Supporting the development of the future stewards of U.S.-China relations
小年快乐
Spring Festival is approaching, and today is 小年. It is a time to clean house and prepare for the new year. That is exactly what we are doing at AMS, working on the new site and preparing our new products for launch. Lots happening behind the scenes, so stay tuned!
Weekly Readings
Overzealous commentators have suggested Xi Jinping is building a cult of personality along the lines of Mao Zedong. The sensationalism about Xi's possible power base drove others to assert his power was constrained just as Hu Jintao's by the collective leadership. Both assertions probably miss the point. Xi is centralizing authority and building personal power within the constraints of the system, if not overturning parts of how collective leadership functioned. Why would Xi, for example, get to claim credit for an economy supposedly managed by Premier Li Keqiang? A critical data point is emerging where senior cadre are referring to Xi as the "core [核心]" of the leadership. Xi is clearly doing something differently than his predecessor, and all of his books, dreams, and comprehensives seem set to usher in a new chapter in party theory.
We are cheating a bit on this one, because this is one of Mao's, not Xi's. But as Xinhua reported on Xi's January 30th
中共中央政治局第三十次集体学习时发表重要讲话, they used some of Mao's speech to add weight to Xi's, and it is likely that Xi used these phrased himself in his speech. This 成语 means to be easy like when a piece of bamboo splits down the middle when it meets a sharp blade.
Vice President Li Yuanchao spoke in Davos to the World Economic Forum about China's economic future and the "new normal" in the Chinese economy. Included below are the speech as well as the official Chinese text of his speech.
Taiwan just elected its first woman president and power changed hands for the third time. The election also demonstrated the Democratic Progressive Party's thumping of the Kuomintang (KMT) in the 9-in-1 elections of November 2014 was not a fluke. Senior KMT leaders resigned from their positions in government, adding to the uncertainty in Ma Ying-jeou's lameduck last few months. Politics in Taiwan have changed. This week's documentary is the victory speech delivered by Dr. Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
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