MR. JAYADEVA RANADE Jan 2019
2019, which also heralds China's 'Year of the Boar' from February 5, will probably be a difficult year for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership and for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has concentrated power unprecedented since the time of Mao Zedong. Domestic issues like slowing down of theeconomy and maintenance of stability will get further accentuated and behigh priorities on the leadership's agenda.The apparent bipartisan US 'Trade War' against China, correctly interpreted by the Chinese as intended to prevent the country's rise, will add to the pressure. China's technology-centered 'Made in China 2025' programme is already adversely impacted with advanced European nations joining the US to deny China hi-technology and its telecommunications companies access to new markets and upgraded 5G networks. Push back against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi Jinping's prestige project, has also begun.Inner Party criticism and opposition to Xi Jinping are likely to increase and tempt him to divert the people's attention and show that his policiesare yielding results with steady headway being made towards achieving the 'China Dream'. His comments on January 2 on reunification with Taiwan are an example. There will be consequent uncertainty in the region as to China's intentions.
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE Nov 2016
After four days (October 24-27, 2016) of deliberations at the military-owned Jingxi Hotel in Beijing, 197 full members and 151 alternate members attending the Sixth Plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 18th Central Committee (CC) under the chairmanship of Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that Xi Jinping would henceforth be designated the “core” (he xin) of the Party Centre, or fifth generation leadership. The decision, contained in the over 6000-word Plenum document, however, clearly seemed to hold back from granting Xi Jinping unfettered authority by equally carefully emphasising “collective leadership” and asserting that “no party organisation or individual should suppress or undermine intra-party democracy”.
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE Oct 2016
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE Jul 2016
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), announced during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s well-publicised two-day (April 20-21, 2015) visit to Pakistan and with a value estimated by Pakistanis at US$ 46 billion, is a bold geo-economic initiative which alters the strategic environment in the region. It is the first step towards implementing the recommendation of Chinese strategists that “China should begin to shape, rather than just integrate into, the regional and international environment because China now has the capacity to do so”. It has begun to alter the status quo and potentially bend borders in the region.
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE May 2016
China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’, which was first proposed in September 2013 and combines the twin initiatives of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, is a grand concept that envisions China girdling the globe. Potentially covering 55 percent of the world GNP, 70 percent of the global population, and 75 percent of known energy reserves, it is essentially a plan for a China-built land and sea transportation artery to link China’s production centres with markets and natural resource centres around the world.
JAYADEVA RANADE Mar 2016
A definitive shift was discernible in Beijing’s policy towards the Dalai Lama at the 4th plenary session of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s version of a parliament, that concluded in Beijing on March 15, 2016. China additionally utilised the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and NPC sessions – popularly called the ‘Big Two’ -- to subtly continue its efforts to drive a wedge between the Dalai Lama and the various Tibetan Buddhist sects in the bid to undermine his influence and isolate him. Remarks by officials of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) on the sidelines of the ‘Big Two’ clarified that there would be no relaxation in the tough policies being implemented in Tibet.
JAYADEVA RANADE, President, CCAS Mar 2016
At times individual events irreversibly change the dynamics of regional geopolitics and texture of bilateral relations. Xi Jinping’s well publicised two day (April 20-21, 2015) visit to Pakistan, barely three weeks prior to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving in China, is one such.
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE Feb 2016
In a clear demonstration of his authority and confidence over the New Year, Chinese President Xi Jinping began implementing the crucial second phase of military reforms announced earlier on September 3, 2015. The reorganisation and restructuring of the 2.3 million-strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA), described by Chinese analysts as the most “extensive” ever and which has been on the drawing board since well before 2011, is the most critical reform initiative taken by Xi Jinping since he took over in November 2012.
Mr. JAYADEVA RANADE Jan 2016
The crucial phase of the major military reforms -- described as 'far reaching and unprecedented' -- that were publicly announced on September 3, 2015, by Xi Jinping, who is concurrently the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), began to be implemented over New Year’s Eve. While the reforms have yet to be fully implemented, an initial assessment of the difficulties in implementation and their scope would perhaps be useful.
Jayadeva Ranade Nov 2015
The 4-day (October 26-29, 2015) eighth session of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Central Committee (CC)’s Fifth Plenum has, as expected, further strengthened and consolidated Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s authority and position. The 5,923-character Communique issued promptly after the Fifth Plenum on October 29, 2015, exuded confidence as it firmly set out the path for reforms with the focus on all-round development and asserted China’s goals for the next five years including that of “building a moderately prosperous society by 2020”. There were, interestingly, few references to ‘stability’ despite the steadily growing number of popular protests which China officially estimates at more than 500 each day, and the ‘Chinese Dream’ unveiled by Xi Jinping at the 18th Party Congress in November 2012 was enshrined in the Plenum Communique.
JAYADEVA RANADE Nov 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s public announcement downsizing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at the grand military parade on September 3, 2015, was a major event. It signalled that the final stages of reform and reorganization of the PLA would begin now that internal consensus had been reached. Despite the transparently thin attempt to package the 300,000-personnel troop reduction as a move towards promoting peace, the troop reduction is actually part of a long-planned effort to streamline and strengthen the PLA and fashion it into a hi-tech, lethal, ‘informationised’ force capable of defending China’s national interests at home and abroad while expanding China’s strategic space.
JAYADEVA RANADE Sep 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the US later this month is important and comes amidst escalating testiness in the Sino-US bilateral relationship and growing wariness in the higher echelons of the Chinese leadership about US intentions.
JAYADEVA RANADE Aug 2015
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the country’s official military media have kept a discernible focus on the activities and exercises of the PLA formations deployed in Tibet in the past some months.
by JAYADEVA RANADE Jun 2015
Brief analysis of the Chinese official media reporting on the Indian Prime Minister Modi's visit to China
JAYADEVA RANADE, President, CCAS Apr 2015
Analyzes the Indian PM Narendra Modi's state visit to China and particularly in the context of India-China relations.
JAYADEVA RANADE, President, CCAS May 2014
Valedictory Address at the Chennai Centre for China Studies on March 8, 2014
Mr. Shiv Shankar Menon, NSA May 2014
Mr. Menon's speech at the inauguration of CCAS on the significance of India-China relations
JAYADEVA RANADE, President, CCAS May 2014
The end objective of China's peripheral diplomacy is to use alternative strategies to achieve global leadership.
