Dedicated to the development of the future stewards of U.S.-China relations
In this week's newsletter we focus on artificial intelligence, rebirth, the lasting influence of Bo Xilai, and our newly released podcast episode.
Weekly Readings
Amid the National People's Congress sessions, Beijing expanded on a little line in the premier's work report to announce a plan to boost Chinese research into artificial intelligence (AI). China ranks in the top three of countries raising venture capital, applying for patents, and otherwise devoting research resources. Forms of AI are used in speech recognition, expert systems, and game playing. Beijing's applications will no doubt include the economic cutting edge, but, with the data compiled by the Golden Shield project and the emerging social credit system, there will be a darker side as well.
Meaning: to be born again from fire (to go through great difficulties/challenges and come out on the other side)
On March 8 Xi Jinping spoke to the Sichuan NPC delegation. Upon being shown a photo of the Lushan earthquake reconstruction results, Xi used this phrase (not really a chengyu). As far as who showed him the picture, let's just say that this must have been a pretty big moment for the 四川雅安汉源县古路村支部书记骆云莲代表.
This week's video is a discussion about the political climate in Beijing and elite politics during the "Two Meetings" and five years after the fall of Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. One of the topics discussed is Bo's influence on the politics and tactics of Xi Jinping's China. Elite politics is difficult if not impossible to interpret correctly with any consistency, but that does not mean we can avoid trying to hypothesize or going back to evaluate what happened after more evidence arrives. Only by doing this work can we ever arrive at workable explanations.
A new AMS podcast episode has been released. In this episode, we bring you a recording of our recent event with Chia-Huan Chang, a visiting fellow of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS and a former instructor at Taiwan's National Defense University. Chia-Huan Chang's research interests include the issues related to the international law of the sea, maritime policies, and the South China Sea disputes.
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