Closer To China Episodes

According to Western analysts, Trump made all the concessions – including suspending military exercises – and received from Kim nothing new and nothing concrete We’ll see Denuclearization, ultimately, will depend on the DPRK’s absolute confidence in regime security and a clear roadmap for economic development – both of which China can provide Trump and Kim may set the headlines with their pledges, but only China can make it real

To General Secretary Xi Jinping of the CPC Central Committee, China cannot be a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020 if any Chinese citizens continue living in extreme poverty The key is that the Party mobilizes its organizations and recruits its members We explore how the Party alleviates poverty, especially through the work of five levels of Party secretaries, who make poverty alleviation their highest priority

In reforming healthcare and education, what has the CPC done to manifest its role of leadership? Here’s an example of how the CPC “keeps up with the times’” by reforming, innovating, and improving its leadership capacity in all aspects of Chinese society

To understand China, understand the CPC What is the Party and how does it make decisions?

The Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group has become the Central Foreign Affairs Commission The message is clear: The CPC, the Party, is enhancing its coordination and direct control of China’s foreign policy What’s the purpose of the Party’s increasingly hands-on role in China’s diplomacy? Why now? Why broadcast it to the world? Most important for China’s foreign policy, in China’s New Era, are changes in store?

China’s success in lifting over 700 million people out of poverty appeals to African countries where extreme poverty is the most intractable problem Recently, political leaders, scholars and journalists from 12 African countries held in-depth discussions in Beijing on China’s targeted poverty-alleviation experiences How to adapt China’s experience, especially in reform and opening-up, to the local African conditions? What challenges lie ahead?

Why, after four decades, does China still need to reform and open up further? What has changed? Not changed? Should change? Never change? Reform and opening up have enabled what China calls its “peaceful rise” Can they also facilitate how China contributes to the world? Domestic and international challenges remain in the course of China’s development Much has been accomplished and much more still needs to be done

Chinese people demand better healthcare, education, social security; a cleaner environment; and reduced disparities between rich and poor We view social reform through the lens of the “Principal Contradiction,” which is now “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life” Success will be measured by the satisfaction of the people Will “satisfaction” be hard to judge? Chinese people are not shy

Why did the Communist Party of China (CPC) invite nearly 300 political parties and organizations from over 120 countries to Beijing? What was the CPC’s underlying motivation? Is China now exporting its communist ideology? What was the impact? What happened at the Dialogue is less interesting than why the Dialogue happened, and what it portends for China’s increasing engagement with the world

What is it about the CPC that makes Xi Jinping committed to enhancing its power in governing China and in engaging global governance, and how could its role develop over the next 5 or 10 years? What gives the CPC standing to organize political parties worldwide? Will other parties accept the leadership of a communist party that eschews multi-party elections? What is the CPC’s vision?

The world is facing a severe digital divide — with over 90 percent Internet penetration in highly developed countries and less than 10 percent in the least developed countries — exacerbating global imbalances How is China using the Internet to reduce its own socio-economic imbalances? How can China’s experience be leveraged internationally to help “Bridge the Digital Divide?” These issues were addressed at the fifth World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang Province

We explore three sensitive topics in governance reform Market vs government: what is optimum balance? The rule of law: how serious is leadership? Role of the Party: how does the CPC exercise leadership? Looking back, what were the challenges? Looking forward, what are the prospects? Governance reform in China is not what foreigners think One cannot understand governance reform without understanding the CPC

China is getting old before getting rich Chinese culture has long revered the elderly, but the modern market economy makes caring for the elderly difficult A typical young working couple must support four elderly parents What are the economic and social consequences when 20 percent, and then 30 percent, of the population, are retired? How to care for hundreds of millions of senior citizens? Is China prepared for aging?

What do Chinese people know about their LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community and how they have they been treated? Homosexuality in China has a complex history, with artistic and literary works But disdain and discrimination have been common How are attitudes changing? What controversies remain?

President Xi Jinping says poverty alleviation is his most important task China has lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, but still there are about 30 million in extreme poverty RL Kuhn travels throughout China to see how “targeted” poverty alleviation works, which provides help to impoverished households, each of which has its own file and customized plan, checked monthly and digitized for analysis Kuhn meets central officials, local party secretaries, visits the poor, and attends a village democratic meeting

As President Xi Jinping said, for China to truly become a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020, not a single Chinese citizen should be living in extreme poverty Robert Lawrence Kuhn goes to southwestern Guizhou Province to see how “targeted” poverty alleviation works, witnessing whole villages being relocated from mountainous areas to the ones with better living and farming conditions Officials are dispatched to remote, impoverished villages for two years Kuhn accompanies a young CPC official dealing with poor households and newly relocated villagers who seek new skills and jobs and hope for a better life

President Xi Jinping said that for China to become a “moderately prosperous society” in 2020, all extreme poverty must be eliminated RL Kuhn goes to Shanxi Province to witness how five levels of party secretaries – provincial, city, county, township, village – implement targeted poverty alleviation But is the data reliable? Is there a conflict if the officials who do the work also do the assessment? We watch third-party evaluations: specially trained university students auditing poverty alleviation in the villages

President Xi Jinping stresses that for China to become a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020, the elimination of all extreme poverty is essential Why did he propose the concept of “targeted poverty alleviation”? What does “targeted” mean? What are the “five methods” and “six precisions” in poverty alleviation? How, specifically, do targeted policies and precision measures work in practice, in tens of thousands of impoverished villages?

In this episode on economic reform, we explore rural reform, which is considered to be the cradle of reform, and state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform, an area of continuing controversy Why has rural reform taken so long? What is it about rural reform that, year after year, makes it a perennial topic at political meetings? On SOE reform, what is its history, and what are current issues and questions? Both rural and SOE reform require new thinking for the new era

In this 40th year of China’s reform and opening-up, President Xi Jinping calls for comprehensively deepening reform and further opening up Over the past four decades, what lessons have been learned? What challenges lie ahead? In this special series on China’s 40 years of reform and opening-up, we review the past to guide the future

Why has President Xi Jinping made poverty alleviation a signature priority of his leadership? China’s national goal is to realize a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020, and Xi asserts that China cannot be a “moderately prosperous society” if any of its citizens continue to live in extreme poverty So can China eliminate extreme poverty in three years? What are the challenges, the obstacles?

President Xi Jinping has made targeted poverty alleviation a cornerstone of his agenda What are the possible challenges? Corruption and falsification of data? Standardization of criteria? Long term, how can China assure that those people brought out of poverty stay out of poverty? Can poverty alleviation be sustainable? Finally, globally, can China’s experience in fighting poverty work in other developing countries?