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Xi fills top military posts with loyalists Eliminating anyone close to predecessor Hu, president gains control of PLA SHUNSUKE TABETA and OKI NAGAI, Nikkei staff writers BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has the armed forces firmly under his thumb as he begins another five-year term, having succeeded in staffing the military's top command positions with his allies. The members of the Central Military Commission were selected at the first plenary session of the Communist Party's 19th Central Committee on Wednesday. The military body also was shrunk from 11 to seven members including Xi, its chairman. The remaining six posts...

China's Xi gets Mao treatment on People's Daily front page Unusually large photo shows who's the boss TETSUSHI TAKAHASHI, Head of Nikkei's China Headquarters BEIJING -- A day after Xi Jinping began his second term as head of China's ruling Communist Party, the party's People's Daily mouthpiece published a front-page photo of him so big that it leaves no doubt as to his prominence compared with past leaders. No other members of the Politburo Standing Committee -- the top decision-making body -- were pictured individually in Thursday's edition of the newspaper. A long shot of the entire group appears below...

The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened in Beijing on October 18. The weeklong event marks the start of President Xi Jinping’s second five-year term. In his first term, Xi amassed greater authority than any predecessor since Deng Xiaoping. In covering the Congress and President Xi, the Western media focus has been on President Xi’s opening comments on the progress China made in his first five years. Much of his speech covered China and the world and her emergence as a power that has earned a position in the first rank of countries. It is true that Xi...

Xi Jinping and the end of collective leadership 'The gang of six corrupt arch-villains' now a warning to those who resist KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer TOKYO -- China is transitioning from a decades-old party-led collective leadership to one that is led by one man, Xi Jinping. After months of wrangling with factions led by former presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin over just how much power the current leader should be given, Xi, the Communist Party General Secretary and state President, sent shock waves across the country on Oct. 14, the final day of the seventh -- and...

Xi Jinping is poised to become the most potent Chinese leader since Mao Zedong — and to guide his country’s continued emergence as a fascist global superpower for at least the next decade. The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is scheduled to start on October 18, when it will appoint leaders and establish the country’s course for the next five years. Xi undoubtedly will be re-appointed head of the CCP, followed by re-selection as China’s president and head of state early next year. But he appears also to have overturned the collegial, limited term system of leadership...

Chinese President Xi Jinping 'Foiled Coup Plot' to Seize Control of Communist Party 2017-10-20 l The expulsion and criminal investigation of once-rising political star Sun Zhengcai from the ruling Chinese Communist Party was sparked by a plot to overthrow President Xi Jinping, a senior official has said. Sun, 54, former party secretary of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, had plotted to seize power from the current leadership, the chairman of China's securities regulator Liu Shiyu told a meeting of top finance officials during the 19th party congress. Sun and other senior figures were "great not just in venality and corruption...

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a critical Communist Party Congress on Wednesday with a pledge to build a “modern socialist country” that will never copy the political systems of others and will remain open to the world. […] “Through a long period of hard work, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. This is a new historical direction in our country’s development,” Xi said in a speech carried live across the nation on state television. China will relax market access for foreign investment and expand access to its services sector, as well as deepen market-oriented reform of its...

50,000 expulsion cases will end by the police's table in the next few years. But many of the expulsions do not even work. This was stated by border police chief Patrik Engström in SVT Agenda yesterday. He also believes that the so-called REVA debate hurt the police's activities.

It can be all too easy to see North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as a nuclear-armed nuisance desperate for attention. But as is often the case with the belligerent young man, analysts say, there is a perverse logic to his carefully timed provocations aimed at China and the United States, including this week’s nuclear test – the country’s sixth, and by far its most powerful. In October, at the Chinese Communist Party’s once-every-five-years leadership conference, President Xi Jinping is likely to further consolidate his power. In the run-up, however, projecting an aura of stability is key. “North Korea knows that...

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday called for the world to reject protectionism even as American and European pressure mounts on Beijing to lower market barriers, speaking at the start of a Chinese-led summit of five large emerging economies now overshadowed by North Korea’s sixth nuclear test. […] Xi was speaking to business representatives of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — a day before he opens a summit with the leaders of these major emerging markets in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen. This will be the ninth summit of the BRICS grouping, which...

Chinese history tells us: Never stop fighting till the fight is done Sun's fate shows that life atop the CCP can be nasty, brutish and short Observers of elite politics in China cannot miss a cruel paradox: Those closest to the apex of power are the most likely to fall. The latest example is that of Sun Zhengcai, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's politburo, and party chief in the large southwestern city of Chongqing. Before his recent detention on unspecified corruption charges, 53-year-old Sun was a high-flyer. Promoted to the politburo at the CCP's 18th congress in 2012,...

Modi hath no fury like a Jinping scorned India Today Television | August 17, 2017 The Doklam standoff between Indian Army and Chinese People's Liberation Army started in June. In July, a CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) report, tabled in Parliament, said that the Indian Army does not have ammunition to fight a war for more than 10 days. And, now - in August - China's state media has said that Chinese PLA can "annihilate" Indian Army if war breaks out between the two nuclear-armed Asian neighbours. In this issue of So Sorry, Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen launching...

The kingmaker clan behind Xi Jinping Some 2,000km south of Beijing, the Ye family pulls the levers of power YU NAKAMURA, Nikkei staff writer GUANGZHOU -- Beijing, naturally, is where the action happens in China's political theater. But to really understand the country's complex power structure -- and the intense, ongoing struggle for supremacy -- it is also important to look backstage. That would be Guangdong Province, nearly 2,000km to the south. Influential figures have, at times, left the capital to build up their clout in Guangdong -- the country's largest economic zone, adjacent to Hong Kong. Chinese President Xi...

China urged U.S. to fire Pacific Command chief Harris in return for pressure on North Korea BEIJING – China urged the United States to sack the head of the U.S. Pacific Command in return for exerting more pressure on North Korea amid concerns over its growing nuclear and missile threats, a source close to U.S.-China ties said Saturday. The Chinese leadership headed by President Xi Jinping made the request, through its ambassador in the United States, to dismiss Adm. Harry Harris, known as a hard-liner on China, including with respect to the South China Sea issue, the source said. China’s...

Putin to meet China's Xi Jinping to divide the world and punish USA 20.04.2017 | Source: Pravda.Ru Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he would take part in international forum "One Belt - One Way" which is expected to take place in China on May 14-15 of this year. At a meeting with chairman of the Committee of the National People's Congress of China, Zhang Dejiang in the Kremlin, Putin pointed out the importance of Russian-Chinese inter-parliamentary ties. "You will be our guest of highest honor. The meeting of the leaders of Russia and China will be held within the...

"Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?" tweeted President Donald Trump on Easter Sunday. Earlier, after discovering "great chemistry" with Chinese President Xi Jinping over "the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake" at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had confided, "I explained ... that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem!" "America First" thus takes a back seat to big-power diplomacy with Beijing. One wonders: How much will Xi end up bilking us for his squeezing of Kim Jong...

The stakes were high at the initial meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week: No two individuals will have a greater impact on the global order in the years ahead and, beyond that, as far as any eye can see. Personal chemistry is often a critical factor in foreign relations, and while no one expected major breakthroughs on the substantive issues, the meeting allowed the leaders to get to know each other. So, how did Trump do? And what does it mean for this most vital of international relationships? Trump's performance reflected his mastery of...

President Trump spoke with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in a wide-ranging interview that aired Wednesday morning, touching on topics like Syria and health care. In the segment, he told Bartiromo the back-story to the missile strike launched last week at a Syrian airfield in retaliation for a chemical attack that killed dozens of Syrian civilians, for which the White House has blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida while the mission was executed, and he told Bartiromo about the moment he informed Xi that he had sent 59...

Tillerson: China agrees on 'action' on North Korea as navy strike group sails Secretary of state: ‘President Xi understands the situation has intensified’ Syria missile strike described by North as ‘intolerable act of aggression’ Edward Helmore and agencies Sunday 9 April 2017 15.31 BST As the US navy deployed a strike group towards the western Pacific Ocean, to provide a presence near the Korean peninsula, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China agrees with the Trump administration that “action has to be taken” regarding North Korea. Tillerson told CBS’s Face the Nation, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, that when...

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a surprise visit to Alaska on Friday evening, catching a seafood dinner in Anchorage, meeting with Gov. Bill Walker, and taking in a sightseeing moment in Turnagain Arm before returning to the sky again in his Boeing 747 for the journey back to Beijing. Xi's rest stop in Anchorage broke up his trip home following meetings with President Donald Trump at Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida and an earlier visit to Finland. The Alaska stop underscored the significance of the Arctic to China's long-term economic interests. For the Alaskans, trade and one of the...