The Politburo of the Communist Party of China Central Committee met last week. After reading several posts by respected China hands reporting on this high-level meeting, I was struck once again by a significant deficit America suffers from in dealing with China. Most of us do not understand the language official China uses to express itself and therefore too often miss the real story. Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound, Beijing The Politburo meeting set priorities for China’s ec

“The past is what happened, history is what is written about it.” This favorite quote from James Carter, Professor of modern Chinese history, has weighty implications for society and governance broadly. It also arises in less flashy, if not less important, venues. The questions raised are the same no matter the context. What is the past? Who gets to document this past in our histories for today and tomorrow? Spring Dawn over the Elixir Terrace, Lu Guang, 1369, Metropolitan Mu

Labels will be the death of us. They strip away humanity. They cloud judgment. They are weaponized in a zero-sum quest for dominance. They are devilishly effective and dangerous. Because of this, label warfare must be vanquished. America epitomizes this truth. The United States of America is fast becoming an oxymoron. We just celebrated a tense, politicized 250th anniversary. Society has suffered a collapse in civics. In this environment, Liberal, Conservative, Capitalist, So

I was in China the past month. My last day coincided with the Presidents of China and America holding a summit in Beijing on Thursday. Did this summit, potentially the first of several this year, matter? And if so, to whom and why? I see a disconnect between the macro of the political theater on the national and global stages and the micro of the day-to-day concerns of the Chinese middle class. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of

“ I will faithfully fulfill my responsibilities bestowed by the Constitution, with the nation’s needs as my mission and the people’s interests my yardstick. ” 1 China today is a reinvigorated successor to its “ Hundred Schools of Thought ” ancestors. Though China defies easy labeling, the melded legacy of the early Confucians and Legalists courses through Chinese society. We see this in statements such as that of Chinese leader Xi Jinping above and his overseeing of strict ru

“‘ The tendency of human nature to do good is like that of water to flow downward .’” 1 This 2,300-year-old statement by Mencius, second only to Confucius in the Confucian pantheon, would have been relatable, yet not, to Daoists Laozi and Zhuangzi who believed that the Way of nature is balanced. This distinction is representative of the freewheeling philosophical “Hundred Schools of Thought” discourse for hearts and minds that blossomed in the Chinese heartland during the hal

Fourth Plenum of 20th CPC Central Committee (Photo by Xinhua) “ We must have the courage to face major tests amid high winds, rough waves and even raging storms, and tackle difficulties, risks and challenges with a spirit of historical initiative – focusing on doing our own work well to write a new chapter in sustaining China’s economic growth and long-term social stability. ” — From China’s recently-adopted 15th Five-Year Plan Can you imagine a five-year strategic planning p

America has been the dominant world power since at least the end of World War II and wants to retain this role. China seeks to reclaim...