China’s secret ‘magic weapon’ for global soft power
Xi Jinping is quietly ramping up the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party in a push for global “soft power”, The FT’s James Kynge writes in a… Read more »
Category: Ideology
Chinese exceptionalism? Ideology rules in CCP’s new top team
A number of major western news groups whose coverage has irked Beijing were excluded from Xi Jinping’s unveiling of China’s new ruling council on Wednesday – in some cases for the… Read more »
Political Islam After the Arab Spring: Between Jihad and Democracy?
Around 1,000 Indonesians, led by hardline Islamist groups, protested outside parliament on Tuesday as lawmakers approved a presidential decree banning civil organizations deemed to go against the country’s secular… Read more »
Rejecting ‘Western’ democracy, China’s Xi consolidates power with new ideology
China’s President Xi Jinping has created his own political ideology, in a step towards entrenching his position at the top of the Communist Party. Top officials have made multiple… Read more »
‘Islamic State not finished’ – governance key to preventing resurgence
As the campaigns to wrest the Islamic State from the territory it held in Iraq and Syria near completion, new conflicts may arise if old political arrangements prevail, according to… Read more »
As China attacks Western democracy, are non-democratic options emerging?
China’s official Xinhua news agency attacked Western democracy as divisive and confrontational on Tuesday, praising on the eve of a key Communist Party Congress the harmony and cooperative nature of… Read more »
West ignores Xi Jinping’s quest to revive ideology ‘at our peril’
Xi Jinping is the world’s most powerful leader, The Economist contends. And the West ignores Xi’s quest to revive Stalin’s communist ideology “at our peril,” argues John Pomfret, author of… Read more »
The problem with Cuba’s ‘new economy’
When Raúl Castro steps down as Cuba’s president in February 2018, he will hand off to his successor the unfinished task of reforming the economy, notes William LeoGrande, Professor of… Read more »
‘Gaping paradox’ at heart of Putin’s authoritarian rule
The director of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s Anticorruption Foundation (FBK), Roman Rubanov, was briefly detained and told to return to a law enforcement agency for questioning on October 13,… Read more »
50 years on, exposing The Che Guevara Myth
In the 50 years since his death, Ernesto “Che” Guevara has grown into a mythical figure for leftists around the world. As one of the heroes of Fidel Castro’s Cuban… Read more »