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CLM Quick Takes

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CLM Quick Take

China’s Fateful Inward Turn: Beijing’s New Economic Strategy as Spelled Out by the Resolution of the CCP Central Committee’s 5th Plenum

Minxin Pei

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

At the 5th plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the end of October 2020, Chinese leaders unveiled a new strategy for sustaining economic development during the next fifteen years.  General Secretary Xi Jinping was deeply involved in the formulation of the framework underpinning the new strategy. Although aspirational and lacking in specifics, China’s new economic strategy makes it clear that Beijing will be shifting the focus of its economy inward and achieving scientific and technological self-sufficiency to improve its national security and sustain growth.  Chinese leaders frame the rationale for this shift in terms of a response to radical and unfavorable changes in the external environment.  They also will rely on a new “whole-of-nation” system to mobilize resources to achieve their objectives.  The immediate political objective of issuing this economic blueprint seems to reassure the Chinese nation that the CCP has a plan to sustain its strategic competition with the U.S.

CLM Quick Take

Hong Kong's National Security Law: An Assessment

Donald Clarke

Monday, July 13, 2020

The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “NSL” or the “Law”) was passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on June 30, 2020, promulgated on the same day, and made effective immediately upon being made public. Although mainland Chinese law is not generally part of Hong Kong’s domestic law, it can become so if made part of Annex III to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and this was done with the NSL. This essay will highlight its main points and discuss controversial areas.

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