Leadership Transition

Sun Zhengcai rose from farming studies in Hertfordshire to Communist party elite. Many fear his downfall signals turbulent times in Beijing.

After domestic victories in 2016, China’s president must deal with a worsening economy and Trump in the White House

Party insiders say president wants to remain in office after his second term, breaking succession conventions

President Xi got a lift when the CCP give him the title of "Core" Leader last week. But what does that mean for Mr. Xi and China’s political future?

The prospect of the Party Congress in fall 2017 is already roiling politics.

Next fall, China’s leaders will kick off the 19th Party Congress. Start your engines.

Prominent activist, Xi Zhiyong, is indicted in a harsh warning to the New Citizens Movement. 

“The Taoists have always spoken of an un-carved block, and I think that we should look on the new Chinese leadership as being something like that,” says Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society.

Better questions are needed in order to produce more useful analyses and forecasts of China’s political development. Such analyses should start by recognizing two facts: First, the new leadership’s various initiatives and pronouncements after taking...

China was a closed system with rapidly opening minds. Today, China is a much more open system with some purposely closing minds.

The outlines of the affair surfaced months ago, but it is now becoming clearer that the crash and the botched cover-up had more momentous consequences, altering the course of the Chinese Communist Party’s once-in-a-decade...

How can students learn what kind of place China is today? The Learning Network and The New York Times gathered 10 different ways of looking at the country.

Retired leaders in China's Communist Party used a last-minute straw poll to block two pro-reform candidates from joining the policymaking standing committee, including one who had alienated party elders, sources with ties to the leadership said...

A doctored photo of China's top officials doing a popular South Korean dance went viral 'til Chinese censors pulled it down. 

Panel discussion with Li Cheng, Kenneth Lieberthal and Ambassador Stapleton Roy

When it was all over this morning, and the seven men had returned once again to the secluded backstage of the Great Hall of the People, trailed by their security, and the stage where they had stood was suddenly empty. I walked up to the spot where...

With its unique and mystifying blend of pageantry, ritual and secrecy, China’s ruling Communist Party has named its seven new leaders. 

All of China’s new Politburo Standing Committee, the group of politicians who rule country, have close connections with former leaders.

Top finance official Vice Premier Wang Qishan will move to a new role and Commerce Minister Chen Deming is also likely to exit. 

In pre-Olypmics 2007, officials took solo interviews and overseas reporters were encouraged to ask questions. Not so this time.

Outgoing President Hu Jintao will formally relinquish his position as military chief at the end of the 18th party congress this week, according to sources.His decision to opt for complete retirement surprised many analysts, who had expected him to...

The world's No2 economy has stopped slowing, the economic planning agency said, forecasting 2012 GDP growth of 7.5 percent or more.

The case for China is that its leaders can emphasize long-term planning and difficult decisions over short-term politics and voter-appeasement.

Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president who was said to have fallen gravely ill in July, appeared at a ceremony in Beijing on Sunday, fanning speculation about his health and the role he might play in power struggles accompanying the long-planned...

The world's other superpower is having its own “election” this week. And if all goes according to plan, on Nov. 14 nine (or seven) men (and possibly one woman) will stride across the stage in Beijing’s massive Great Hall of the People as the...

Capping 10 careful years at the helm of the Communist Party, China’s top leader is stepping into history with a series of rear-guard actions. The leader, Hu Jintao, 69, is scheduled to step down as the party’s general...

Outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that the Communist Party faces 'collapse' if it fails to clean up corruption.

Hu Jintao told party-picked that China faces a period of major change and “complicated domestic and international circumstances."

Now that the U.S. election is behind us, time to turn to the next most important political transition in years: the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Congress. Seventeen congresses have gone by and hardly anyone has paid much attention, including...

If this list turns out to be true, it signals that a more meaningful generational transition is most likely to take place at the 19th congress in 2017, when more youthful officials would be elected into the Standing Committee.It also sends a clear...

China's presumptive next president, Xi Jinping, may wish his economy were the juggernaut many Americans think it is. He will inherit an economy in desperate need of reform and rebalancing. As discussed in an earlier China...

After it was leaked that Xi Jinping, the man anointed to be the next Communist Party chief of China, had met in private with a well-known supporter of political liberalization, the capital’s elite began to buzz about the import of...

The Chinese Communist Party has just done something it hates to do: hang its dirty laundry out in public. With a level of force and lurid color that surprised just about everyone who pays attention to these things, on Friday the...

Most of the 25 members of China’s Politburo are uncannily similar, with their black-dyed hair, dark suits and science degrees, but one stands out.With her trademark blue skirt-suit and pearls, Liu Yandong, 66, the top official in charge of health,...

When it comes to confronting economic slowdowns, the Chinese government has not been shy about making bold moves. Faced with the contagion of global recession four years ago, policy makers created a $585 billion stimulus package that helped...

Many have ascribed the vehemence of the protests to deep-rooted anti-Japanese sentiment linked to injustices committed by Japan eighty years ago. But there is little evidence to support this. Rather the protests appear to have everything to do with...

With still no sign of China’s designated new leader, Xi Jinping, who has not been seen in public since Sept. 1, many insiders and well-connected analysts say the Chinese political ship is adrift, with factions jockeying to...

It’s a cat and mouse game for netizens who are interested in Mr. Xi’s coming and goings. Certain code words for Mr. Xi, such as “Crown Prince (太子)” or XJP, are blocked search terms on Sina Weibo. However, netizens have invented others, such as heir...