The “Economic Blue Paper,” a report published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on December 2 (China Brief, December 8), stated there will be 6.1 million college graduates entering the job market in 2009, among those graduates some 30 percent to 40 percent—approximately 2 million—will be unable to find jobs (Ming Pao, December […]
Read more "CB 121908: China’s Poor, Young and Restless"The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) arsenal of strategic weapons systems is growing in spite of the cross-Strait détente. According to Tsai Der-Sheng, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) director-general, China has deployed a ‘new’ type of missile that will increase the PLA’s capability in terms of range and accuracy to attack hardened targets like airfields and command […]
Read more "CB 032511: Taiwan’s Intelligence Chief Warns about the PLA’s Growing Strategic Weapon Systems"The top-brass of the Chinese leadership started the Lunar New Year on a sprint. The year of the ox, which began on January 26 in the Gregorian calendar, was marked by fervent planning for Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. On January 30, a little over a week after […]
Read more "CB 020409: Personnel Changes in PLA Ranks: Chen Xiaogong"On the eve of 2009, the President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, Hu Jintao, delivered a capstone speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” (Xinhua News Agency, December 31, 2008). The message was first issued by the Standing […]
Read more "CB 011209: Hu Jintao’s ‘Six-Points’ Proposition to Taiwan"In spite of an apparent thaw in overt cross-Strait tensions since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was elected into office in 2008, the shadow war between Chinese and Taiwanese intelligence agencies has continue unabated. While Beijing and Taipei have made remarkable progress in liberalizing economic barriers, recent cases of high-level espionage laid bare the underlying distrust […]
Read more "CB 110510: “War without Gunfire”: China’s Intelligence War with Taiwan"Even as the Chinese economy under the Hu-Wen administration is set to wean through the global financial crisis with a remarkable eight percent growth rate this year (2009), senior officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs under the jurisdiction of the State Council, which is responsible for social and administrative affairs, revealed that China’s aging […]
Read more "CB 110409: China’s Demographic Imbalances Widen"Images and media reports about new types of submarines appearing in recent months have generated a lot of interest in China’s evolving submarine force. While the magnitude of such developments remains to be seen, since much depends on the submarines’ tested capabilities, these rare glimpses provide important clues about the development of China’s subsurface force […]
Read more "CB 102210: China’s New Submarines and Deployment Patterns: Aimed at South China Sea?"