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Articles on China in transition

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Attendants wait to serve delegates with water during the opening of the annual full session of the National People’s Congress, the country’s parliament, at Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, March 5, 2015. Jason Lee/Reuters

Inequality in China and the impact on women’s rights

Once China claimed to lead the way in equality for women. Today, women are warned they will be “leftovers” if they don’t produce children.
China’s government says it plans to tackle smog, but has also moved to shut down criticism on the issue in the wake of a popular online documentary. EPA/DIEGO AZUBEL

China’s ‘Silent Spring’ has many more political hurdles to jump

Under the Dome, a hugely popular online documentary about China’s smog crisis, could be as influential as 1962’s US pesticide exposé Silent Spring - but only if Chinese officials allow debate to flourish.
China’s President Xi, front and center, doesn’t mind sharing the stage. Reuters

President Xi’s Chinese dream means a more multi-polar world

China begins 2015 as the world’s largest economy, in terms of purchasing power parity, a key milestone in the country’s rise. And one that likely will herald a change in how China engages with the rest…
Handshakes as the Lima conference went into overtime to deliver an agreement. But there is still plenty of uncertainty about how next year’s Paris deal might look. EPA/COP20

Australia comes in from the cold as Lima deal leaves lots to do

The world is a step closer to a new climate agreement that will see all countries, not just developed ones, take action on greenhouse emissions after 2020. The two-week Lima climate summit, which ran two…
Australia’s love affair with China is grounded on more than proximity and fascination. William West/AFP/AAP

China-Australia doomsayers overlook strong fundamentals

Pop quiz: in 2014 the quantity of Australian iron ore demanded by China has: a) fallen sharply, b) fallen modestly, c) remained the same, d) increased modestly, e) increased sharply? The answer in just…
HK protests. Stringer China/Reuters

Is Hong Kong China’s future?

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…
China’s President Xi Jinping, pictured gesturing at center, last month launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a project the US hopes to stymie. Reuters

China’s development bank plans test rising power’s strategic shift

In an influential speech in 2005, then-US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick called on China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community. To optimists, China’s recent efforts…
High-speed trains, such as this one on the Hangzhou-Shanghai route, will soon link China’s entire urban spine from Beijing to Hong Kong. Chris Hale

With a bullet: China’s high-speed rail dream begins to take flight

As a young university student, I first visited Guangzhou during the mid-1990s and found it a gloomy and unsettling place. The third world, undoubtedly. When I went back again in 2010, it was transformed…
Xu Zhiyong, jailed for four years. for inciting public disorder. Wikimedia Commons

China’s war on thought is being waged in Western universities

In the past decade, US and UK universities have embarked on a program of developing formal relationships, exchanges, and partnerships with their counterparts in China. No scholar interested in promoting…
Out and about: Xi Jinping deploying soft power on a trip to Ireland. PA

Third Plenum sets out tentative program for change in China

The Chinese leadership transition last year, with Hu Jintao handing over to Xi Jinping, finally laid to rest Deng Xiaoping’s long-running maxim that China should “keep a low profile and hide its brightness…
New president Xi Jinping (centre) flanked by He Guoqiang (left) and Jia Qinglin (right) at the closing ceremony of the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing. AAP/How Hwee Young

The more things change: Xi Jinping’s rise won’t alter much for Australia and the region

CHINA IN TRANSITION: As China goes through its secretive but widely anticipated leadership transition, the rest of the world is watching. This week, The Conversation takes an in depth look at the National…
Delegates at the 18th China Communist Party Congress listen to outgoing president Hu Jintao’s address. EPA/How Hwee Young

The secret to the Chinese Communist Party’s success

CHINA IN TRANSITION: As China goes through its secretive but widely anticipated leadership transition, the rest of the world is watching. This week, The Conversation takes an in depth look at the National…

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