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Miles Yu

yu123@washingtontimes.com

Miles Yu is the director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. His Red Horizon column appears every other Tuesday in The Washington Times. He can be reached at mmilesyu@gmail.com.

Columns by Miles Yu

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen Town, east China's Zhejiang Province, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015. (Chinatopix via AP) CHINA OUT

Inside China: Military reform is not a song-and-dance party

The People's Liberation Army's powerful and controversial "entertainment corps," collectively known as "the PLA Culture Work Units," is finally being dismantled after decades of public outrage and repeated official efforts to rein in its excesses and influence.

January 7, 2016
FILE - In this Thursday, June 27, 2013 file photo, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, and her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping wave during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi Jinping’s first visit to the Korean Peninsula as China’s president is to Seoul, not Pyongyang, meaning that North Korea’s best friend has snubbed it for its most bitter rival. A flurry of recent rocket and missile tests, the latest on Wednesday, has made the North’s displeasure crystal clear. (AP Photo/Wang Zhao, Pool, File) **FILE**

Inside China: Seoul seeks a border with Beijing

China and South Korea ended another round of high-level maritime border demarcation talks in Seoul earlier this week. And just like the previous 14 rounds of talks on the same issue held between 1996 and 2008, the revived talks failed to produce a final agreement.

December 24, 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchange documents at the signing ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Friday, May 8, 2015. Russian and Chinese leaders have signed a plethora of deals in Moscow, giving Russia billions in infrastructure loans. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Inside China: Russia, China still fierce competitors despite recent arms deals

The public celebration over recent arms deals belies the fundamental rifts, distrust and suspicion that still divide the two neighbors. In a larger sense, China and Russia hold fundamentally different strategic visions and are fierce competitors for regional and global dominance in key areas.

December 10, 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a major restructuring last week of the People's Liberation Army. (Xinhua News Agency via Associated Press/File)

Inside China: Xi Jinping’s military overhaul tightens Communist Party grip

Every 15 years or so, the Chinese Communist Party makes a major structural or doctrinal change to the People's Liberation Army, the world's largest. It's that time of the cycle again as Chinese President Xi Jinping announced last week that a massive defense restructuring was underway.

December 3, 2015
South China Sea Flyover Video

Inside China: China clarifies Natuna Islands sovereignty to Indonesia

In a rare move to avoid further isolation in a region where it has territorial disputes with nearly all of its maritime neighbors, China made a major concession last week by publicly clarifying and acknowledging Indonesia's sovereign right to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea.

November 19, 2015
LOCKHEED MARTIN F-22 RAPTOR Role: Stealth air superiority fighter Manufacturer: Lockheed Martin Status: In service The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF'sAdvanced Tactical Fighter program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities including ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence roles.[6] Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor and was responsible for the majority of the airframe, weapon systems, and final assembly of the F-22, while program partnerBoeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems. The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 prior to formally entering service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite a protracted development as well as operational issues, the USAF considers the F-22 a critical component of its tactical air power, and states that the aircraft is unmatched by any known or projected fighter. The Raptor's combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness gives the aircraft unprecedented air combat capabilities. The high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile and lower cost F-35 led to the end of F-22 production. A final procurement tally of 187 operational production aircraft was established in 2009 and the last F-22 was delivered to the USAF in 2012. (U.S Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Taylor Worley)

Inside China: Storm over Russia border rages

Last week, a seemingly innocuous news item in China's state media sparked an unexpected firestorm in China and Russia, exposing the shaky foundation upon which the much-hyped Beijing-Moscow united front challenging the West and the existing geopolitical order has been built.

November 12, 2015
China's alleged on-going reclamation of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. (Ritchie B. Tongo/Pool Photo via AP) **FILE**

Inside China: Luo Yuan: A profile in chutzpah

He is arguably China's most jingoistic senior military voice, heralded by some as a national hero while hated by many more for his unvarnished battle cries for military actions when tensions soar between Beijing and its many adversaries and rivals, including Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and most prominently, the United States.

November 5, 2015
A man smokes near a portrait of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong hung on a replica of the Tiananmen Gate in Yinchuan in northwestern China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Research published in the medical journal The Lancet says one in three of all the young men in China are likely to die from tobacco, but that the number can fall if the men quit smoking. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Inside China: Toxic voice of history

One of China's most outrageously cool superstars is a high school history teacher, wildly popular among the nation's young, who follow him online and offline in the tens of millions. Ironically, he is also one of the nation's most censored public intellectuals.

October 22, 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will give $1 billion toward U.N. peacekeeping efforts, including those in Syria. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Inside China: Marxism: The opium of the Chinese masses

Last week, Beijing hosted the inaugural "World Congress on Marxism," accompanied by much celebratory fanfare in the capital city. Over 400 luminaries, government officials and scholars from the United States, Egypt, Cuba, North Korea and more than a dozen other countries were flown in for the proletarian extravaganza. The event lasted for two days and it will be held every other year in Beijing, the newly self-anointed center of global Marxism studies.

October 15, 2015
RETRANSMISSION TO ADD COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - This Tuesday, Feb. 7 2012 photo shows 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo holding a doll in a detail of a photograph by his wife, Chinese artist Liu Xia on display at during a preview of "The Silent Strength of Liu Xia" exhibit at The Italian Academy in Columbia University in New York. The photos were spirited out of China just before Liu was placed under house arrest after her husband, imprisoned in 2009 for urging democratic reform, won the Nobel. Her works are censored in her native country. The exhibition opens Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) **FILE**

Inside China: The Nobel conundrum

Like all communist governments obsessed with finding every piece of tangible evidence to prove their all-around greatness, China has yearned to have genuine homegrown Nobel Prize winners to showcase the achievements of the vanguards of the Chinese proletariat. Yet, several Chinese laureates later, Beijing is finding out that Nobel glory can also be a double-edged sword.

October 8, 2015
Soldiers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) 6th Armored Division carry the Chinese type 97 semiautomatic machine guns at their military base on the outskirts of Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) ** FILE **

Inside China: The knifing of the People’s Liberation Army

At the massive Sept. 3 military parade in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping -- who meets President Obama in Washington as part of his state visit Friday -- made a surprising announcement that the PLA would cut its troop strength by 300,000, or 13 percent, to about 2 million troops.

September 24, 2015

Inside China: Li Kai-shing, Asia’s Donald Trump, targeted as ingrate to China

With a net worth of about $30 billion, much of it in real estate investments in China and Hong Kong, Li Kai-shing is the richest man in Asia, known for his shrewd business acumen and extraordinary ability to cultivate cozy relationships with communist officials in China to strike great deals in the world's fastest growing real estate market.

September 17, 2015
China's Su Bingtian waves to supporters after competing in the the men’s 100m final at theWorld Athletics Championships at the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2015. Su is the first Chinese to participate in a 100m world championships final. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Inside China: Chinese parade, Russian games

As China gears up for a communist-style extravaganza with a military parade and ceremonial grandiosity next week to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II, Beijing is determined and eager to show off its military might to the world. It's also making a clear attempt to isolate Japan from the international community and send a special message of China's military might to its most distinguished guest, Russia's equally bombast-loving President Vladimir Putin.

August 27, 2015
Huge explosions in the warehouse district of China's Tianjin municipality sent up massive fireballs that turned the night sky into day, officials and witnesses said. (Xinhua via AP)

Inside China: Tianjin explosions cover-up exposes Beijing’s own toxic fault lines

The blasts that rocked the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin on Aug. 12 are said to have released a destructive power equivalent to an earthquake of 2.3 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the political aftershocks have been even more devastating to the Chinese government, revealing design flaws in the communist system's ability to control information and some glaringly negligent safety regulations.

August 20, 2015
Illustration on U.S. China relations by Donna Grethen/Tribune Content Agency

Inside China: Liang Zhu warns of U.S. ‘historical nihilism’ plot

To denounce one's past is to doom one's present; and when one's present is doomed, one's future is ruined. That is not something from Confucius or from a Chinese fortune cookie. It is the battle cry of a fierce war on "historical nihilism" being waged by the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping, who has a doctorate degree in "scientific socialism" from China's prestigious Tsinghua University, the intramural rival of its next-door neighbor, Peking University.

July 30, 2015
An investor covers his eyes at a brokerage house in Fuyang in central China's Anhui province on Wednesday. (Associated Press)

Inside China: Official: China stock crash is U.S. economic warfare

Last month's stock market crash in China was without any doubt an economic war against China covertly waged by the United States, with the direct objective of subverting the ruling Communist Party, according to the most powerful leader of China's massive state-owned corporate enterprises.

July 23, 2015