East Asia

Does Beijing Have a Strategy? China’s Alternative Futures

By Robert A. Manning and Banning Garrett

This Atlantic Council brief, authored by Robert A. Manning and Banning Garrett, assesses the challenges China faces–worsening pollution, corruption, and a growth model that needs sweeping reforms and examines the difficulties Beijing faces in addressing them.

North Korean Albatross Around China’s Neck

By Robert A. Manning

North Korea’s recent nuclear test was a stark reminder to China that the days of a “lips and teeth” relationship with Pyongyang, of Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung half a century ago, are long gone. Nuclear test after nuclear test, missile test after missile test, Pyongyang has time after time ignored Beijing’s pleas not to […]

Is China Choking on Success?

By Robert A. Manning

A popular app on smartphones in Beijing is the US Embassy’s Air Quality Index measurement. No wonder: Until last year, even as the air in China’s capitol has increasingly come to resemble that of an airport smoking area, its ruling elite have refused to make public its air-quality levels or even admit a problem.

Beijing Misreads US Rebalancing in Asia

By Robert A. Manning

Writing in the Global Times Thursday, Chinese scholar Zhou Fangyin argued that the US rebalancing to Asia is having significant regional effects, largely targeted at China.A great deal has been written about the Obama administration’s “rebalancing” in Asia by Chinese analysts. Unfortunately, much of it overstates the amount of change in US policy, the impact […]

China Beige Book Shows New Perspectives on Chinese Economy

On January 31, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security hosted a Cross-Strait Seminar Series public event featuring Leland Miller, president of The China Beige Book International, Albert Keidel, a nonresident senior fellow with the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, and Robert Goldberg, a principal with the Scowcroft Group. Mario Mancuso, a […]