China’s economic involution, characterized by cutthroat, race-to-the-bottom competition, is a symptom rooted in its political and fiscal structure. During the recent economic downturn, the central government, local governments, and businesses entered a self-reinforcing cycle. The central growth targets and debt-reduction pressures pushed local governments to expand investment in state-favored industries, creating low-profit competition and oversupply. The declining revenues f

Toward the end of 2021 China unveiled a new framing, “The party’s overall strategy for solving the Taiwan issue in the new era,” to summarize General Secretary Xi Jinping’s policy toward Taiwan since 2013. A close examination of statements by top Chinese leaders and senior officials responsible for the Taiwan portfolio shows that the “overall strategy,” for the most part, deviates little from the policy of Xi’s predecessors. However, the “new” components of the “overall strat

With the so-called re-education camps closed, not only has media attention on Xinjiang waned but a troubling misconception seems to have taken hold: state violence targeting Uyghurs is over. In reality, the party-state’s infrastructure of repression has become more deeply entrenched in the region. Using open-source materials, especially government reports, official county-level blogs, and cadre diaries, this essay demonstrates that long prison sentences have replaced short-te