Akbar Notezai

on February 28, 2024

Akbar Notezai is a journalist from Pakistan. Among other topics, he writes about China-related topics in the region. He has been writing about Chinese development and investment, security issues confronting Chinese nationals and projects, and China’s relationships with its neighboring countries in the region. Since its announcement in 2015, Notezai has regularly written about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s multibillion-dollar projects in Pakistan. He has also visited China multiple times as a journalist.

Notezai has written for Dawn, The China Project, Foreign Policy, and The Diplomat, among publications. Notezai wrote regularly for The China Project until its recent closure. He writes book reviews on various topics in Dawn, one of Pakistan’s most respected newspapers. Notezai has traveled extensively and interviewed Chinese officials and diplomats for his reporting.

“When It All Comes down to It, China Has No Real ‘New Year’”

Translated and Annotated by Geremie R. Barmé

By Li Chengpeng & Geremie R. Barmé on February 21, 2024

I’ve written all of this because friends urged me to offer some reflections on the year gone by and jot down a few thoughts for the upcoming year. But I didn’t want to waste my time looking up data points. Anyway, I don’t see that there was all that much difference between 1949 and 1979, nor for that matter can I detect how 1962 and 2022 were different.

It’s Grim out There: China’s Economy in the Year of the Dragon

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Anne Stevenson-Yang, Zongyuan Zoe Liu & more on February 16, 2024

Some observers have been predicting an economic collapse in China for decades. Others have long predicted that China would be stuck in a middle-income trap or some other type of economic stagnation. Might some of these predictions come true this time? What does the Year of the Dragon have in store for consumers, companies, and markets? What should we look out for this year to understand both China’s real economy and its financial sector?

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

on February 16, 2024

Zongyuan Zoe Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Her work focuses on international finance, sovereign wealth funds, industrial policies, and the geoeconomics of energy transition. Her regional expertise is in East Asia and the Middle East. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press, February 2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, June 2023). She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University. She is a columnist for Foreign Policy and is also a regular contributor to policy-relevant journals and newspapers such as Foreign Affairs, The International Economy, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. Her research has been featured in The Economist, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

Prior to joining CFR, Liu was an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington, D.C. She joined the Bush School after post-doctoral fellowships at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program and the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Liu was a Research Fellow at the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies and a Research Associate at the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business. She was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for International Monetary Affairs in Tokyo, Bank of Mitsubishi-UFJ, and the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi.

Liu received her Ph.D. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and she is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder. Her paper on BRICS collective de-dollarization statecraft received the 2021 Best Paper Award from the International Studies Association (West) annual conference.

Diana Choyleva

on February 16, 2024

Diana Choyleva is a leading expert on China’s economy and politics. She is Chief Economist at Enodo Economics, an independent macroeconomic and political forecasting company she set up in 2016 to untangle complexity, challenge the consensus, and give pointers to the future by making sense of today. Enodo’s focus is China and its global impact.

Choyleva has been covering China for over two decades and has written three books. She co-authored “China’s Quest for Financial Self-reliance: How Beijing Plans to Decouple from the Dollar-Based Global Trading and Financial System” (2022); The American Phoenix: And Why China and Europe Will Struggle After the Coming Slump (2011); and The Bill from the China Shop: How Asia’s Savings Glut Threatens the World Economy (2006).

Choyleva joined JPMorgan Asia Growth and Income plc as a Non-Executive Director to the Board in March 2023 and the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow on the Chinese Economy, in June 2023.

Before Enodo, Choyleva worked at Lombard Street Research (now TS Lombard) for 16 years, most recently as their Chief Economist and Head of Research, setting the agenda for the firm’s team of economists and strategists while conducting her own global analysis.

After completing her Master’s degree in Economics at Warwick University in 2000, she joined LSR and became an Executive Director in 2005. She headed the firm’s UK Service from 2005 until 2009. Between 2010 and 2013, she was based in Hong Kong overseeing LSR’s expansion in Asia.

Choyleva writes regular opinion pieces for the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Nikkei Asian Review, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. She has extensive global experience engaging with all manner of audiences and is a regular commentator on Bloomberg, the BBC, CNBC, and others.

Li Chengpeng

on February 16, 2024

Li Chengpeng (李承鹏), also known as “Big-eyed Li,” had a successful career as a popular sports reporter in Beijing, where he was known for his reporting on corruption in soccer. He attempted to run for public office in Chengdu in 2011. In recent years, Li has come to be known for social commentary and his essays critical of current affairs. He has published in English in The New York Times, among other publications. He writes a column in Yibao, an independent media site.

What Will Newly Increased Party Control Mean for China’s Universities?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Sun Peidong, Daniel A. Bell & more on February 5, 2024

In January, Radio Free Asia reported that the Chinese Communist Party is “taking a direct role in the running of universities across the country” by merging the presidents’ offices with their Party committees. Ideological controls on universities have been tightening for more than a decade. But this latest move may be even more dramatic: Although all universities have Party branches and committees, the Party has never directly controlled administrative offices. How are China’s universities going to change under the new system? Why is the Party doing this now?

New Security Measures Curtailing the Study of China Alarm Educators

By Jordyn Haime on February 2, 2024

Late last year, The New York Times reported on a new state-level bill in Florida that was creating unintended consequences for prospective Chinese graduate students. The bill restricts universities from accepting grants from or participating in partnerships with seven “countries of concern,” including China. Now, it is creating confusion among Florida universities unsure where Chinese graduate students fall under the confines of that law. It may have already succeeded in scaring off talented students who could make important research contributions, and universities have refrained from making offers until the law is clarified, the Times reported.

Jordyn Haime

on February 1, 2024

Jordyn Haime is a freelance journalist based in Taipei, Taiwan. She writes about Taiwanese democracy and society and Jewish affairs in Asia. Her work has appeared in The China Project, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and other publications.