The geostrategic scenario around the Gulf monarchies has significantly changed, a phenomenon that is reflected by shifting American and Chinese approaches to military outposts in the area. As such, a new security season has opened in the Gulf: for the monarchies, pursuing autonomous capabilities in the defence field is, and will be, all the more strategic.
Over the course of the past decade, Russia and China have been increasingly aligning on a number of issues that encompass foreign and domestic politics. With the COVID-19 pandemic, such alignment has increased in the digital space.
The “vaccine production power” developed by some global actors to fight the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a soft power tool to influence the international global order.
Looking back at how major international magazines commented on Xi Jinping’s rise as General Secretary in 2012 is a helpful exercise in understanding what the international community was expecting.
On the 23rd of July 2021, the Communist Party of China (from now on, CCP) will officially turn 100 years old—an event that marks the achievement of the first ‘Centenary goal’ set by President Xi Jinping in 2013.[1] Despite Covid-19-imposed international mobility restrictions, posts and videos on social media platforms like Weibo or Douyin conjure vivid images of the ‘red fever’ currently running through the country.
Michael Schoenhals and Roderick MacFarquhar’s opus magnum on the Cultural Revolution bears the appropriate title Mao’s Last Revolution, but I have always thought that The Last Revolution would have been an even more appropriate title.
One indisputable trend of Xi Jinping’s leadership since taking up the reins of government in 2012 has been the reaffirming of the Party’s control over the state, the army, society, and the economy. To this aim, establishing heightened control over the national security apparatus has been his means as much as an end. Xi has thus strengthened the Party’s overall security authority through major institutional and legal reforms (not to mention through its anti-corruption campaign).
As China emerges from the grips of COVID-19, there is potential for it to become a global leader in managing the pandemic and provide assistance to other countries. But what does the latest pandemic tell us about the durability of authoritarian regimes, like China? Furthermore, given its recent experiences with a national crisis, such as SARS or the Sichuan earthquake, what is the role of civil society in managing the impacts of such national emergencies?
The Communist Party of China (CCP) plays a central role in foreign policy making in China. This is hardly surprising. It is, after all, the key strategic decision-making body in the People’s Republic. The fact that, as a result of its huge economy, the country the CCP has political stewardship over also has an increasingly important geopolitical role means, by default, that so does the CCP.
Today, celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are being held in Beijing.
With about two weeks to go before Iran's presidential election, many observers believe that the outcome is already evident. Of the seven qualified candidates running in the election, five belong to the hardline or conservative camps opposed to incumbent President Hassan Rouhani.