Publications

"We shall proceed with reform and opening up without hesitation," China's President Xi Jinping told his country's top leaders in August 2014 during a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping. At the time, this pledge appeared sincere. Since taking office in March 2013, Mr. Xi had consistently advocated a reform agenda intended to continue the economic restructuring and national revitalization that Deng had started in 1978. Now, two years later, and despite his consolidation of power, Mr. Xi's reforms are mired in a morass of bureaucratic hurdles and official foot dragging.

Greater cooperation with Russia in the struggle to defeat the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) and other extremist elements in the Muslim World is now being urged by a number of prominent Americans. Russia and America both have a problem with Islamists, goes the argument, so we should work together to defeat the common enemy.