Foreign Minister Penny Wong is travelling to China to mark the half-century anniversary of a relationship that has ridden the vicissitudes over that time.
Jiang Zemin oversaw the economic transformation of China.
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Jiang oversaw China’s reemergence on the global stage, and sustained growth at home. But his policies also set the scene for excess and the growth of President Xi Jinping.
New school textbooks in China focus less on the Chinese Communist Party and more on its figurehead Xi Jinping. The growing cultivation of a personality cult is reminiscent of the days of Mao Zedong.
It is reasonable to assume Xi has close supporters within the party leadership. However, they are not as visible, for the most part, as was the case for Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
History will weigh heavily on the meeting in Beijing this week, which will affirm the Chinese president’s power and outline the political agenda for the coming years.
China’s staggering growth over the past 40 years is due to the force of personality and risk-taking of a man who stood barely 1.5m tall.
The official line in China is that the Tiananmen ‘incident’ was necessary for stability. This whitewashing of history has largely been accepted by many in China as the truth.
How Hwee Young/EPA
The Chinese government tightly controls all mention of the 1989 pro-democracy protests, but in recent days, it’s been very open with its justifications for the brutal crackdown.
Chinese stamps commemorating Deng Xiaoping, a leader widely regarded to have modernised the country and made it a formidable economic power, 1998.
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China is one of the world’s largest economies, and Deng Xiaoping was arguably the man who made that happen through his visions of economic reform.
A 1792 painting by artist James Gillray portrays the Macartney Embassy mission to China, when the British ambassador was rebuffed by the emperor after offering western goods. There are parallels in Chinese history to Donald Trump’s isolationism.
British Museum/1868,0808.6228
China turned inward during the Industrial Revolution after being a economic powerhouse for thousands of years. There are lessons about the dangers of Donald Trump’s isolationism in Chinese history.
Xi Jinping votes on a constitutional amendment lifting presidential term limits.
REUTERS/Jason Lee
China’s goods are everywhere, thanks to the gains China has made from trade and foreign investment. Now that China wants to return the favor, the US may risk losing out if it chooses to turn inward.
Presidents Obama and Castro instigated rumors of a thaw when they shook hands for the first time at the memorial for Nelson Mandela in December last year.
Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
This past December, Presidents Barack Obama and Raoúl Castro ended over fifty years of economic and political isolation between the US and Cuba with their shock announcement that they intend to re-establish…
The media spotlight has shifted away from Hong Kong and toward President Obama’s visit to Beijing, but students and activists remain in Admiralty and Mong Kok, and their demands for political change have…