Launched on Monday in Beijing, the 12th National People’s Congress consists of 2200 delegates gathering at the “Great Hall of the Public” in Tiananmen Square. As Minxin Pei explains, this year’s annual meeting will be closely watched to see how Xi Jinping’s reform agenda will play out over the 10-day session.

As President Xi implements his reform agenda, Cheng Li evaluates the fantastic opportunities and potentially enormous risks that lie ahead for the world’s second-largest economy.

Recently, the once-deviant discourse has moved into the light. In fact, the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been doing some of the very things Sekihotai demanded of Nakasone and Takeshita, writes Norihiro Kato.

The Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party’s Congress reflects recent efforts by the Chinese government to reform its military sector. By examining the historical challenges in reforming China’s military, Shen Dingli highlights the importance of forging a civil-military partnership that entails the upgrading of Chinese leadership institution and tapping the resources of each other.

The United States and China have different and distinct understandings and approaches over the issue of human rights, writes Liu Huawen.

The new leadership’s fresh approach to corruption has certainly been a heart-winner. Yet there have also been worries, because Xi and his colleagues still have a very long way to go, one that promises plenty of stumbling blocks and risks.

After one year as China’s top leader, President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive has become one of his most notable successes. However, as Minxin Pei explains, sustaining this drive will have many challenges.

Are leaders sleepwalking towards another war? Jeff Kingston examines rising tensions in the East China Sea and warns that many of the current disputed territory issues arose from differences in the Cairo Declaration and the San Francisco Treaty.

China was hardly lacking in policy pronouncements in the final months of 2013. But, seen in their entirety, the risk of incoherence has become evident, writes Stephen Roach.

For China, the nation and the civilization, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has become a directional guide. And this directional guide, rooted both in its immediate revolutionary past and in its long cultural heritage, is guiding China forward, for the realization of the Chinese Dream in the short term and for further development of its civilization in the long run, writes Chung-yue Chang.