China’s dual economy—one side producing world-class technology and exports, the other marked by stagnant household incomes and suppressed consumption—is not a transitional imbalance awaiting self-correction. It is a structural design, engineered to serve China’s overriding objective of winning the strategic competition with the United States and establishing global hegemony. The model relies on financially repressed households to fund state-directed investment in high-end man

The idea of leading developing nations everywhere towards greater prosperity and autonomy has long been central to PRC foreign policy. But it was not until 2023 that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi first used the term “Global South.” By positioning the PRC as a perpetual member and natural leader of the Global South, Beijing has now crafted a narrative in which China can simultaneously be a developing nation and a great power capable of stalemating the United States. At the

This article proposes a revisionist framework of factionalism to explain the latest escalation in the purge of high-ranking CCP cadres and to understand the changes in leadership politics during Xi Jinping’s third term in office. Based on Aristotle’s distinction between oligarchy (ruling power resting in a small group) and tyranny (one-man rule) as two different non-democratic regime types to analyze factionalism, the article argues that this distinction affects the unfolding