- China's aid to Africa: Monster or messiah?
- A look at the books that matter to Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan.
- Beijing's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics formally announced in Sochi (although it has been well known for some time). You can follow China's fortunes at the current Winter Olympics here.
- Kenya extradites alleged illegal ivory kingpin to China.
- Higher education expansion has left provincial universities with an estimated collective debt of about US$41 billion. Chinese museums are undergoing their own boom; the country has already exceeded its 2015 target for 3500 museums nationwide.
- Monroe Doctrine in the Pacific: what would Chinese hegemony look like?
- The incentive structure of the PLA rewards reckless behaviour at the operational level, writes Minxin Pei.
- Douglas Paal of Carnegie on China's decreased influence in North Korea and the need for better communication between governments in Northeast Asia.
I suspect Chinese officials are carefully, even desperately trying to find which doors in Pyongyang are still open to them. Since Jang’s fall, Beijing has been quite visibly nervous in its public pronouncements, urging stability and calm reactions all around even as it privately interprets Kim as threatening the North’s stability. China seems to be struggling to retain its posture of propping up the North’s regime economically and politically while it is implicitly denounced in Pyongyang’s official statements for links to Jang’s misbehavior. Another potential interlocutor, Pyongyang’s ambassador in Beijing, had ties to Jang and may be in an awkward position to help at this point.