By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
It makes perfect sense to talk about China's possible reform from the point of view of Xi Jinping's personal character, his working experience and his colleagues on the Political Standing Committee ("Xi Jinping takes helm of China amid reform calls," Web, Nov. 15).
At a time when China's economy and society are under considerable strain and the country is embroiled in increasingly tense border disputes with its neighbors, the relatively peaceful once-in-a-decade political transition in Beijing has helped deflect attention from the underlying turbulence in the Chinese system.
President Hu Jintao stepped aside as ruling party leader Wednesday to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take China's helm as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.
The glacially slow, once-in-a-decade process of transferring power from one generation of Chinese leaders to the next begins Thursday when the Communist Party opens its 18th party conference.
Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed Chinese leader Hu Jintao and take charge of the communist state for the next 10 years, went into hiding last week, instantly shifting China's rumor mills into high gear.
Google has fired a new salvo in a censorship battle with Beijing by adding a feature that warns users in China who enter search keywords that might produce blocked results and suggests they try other terms.
The man once considered China's most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that reached into the highest echelons of the Communist Party and involved a decade-long extradition fight.
China is engaged in the most repressive crackdown on Tibetans since 2008 and is intensifying a communist brainwashing campaign that is targeting Tibetans. The government in Beijing is calling the new campaign the "Nine Must-Haves."
The leader appealed for further relations with Taipei during a centennial marking an anti-imperial revolution.
China on Thursday dismissed as rumor reports that retired President Jiang Zemin, who led the country through massive changes after the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, has died.
China on Thursday dismissed as rumor reports that retired President Jiang Zemin, who led the country through massive changes after the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, has died.
Rumors that retired Chinese leader Jiang Zemin was dead or dying raced through China's Internet on Wednesday, sending censors into overdrive to excise them and in turn spurring people to craft ever more cryptic and inventive postings.
Rumors that retired Chinese leader Jiang Zemin was dead or dying raced through China's Internet on Wednesday, sending censors into overdrive to excise them and in turn spurring people to craft ever more cryptic and inventive postings.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly headed for eastern China by train Sunday on a trip to his main ally, and a Chinese leader told South Korea's president that Beijing invited Mr. Kim to learn from Chinese reforms.
With Beijing rapidly approaching $3 trillion in reserves, mostly in dollars, the understatement of the century is to label its economy "uncharted territory."
