Hu Deping's latest book charts Hu Yaobang's intellectual legacy from the 1960s to the 1980s – and the decisive junctures in the debate over socialist p

This year marks the start of China’s 12th Five-Year Guideline period. How to start the year is of crucial importance, because it will set the direction of the

Rapid change in China already has resulted in a battle of ideas pitting the coasts and cities against the countryside and inland provinces, and the rich against poor. Internal elections are increasingly seen by some as a healthy vehicle for airing these differences.

All that is real is rational explained Hegel in the years following the French revolution, and he confidently added that whatever is rational is real. One can o

1.The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference’s role in decision-making A political organization operates in four areas – decision-making, im

Given the important transition of leadership that looms on the political horizon next year, perhaps Beijing’s elite believes it can leave nothing in the political sphere to chance. After all, historically, visible divisions in the leadership can lead to tests of tolerance of dissent in the streets.

China’s lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), opened its annual session last weekend to great fanfare.  Watching the delegates pile in and ou

The West is guilty of wishful thinking when it excitedly imagines people-powered revolt in the Arab world spreading to China. There is dissatisfaction in China.

China has promulgated five-year plans since 1953 and experienced  a fast growth rate of 9.2 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period (1953-57). The plans wer