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Chinese President Hu Jintao, like the country he leads, faces many tough questions in the next five years. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Much as expected, China reelected President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the close of the Communist Party's Seventeenth National Congress. Each will serve another five-year term. More notably, President Hu also signaled the possible successors (BBC) to China's two most senior political positions. Hu tapped four new senior officials, including Shanghai party chief Xi Jinping and the head of Liaoning province, Li Keqiang, who now become front-runners in the race to succeed Hu and Wen. Xi and Li were added to the powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, whose membership generally represents a critical step on the route to the top job. The BBC reports that Xi ranks above Li, suggesting “he might be ahead in the succession race.” But Brookings’ Senior Fellow Cheng Li said it’s premature to say who will succeed Hu Jintao: “I think it will become ugly” (AFP).
Experts say the congress provided an opportunity for Hu to consolidate his power (LAT). He incorporated his signature “scientific outlook on development” in the party constitution, “securing his place in the pantheon of Communist leaders alongside Mao, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.” Since coming to power in 2002, President Hu has emphasized development that is in harmony with its environment and takes growing economic inequality into account instead of economic growth that is merely focused on numbers. But The Economist points out how Chinese leaders, too busy worrying about their own survival, refuse to take any substantial steps towards solving the problem of growing income disparity.
Once every five years, China's top communist leaders meet to lay down the blueprint for national development for the next half decade, discuss inner party politics, review the work of the last five years and, most significantly, pick their successors. This Backgrounder explains the workings of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its eccentric, opaque leadership. Much of what passes for analysis of these workings really amounts to little more than educated guesses. As the Christian Science Monitor notes, though there is a lot of political maneuvering and horse trading taking place behind closed doors, “China's top communists are now building coalitions and seeking compromises among themselves that some say could pave the way for a more open form of government.” But this has also led to increasing factional politics in the party.
In a new interview, CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth C. Economy says people are agitating for greater democracy at virtually every level of Chinese society. But Economy says it remains to be seen whether these people will coalesce into a more cohesive movement. In the run-up to the Congress, the party cracked down (BBC) on any potential political dissidence and even shut down more than eighteen thousand websites.
China's rising power in economic and military fields, its expanding role in global affairs, and its pursuit of resources bring it into competition and sometimes even into conflict with the United States. Brookings' Li, a member of the CFR Task Force that produced a report on the future of U.S.-China relations, tells CFR.org that the question of “how accommodating China should be to international pressure is by no means solved.” China's foreign policy in the future will be dictated as much by the path Congress lays out as by its pragmatic interests.
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Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
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The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
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Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
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