China has landed two civilian planes on an island built in the disputed South China Sea, days after an earlier landing there prompted international concern.
The depreciating yuan is exposing the increasing difficulty in getting a firm reading on economy.
The aftershocks carried over to Europe and the United States, where markets fell sharply once again.
When the Chinese Communist Party targeted clean energy in its 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010), the resulting investment spree upended the global clean energy market almost overnight. Now, as China approaches its 13th Five Year Plan, a new policy dubbed “Internet Power” is emerging as a central theme and is already beginning to influence an even more critical sector: global technology.
As of January 1, all married couples in China are now allowed to have a second child without penalty.
