Gordon Chang

Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited major state and Communist party media outlets in February, where he demanded “absolute loyalty."

Steam venting from the complex that houses the Soviet-era reactor in Yongbyon, spotted in satellite imagery taken at the end of August and released last month, tells us that the rogue regime of Kim Jong-un is about to go back into the business of producing plutonium. Weapons specialists and…

On September 7, a particularly aggressive Chinese fishing boat captain, Zhan Qixiong, rammed his vessel, the Minjinyu 5179, into two Japanese patrol boats after he refused to heed warnings to leave disputed waters in the East China Sea. The incident occurred around the islets and rock outcroppings…

As President Barack Obama takes his first trip to China, Beijing officials are in a triumphal mood, anticipating a "Chinese century" and looking forward to making the oblivious American leader the most important prop in their campaign to legitimize their central role in the world.

On August 29, the North Korean government released four South Korean fishermen whose boat had strayed into Northern waters a month earlier. The return of the crew came shortly after the freeing of a South Korean manager in the Kaesong industrial zone, detained in March for making derogatory…

Last Tuesday, Brazil, Russia, India, and China--the so-called BRIC nations--met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for what was supposed to be an anti-American gabfest. The main agenda item for the first formal meeting of the four largest developing economies was the future of the dollar. In recent months,…

In 1996, Min, then in her mid-20s, expressed disbelief when she first heard of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. The tragedy had come up in a casual dinner conversation I was having in her hometown of Shanghai with her and Chris, her American boyfriend. I was taken aback that anyone could have…

As Beijing celebrates the 30th anniversary of its reform era this month--generally considered to have begun with the accession of Deng Xiaoping--the dominant narrative in the world is that this is China's century. This perception is almost entirely based on the country's roaring economy, which has,…

THREE WEEKS AFTER THE outbreak of violence in southwest China, Beijing's officials have apparently restored order. Before they were able to do so, they often spoke in grim terms. Tibet Communist party chief Zhang Qingli, for instance, stated that the country was locked in "a life or death struggle."

"WE THINK THAT ONE OF the strongest means by which to improve transparency is the mil-to-mil relationship," said Condoleezza Rice last week in Beijing. "That has really accelerated over the last several years of the Administration and we think that that's really the way that you get at transparency…

WILL THE People's Republic of China prove to be one more victim of September 11? Today, the Chinese state may look like an inadvertent beneficiary of the terrorists' crime, but on closer inspection, it could turn out that China's economic, social, and political institutions are about to be tested…