From Economic to Social Media Experiments: The Tensions of Fragmented Authoritarianism

Maria Repnikova, Assistant Professor, Georgia State University; Kecheng Fang, Ph.D. candidate, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

This study examines the latest media experiment under President Xi that aims at revitalizing the Internet by creating new party-funded digital media outlets nationally. Specifically, the paper analyses the model of…

China-Taiwan Relations in the Tsai Ing-wen Era

Chas Freeman, Career US Diplomat; Richard Bush, Senior Fellow, Brooking Institution; Shelley Rigger, Professor of Political Science, Davidson College; Jacques deLisle, Professor of Law, Univ. of Pennsylvania

In 2016 Tsai Ing-wen, candidate from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was elected President of Taiwan. Following eight years under a Kuomintang (KMT) president who had actively promoted closer relations…

Making Bureaucracy Work: Patronage Networks and Government Performance in China

Junyan Jiang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Contemporary China

What makes a bureaucracy effective? Conventional theories of bureaucratic effectiveness draw a sharp distinction between high-performing Weberian and low-performing patrimonial administrations, yet this dichotomy…

Public Debt and Private Investment in China

Yi Huang, Assistant Professor of Economics, The Graduate Institute of Geneva

High levels of public debt are correlated with lower economic growth across countries, but questions remain about whether this relationship is causal. Using Chinese data, this paper explores whether increasing public…

Judicial Reform in China: Notes from the Field

Neysun Mahboubi, Research Scholar, Center for the Study of Contemporary China

Just last week, the Chief Justice of China's Supreme People's Court, Zhou Qiang, drew widespread attention for denouncing Western "independence of the judiciary" in a speech to provincial judges.  Over the past two…

The United States and China in a Changing World

2016-2017 CSCC Annual Public Lecture

J. Stapleton Roy, Former U.S. Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State 

Both the world and the United States role in it have changed profoundly over the last twenty-five years. US thinking about its global role has not kept pace with these changes. Our lack of strategic vision is…

China's Foreign Policy in the Xi (and Trump) Era

Isaac Stone Fish, Senior Fellow, Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations

Since Donald Trump's surprise election victory, Beijing has grown increasingly assertive. If Trump ushers in a new era of American isolationism, will Beijing fill the vacuum left by the retreat of American power? …

China and the South China Sea Disputes: Recent Developments and Prospects

Jacques deLisle, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania; Peter Dutton, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College; Bonnie Glaser, Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic & International Studies; Michael McDevitt, Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.), Senior Fellow, Center for Naval Analyses; Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT.  

Two Years After the Umbrella Movement: The Evolving Crisis in Hong Kong

CEAS Issues in Contemporary East Asia Colloquium with Michael Davis

Michael C. Davis, Professor of Law, University of Hong Kong

After an "umbrella movement" and a constitutional crisis that has stolen global headlines over much of the past couple years where does Hong Kong stand today? Many question are raised about the success or failure…

Xi's China, Trump's America: How Much Risk for Asia?

Arthur Kroeber, Gavekal Dragonomics; Brookings-Tshinghua Center for Public Policy

In the past month the world's two biggest economies have undergone major political changes. The United States chose as its next president Donald Trump, who during his campaign pledged to wage a trade war against…