China up close

Chinese President Xi Jinping has failed to understand the market principle that legendary entrepreneur Zong Qinghou wielded while building a fortune. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Kyodo, Getty Images, and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: Can Xi Jinping's 'buy new products' campaign fix China's economy?

Xi might be better off taking a cue from the legendary founder of Wahaha

29 February 2024
From left: Xi Jinping, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Putin. Xi and Putin play a similar game of politics that brooks no dissent. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Getty Images and Ryosuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: Xi and Putin share a trait -- they cannot show weakness

In China, a key economic meeting is on hold until Xi feels he can project strength

22 February 2024
From left: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by AP, Reuters and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: China's rising star visits U.S. over warming Putin-Kim ties

Diplomat Liu Jianchao's trip comes as Xi seeks to 'bind' with Biden over North Korea

1 February 2024
From left: national security czar Cai Qi, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. Background: the Xiongan New Area. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and Reuters)
China up close

Analysis: Balance of power between Xi's top two aides is tipping

Drama after last summer's Hebei floods suggest Cai Qi may have overtaken Li Qiang

25 January 2024
From left, Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te, Chinese President Xi Jinping and KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih. Lai will need Hou's cooperation if Taiwan is to keep China at bay. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Kento Awashima, Yusuke Hinata, and Reuters)
China up close

Analysis: In Taiwan, distrust of Xi Jinping's China is real

The sense of crisis is also shared by members of Beijing-friendly opposition parties

18 January 2024
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who needs to demonstrate he is closing in on Taiwan unification if he is to be assured of a fourth term, is preparing to turn up the heat on the democratic island's next leader. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Xinhua/Kyodo and Hiroki Endo)
China up close

Analysis: Xi Jinping's ambition to unify Taiwan motivates military purges

As the island votes for its next president, Beijing prepares to apply more pressure

11 January 2024
Vladimir Putin has been providing Xi Jinping with occasional morsels of information to keep China on Russia's side. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Getty Images and Reuters)
China up close

Analysis: Putin promises Xi to 'fight for five years' in Ukraine

Meant to keep China on Russia's side, the words in March prompted Beijing to hedge its bets

28 December 2023
Xi Jinping's government is now wielding national security concerns to hush analysts whose work shows an economic decline. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and Ken Kobayashi)
China up close

Analysis: China's spy agency now watches for doomsayers

With increasing power over 'economic security,' ministry hints at crackdown

21 December 2023
Last summer, after China appeared to be changing its stance on Russia's war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin discovered a way to put Xi Jinping back on his side.
China up close

Analysis: Did Putin's tip lead Xi to purge his foreign minister?

After Qin Gang's disappearance, Beijing changed its stance on the Ukraine war

14 December 2023
The Chinese economy is in unprecedentedly dire straits under President Xi Jinping. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and Getty Images)
China up close

Analysis: Xi-Biden summit leaves China's economic policies up in air

Key policy meeting likely postponed to 2024; Evergrande issue also left unresolved

7 December 2023
Taiwan's presidential election came up during talks between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in California on Nov. 15. In the background from left: Ko Wen-je, former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou and Hou Yu-ih. Ko and Hou are presidential candidates. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by AP, Reuters, and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: How Biden's farewell jab at Xi over Taiwan traveled across the Pacific

Days after U.S.-China summit, democratic island's opposition alliance collapsed

30 November 2023
Xi Jinping left a calligraphy-like signature in the Filoli guest book after meeting with Joe Biden on Nov. 15 outside of San Francisco, California. Perhaps the book someday will come to be seen as a kind of treaty regarding Taiwan. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and Getty Images)
China up close

Analysis: U.S. failed to catch hints Xi Jinping dropped at Filoli summit

Biden heard China had no plans to invade Taiwan, not Xi's ambitions for lifetime power

23 November 2023
While there were not a lot of smiles during the first U.S.-China summit in a year, Joe Biden did receive a thank you from Xi Jinping for how the U.S. handled protocol matters. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Reuters)
China up close

Analysis: Xi saves face by meeting Biden but accomplishes little

Back home, second-generation reds turn critical of 'personal autocracy'

17 November 2023
Xi Jinping favors "stronger and bigger" state-owned enterprises, a tenet in opposition to Li Keqiang's approach to allowing the market mechanism to allocate resources. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and CCTV/Kyodo)
China up close

Analysis: Abandonment of 'Likonomics' limits Xi Jinping's options

Key economic policy meeting delayed as leader looks for achievement he can tout

9 November 2023
A photo of the late Li Keqiang takes its place among bouquets of flowers near the residence where Li grew up in Hefei, Anhui Province, on Oct. 28. Li's death and the rivalry he had with Xi Jinping are hatching conspiracy theories.
China up close

Analysis: The mysteries and dangers that trail Li Keqiang's death

Xi Jinping's 'eternal rival' was behind this summer's Beidaihe drama

2 November 2023
Sino-Japanese relations are in their "most important phase," a Japanese source says, adding that to move them forward, a great deal of wisdom will be "essential." (Nikkei montage/Source photos by AP and Kyodo)
China up close

Analysis: Dear Japan, China asks, do you have any jobs for us?

Young Chinese search for work as arrest of Astellas executive frays Sino-Japan ties

26 October 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic policies are helping to lift property values in Japan, especially in the Niseko area of Hokkaido, left, and in Osaka's Dotonbori entertainment district. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Ken Kobayashi, Yusuke Hinata, and Yo Inoue)
China up close

Analysis: China's property market woes prompt buying spree in Japan

Buyers snap up properties they can renovate and rent out to travelers

19 October 2023
Fisherman of Sarufutsu village, Hokkaido, move scallops off their boat. The local scallop industry has gotten rich selling to China but now feels trapped by Xi Jinping's brand of politics. (File photo by Nobuo Watanabe)
China up close

Analysis: How Xi Jinping haunts remote Hokkaido fishing towns

Luxury sea cucumbers and scallops face price falls as China bans imports

12 October 2023
Xi Jinping, left, Chi Haotian, Zhang Youxia and Li Shangfu: China's leader is playing an ancient game in pitting different factions of the military against one another, all to ensure their loyalty to one man. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Reuters and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: Inside Xi Jinping's great military purge

Absences from National Day banquet reveal determination to cement army's loyalty

5 October 2023
Zhang Dejiang, left, Xi Jinping, Yu Zhengsheng and Deng Pufang. The three elder party members might hold the key to understanding the political tumult in today's China. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Reuters, Kyodo, and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: 'Third man' of Beidaihe offers clue behind China's turmoil

Xi Jinping's regime hits back by ending career of Deng Xiaoping's son

28 September 2023
Retired Gen. Chi Haotian, left, let Zeng Qinghong speak for Chinese Communist Party elders at a conclave in August, when President Xi Jinping had a lot to listen to. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Getty Images and Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: Military elder put silent pressure on Xi at Beidaihe

Officer purges and simmering discontent drove retired general to conclave

21 September 2023
With Xi Jinping absent from the G20 summit in New Delhi, Joe Biden and Narendra Modi stepped to the front of the stage with the announcement of an economic corridor to stretch from India, through the Middle East and on to Europe. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata and Ken Kobayashi)
China up close

Analysis: Biden administration detects red flags in Xiconomics

U.S. president says China's economic 'tenet' not working 'at all'

14 September 2023
Zeng Qinghong, a former vice president who played an important role in Xi Jinping's rise to power, is now at the forefront of a group of party elders checking Xi. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yusuke Hinata, Ken Kobayashi and Kyodo)
China up close

Analysis: Xi reprimanded by elders at Beidaihe over direction of nation

G20 absence hints at turmoil in Chinese domestic politics

5 September 2023
The crippled nuclear plant in Japan's Fukushima prefecture and shoppers buying up salt in Chongqing, China, on Aug. 25: Many Chinese fear water from Fukushima will poison the world's oceans. (Source photos by Getty Images and Kohnosuke Urata)
China up close

Analysis: China's Fukushima propaganda at odds with travel boom

Special lake salt disappears from shelves as consumers avoid sea products

31 August 2023
Three generations of Chinese leaders: Hu Jintao, left, Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin. Xi is thought to be attending the annual summer conclave in Beidaihe, but without the most powerful party elders. (Nikkei montage/Kyodo/Yusuke Hinata)
China up close

Analysis: Xi opens Beidaihe with no elders but plenty of challenges

Secretive conclave to discuss Taiwan unification, sour economy and U.S. ties

10 August 2023