Newsletter Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. It is one of the most important events on China’s political calendar: the full meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, known as the party plenum. President Xi Jinping convened the four-day meeting in Beijing this week amid ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong, slowing economic growth and a protracted trade war with the United States. Yet rather than deal with those outside challenges, the Central Committee is expected to look inward, focusing on weaknesses within the Communist […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a message for African leaders this week: Moscow is ready to make some deals. Putin’s government brought 43 African heads of state or government to the Black Sea resort town of Sochi for the first-ever Russia-Africa Summit. The Russians simultaneously sent a pair of nuclear-capable bombers to South Africa, apparently the first time the Soviet-era aircraft had ever landed on the continent, reinforcing both Russia’s strategic capabilities and what it might be able to offer African governments. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Last week, the Trump administration announced it would begin requiring Chinese diplomats in the United States to notify the State Department in advance of any meetings with American officials at the state or local level, as well as with educational and research institutions in the country. The move was a response to Beijing’s own rules requiring American diplomats in China to seek permission from the Chinese government before visiting institutions or meeting with local officials in an official capacity. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Key presidential elections on either end of the continent this week delivered markedly different results. While a vote in Mozambique appears to have secured a victory for the longtime ruling party, elections in Tunisia may have introduced a new political era. Tunisia’s presidential campaign, which outsider Kais Saied won in a landslide, had been full of surprises from the beginning. The vote was moved up a few months after the country’s first democratically elected president, Beji Caid Essebsi, died in office. An […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump hailed a preliminary trade agreement reached in principle with China, calling it “the greatest and biggest deal ever.” But there was no public mention of the deal in Beijing over the weekend, and Chinese state media warned against being “overly optimistic” about trade talks, leading to speculation that the deal would fall apart before even being signed. On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang finally confirmed the tentative deal and said China was […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. South Sudan’s peace deal showed signs of faltering this week ahead of a November implementation deadline. With key provisions unmet, including an agreement on the boundaries of the country’s states, opposition leader Riek Machar is now threatening to boycott the unity government that is the centerpiece of the deal. Rights groups are also faulting the signatories for failing to set up a tribunal to consider wartime atrocities. The agreement, signed in September 2018, lays out a set of requirements, including the formation […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Last Friday, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, provoked a fierce backlash from China when he tweeted in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters. The since-deleted tweet led to a number of Chinese companies pausing their ties with the NBA, which initially expressed regret for the statement but has since offered a stronger defense of Morey’s statement. China is the NBA’s largest overseas market, so NBA officials have scrambled to contain the fallout. But the situation […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. With Zambia’s National Assembly set to debate changes to the country’s constitution, President Edgar Lungu appears to be consolidating his party’s power ahead of his 2021 reelection campaign. The proposed changes would give the president unprecedented authority to remove members of the judiciary, eliminate restrictions on his ability to appoint ministers and strip the National Assembly of many of its oversight responsibilities, including fiscal controls. The amendments would also grant the parliamentary body new control over its size, which may give Lungu’s […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. “There is no force that can shake the foundation of this great nation. No force can stop the Chinese people and Chinese nation forging ahead,” President Xi Jinping said Tuesday in a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party hoped this year’s milestone celebration would showcase a unified country on the path to a “great rejuvenation.” Instead, observers around the world were treated to a much more complicated split-screen image: A giant […]