'For the first time in a hundred years, the army has been taken out of the political equation. And for the first time ever, there is only one man who calls the shots. Not even Mao had this kind of power.'
The Chinese Communist Party reaffirmed President Xi Jinping's leadership and backed a major purge of top military officials during a key meeting. The meeting also endorsed a new 5-year plan focused on domestic market resilience and self-reliance.
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
Two former Chinese defence ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, official media reported.
'It doesn't look as if any sensible, worldly wise, person is in charge in China.' 'If at all anybody is in charge, it can only be a bunch of bumpkins of whom Xi has become a puppet,' observes B S Raghavan, the veteran civil servant.
'Does it mean that we are witnessing the end of an era?' 'Probably not, but the post-Trump trade war has certainly brought a lot of instability in China,' notes Claude Arpi.
'The boundary dispute notwithstanding, China has always had leaders who have been, on the whole, positively disposed towards India.' 'Given the centrality of the Chinese Communist Party, we need to strengthen the linkages with the crucial personalities in the highest echelons of the Communist party and political leadership,' notes China expert Alka Acharya.
The Central Committee members on Sunday elected a 25-member Political Bureau which picked the Standing Committee members to govern the country.
Chinese leaders, including its generals, will have to weigh whether they can win a war if they ever attack Taiwan and if at all, can they sustain the subsequent devastation, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'We should not allow ourselves to be surprised in any manner in future on the border.'
'Ladakh is a tiny salami-slice issue.' 'The big one for China is Arunachal Pradesh, more than 83,000 sq km.' 'Do they imagine they can grab any of this by force?' 'In the 21st century, nursing those thoughts only means you need to get your heads examined.' 'It isn't going to happen,' declares Shekhar Gupta.
US President Donald Trump claimed India will stop buying oil from Russia, while also stating China will cut back substantially. He also discussed the conflict between India and Pakistan, reiterating his claim of helping settle the conflict.
The Chinese Communist party's central committee on Thursday, November 11, adopted a landmark resolution on the party's 'major achievements and historic experiences', effectively consolidating CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping's lifelong hold on power.
Israel and the United States had a plan. Iran punched back. And now the Gulf is reeling, the world is beginning to feel the pain and, as on date, no one in Washington or Tel Aviv appears willing to admit that the punch has landed, notes Prem Panicker, continuing his must-read blog on the war in the Middle East.
Except for Xi, 69, all top officials including the number two leader, Premier Li Keqiang will be replaced in the massive reshuffle to follow in the days to come, which included a new foreign minister replacing the incumbent Wang Yi.
It will be interesting to see whether India-China border tensions figure during the deliberations of PLA deputies to the NPC and CPPCC, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
United States President Joe Biden and Chinese's wannabe supreme leader Xi Jinping met virtually a few hours ago.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday visited an exhibition of the Communist Party, appearing in public for the first time after his return from the SCO summit on September 16, which sparked rumours about his absence from the limelight ahead of next month's key Congress of the ruling party.
'That the two sides allowed such a situation to arise exposed the level of inaction and inefficiency in China-India border management.' 'The Modi-Xi meeting in Xiamen initiated a process to to avert such contingencies in the future.'
The 2025 US National Security Strategy marks a major pullback, with America turning backward and effectively allowing China greater dominance in Asia. while long-time partners like India are left to face an increasingly unstable global order largely on their own, observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Xi is an individual led by a harder calculus and would scoff at melting over gestures.' 'That we did not know this was our failure,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Biden said when he got elected, Putin thought that he would easily be able to break up NATO.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is all set for an unprecedented third five-year term as he was 'elected' to the powerful Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party on Saturday while several top leaders including Premier Li Keqiang have been left out in the major shake-up at the top.
There has never been a moment in India's history when it has been so adrift in the world, so confused about what it stands for and against and so humiliated, asserts Aakar Patel.
'My understanding is that by the time President Xi Jinping came for the Chennai summit [2019], he had already instructed his army to undertake the action in Galwan in the summer of 2020.'
Support from the committee gives Xi an indefinite extension on the reins of power, which will surely result in hawkish and insular policies. It does not bode well for relations with the USA, or with anyone else who does not bow the knee to Beijing, for that matter.
'He also presented a facsimile of the scroll that was given to Gandhiji in Johannesburg in 1908 by the Chinese community there. I think that was quite a thoughtful gift,' Sabarmati Ashram Director Tridip Suhrud tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'He still has to deal with party norms and traditions and has been careful to follow the order of seniority,' points out Claude Arpi.
'Clarifying that modernisation of national defence and armed forces should be completed by 2035, Xi Jinping asserted the goal is to make the People's Liberation Army a "world class force" that "can fight and win" by 2050,' points out former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
An exclusive white paper by the Jamestown Foundation claims that the powerful figures arraigned against the President include former Vice-President Zeng Qinghong and current Vice-President Wang Qishan, The Hong Kong Post reported.
India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will travel to Beijing for a two-day trip beginning Sunday, marking the second high-profile visit from India to China in less than one-and-a-half months. The visit comes amidst ongoing border tensions and follows a recent disengagement pact between the two countries in eastern Ladakh. The Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism meeting will focus on the next steps for India-China relations, including in the political, economic, and people-to-people domains. The decision to revive this bilateral mechanism was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan in October.
United States President-elect Donald Trump opened up about the viral moment between him and former President Barack Obama, acknowledging the seemingly warm interaction that was captured during the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, Politico reported.
The removal of the term limit will give Xi a limitless tenure.
'Countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail toward a bright future, all passengers must pull together'
Evoking late strongman Mao Zedong's long forgotten thoughts, China's ruling Communist Party of China chief Xi Jinping has promised 'great renewal' of the nation to pursue the dream of becoming a major global power.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
China's presence in the international dog house is just the kind of opportunity that his opponents must be waiting for, predicts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Xi, the most powerful leader in recent decades heading the ruling Communist Party and the military, will now be the first Chinese leader after the founder chairman Mao Zedong to remain in power lifelong.
In the last 11 years, India and the world witnessed what he stood for, what he promised and did not deliver, and what he actually stood for and practised without fearing how history would judge him. Modi's tenure has been punctuated with headline-grabbing decisions, symbolic gestures, and stage-managed moments that continue to define his leadership and India's politics, points out Ramesh Menon.
Trump couldn't care less anymore about the Israeli demand for Iran's 'de-nuclearisation' and 'de-militarisation.' Trump pins hopes on a grand bargain with Iran as a partner in America First, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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