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Monday, December 1, 2025
Winter 2025 Issue 86
Editor's Note
At its Central Economic Work Conference in December 2024, the Chinese government made an unprecedented call for a “comprehensive rectification of involutionary competition.” The party’s invocation of a term that until then had been mostly applied to China’s test-based education system, whereby students spend many after-school hours cramming to gain an edge over their classmates. Unfortunately, because virtually all students engage in this same arms race, such an exercise cost
Minxin Pei
Nov 30, 20253 min read
Punching Down: Beijing’s Playbook for Unwinding “Involutionary Competition”
How does an authoritarian government that has leaned heavily on “performance legitimacy” for decades sidestep popular ire amidst a prolonged economic slowdown? The discursive career of “involution” (内卷) from online meme to policy object reveals how Beijing adopted and then rebranded a social media buzzword to shift popular blame away from the center. On the surface, Xi’s new campaign to stamp out “involutionary competition” (‘内卷式’竞争) targets collusive practices between local
Patricia Thornton
Nov 30, 202526 min read
Same Strategy, But Different Emphasis: Main Takeaways from the Central Committee’s Proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan
The proposal for the 15 th Five-Year Plan (FYP), approved by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at its 4 th plenum in late October 2025, is substantively similar to the proposal for the 14 th FYP. The most important message conveyed in this document is that the party will continue to pursue the security-centered development strategy unveiled in October 2020. Based on the more pessimistic assessments of China’s external environment, the proposal for the ne
Minxin Pei
Nov 30, 202518 min read
China’s Middle-Income Class, Macroeconomic Growth, and Common Prosperity
The emergence of a prosperous, middle-income class is seen as important for China’s drive for sustained macroeconomic growth and the achievement of common prosperity. Using household survey data and defining “middle income” as being neither poor nor rich in the developed countries, we examine whether China’s middle-income class can fulfill these expectations. We find that China has successfully grown a prosperous middle-income class, and this class contributed to past macroec
Terry Sicular, Xiuna Yang, and Bjorn Gustafsson
Nov 30, 202523 min read
The Dictator’s Dilemma toward the 21st Party Congress: Elite Reshuffling and Power Restructuring
The 21st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which will convene in late 2027, will continue the Xi Jinping leadership as he enters his fourth term as supreme leader. When Xi secured his third term as party leader at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, he effectively abolished the term limits that had been in place since the 1990s, so it is unrealistic to expect that he will not seek a fourth term at the forthcoming Party Congress. Regardless of widespread rumors
Guoguang Wu
Nov 30, 202520 min read
China’s National Security: The People’s Liberation Army’s Shrinking Role in Protecting the Nation’s Core Interests
China’s elevation of “national security” to a priority has redefined the military’s role in protecting the country. With the National Security Commission assuming responsibility for managing external dangers, the role of the People’s Liberation Army has shifted to one of support. The military remains responsible for ensuring combat readiness and nuclear deterrence, but its contribution to national security consists primarily of non-war actions to augment civilian-led efforts.
Timothy Heath
Nov 30, 202524 min read
CLM Insights Interview with Minxin Pei
Minxin Pei, The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism. Princeton University Press, December 2, 2025, 344 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0691223346 Insights Interview What distinguishes your book from other works on post-Mao China? In the field of political science, most scholarly books on post-Mao China focus on specific or narrow topics. They help us understand certain developments or issues, but they do not provide a broad narrative of political changes during the last
China Leadership Monitor
Nov 30, 20256 min read
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