18th Party Congress Research Articles

A European road to socialism? The P.C.I., the E.E.C. and Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War

ABSTRACT After years of struggling both on domestic and international scenario, during the late 1980s the Italian Communist Party (P.C.I.) promoted an ambitious European agenda, aiming at ‘overcoming’ the bloc policy and recomposing European unity, following Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘Common European Home’ project. Thus, the P.C.I. intensified its diplomatic efforts towards both the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) and Central and Eastern Europe (C.E.E.) countries, proposing itself as a link between the Western Socialists and the most change-oriented Communist parties towards a renewed and unified ‘European Left’. During the 18th Party Congress, held in March 1989, the P.C.I. launched the ‘European Road to Socialism’, supporting European integration as the only possible way to maintain the social achievements of the workers’ movement. The sudden transition of Central and Eastern Europe countries towards a Western-style market economy stopped this project, accelerating the P.C.I.’s own transition towards post-Communism.

Characteristics and laws of youth values cultivation in the new era

Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee has stood at the strategic height of the development of the new era and paid more attention to the education and guidance of the worldview, outlook on life and values of youth groups. Doing a good job in leading and cultivating youth values and actively cultivating youth socialist core values have become the requirements of the times for national development and policy orientation in the new era. Leading and cultivating contemporary youth values is conducive to a comprehensive analysis and in-depth understanding of the current situation of youth values, guiding youth to correct their personal ideological and political quality, moral quality and psychological quality with socialist core values, and promoting the effective improvement of the comprehensive quality of youth.

Research on the Problems and Countermeasures of Digital Government Construction in the County

Digital government construction is a kind of governance structure reconstruction, since the 19th Party Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly mentioned that "the world today is experiencing a great change unprecedented in a century". With the outbreak of Newcastle Pneumonia, the international environment has become increasingly complex and uncertain. The complex international environment brings new contradictions and new challenges, and there are risks and opportunities lurking in the crisis and challenges. The construction of digital government at the county and city level determines not only whether China can seize the opportunity in this period, dare to challenge, rise to the challenge and move forward, but also whether China can use digital technology and other technical means to guide public opinion, reflect public opinion and collect information to make accurate and scientific decisions in this period full of opportunities and challenges, so as to avoid crises, seize opportunities and turn crises into opportunities in a timely and accurate manner.

Film and TV Experimental Teaching and Cultivation of Innovative Talents

<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Film and television talents is one of the most important talents in the direction of film and television culture in China. Therefore, how to cultivate outstanding film and television talents is an issue worthy of in-depth study and discussion. With the rapid development of the times, traditional film and television talents have been eliminated by the times. The education of innovative and entrepreneurial talents has become a new concept of international education, and it’s an important component of comprehensive quality education for college students at home and abroad. At present, China’s higher education has entered the stage of popular development. The 17th Party Congress put forward the development ideas of “raising the capacity for independent innovation, building an innovative country” and “promoting employment through entrepreneurship”. Talents training in universities must also adapt to this development trend and change the mode of talent training to focus on cultivating innovative and entrepreneurial talents.</span>

Of Constitutions, Campaigns and Commissions: A Century of Democratic Centralism under the CCP

AbstractDemocratic centralism, a hallmark of Leninist party organizations, has played a formative role in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet despite being hailed as an “inviolable” and “unchanging” Party principle, understandings of democratic centralism have shifted dramatically over the century of its existence. This study traces the long arc of the concept's evolution across successive Party Constitutions, focusing on three critical historical junctures: the Sixth Party Congress, which formally adopted democratic centralism into its Constitution as an organizational principle; the Seventh Party Congress, which adopted rectification as the Party's practice of democratic centralism; and the 19th Party Congress, which set a new milestone in codifying the system as a disciplinary tool. I argue that while democratic centralism exemplifies the CCP's institutional plasticity and adaptive governance and is critical to understanding Party-driven constitutionalism in contemporary China, it also highlights an irresolvable paradox inherent in Party rule. Adaptability does not necessarily impart resilience. I conclude that the CCP's normatively unconstrained extra-constitutional leadership under Xi Jinping highlights the essentially and increasingly irrationalist aspects of its illiberal governance project.

Study on the Financial Performance of Yunnan Baiyao in the Context of Mixed Ownership Reform

Since the 18th Party Congress, the reform of state-owned enterprises has entered a pilot phase and accelerated. To improve corporate performance, a large number of outstanding enterprises have carried out mixed ownership reform. As a major restructured enterprise in Yunnan Province, Yunnan Baiyao's performance capability has been declining year by year under the influence of medical industry consolidation, but its brand value is high, so Yunnan's state-owned assets department has carried out mixed ownership reform of Yunnan Baiyao in order to be able to improve the financial performance of the enterprise. Using Yunnan Baiyao as a case study, this paper describes the process and motivation of the mixed ownership reform of Yunnan Baiyao, and analyzes the financial performance of Yunnan Baiyao before and after the mixed ownership reform in four dimensions, including profitability, solvency, development, and operational capacity, and the results show that the financial performance of the enterprise has been enhanced after the mixed ownership.

“ONE COUNTRY, TWO HISTORIES”: HOW PRC AND WESTERN NARRATIVES OF CHINA’S PRE-IMPERIAL AND IMPERIAL PAST DIVERGE

The 19th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress, held in October 2017, enshrined not just Xi Jinping's grip on power. It also re-coated its ideology with a medley of Socialist and traditionalist buzz words that had been marginalized in the 1980s. During the height of the reform era, these increasingly made way for ideas borrowed from market economies. Predictably enough, the ideological ferment surrounding the 19th Party Congress has since also played out in the realm of education. This article examines in detail the most current history textbooks used in PRC classrooms to construe China's pre-Imperial and Imperial past. To that end, included in my exploration will not just be changing PRC attitudes to the Chinese past, but also PRC instruction of world history from antiquity to the early modern era. In passing, I will also compare the school material with the latest authoritative Western scholarly studies of the same topics by way of eliciting how PRC official historical narratives of events preceding the 20th century diverge from Western ones.

Soviet Democracy and Repression in the Late 1930s

Soviet Democracy and Repression in the Late 1930s Olena Palko Samantha Lomb, Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution. 177 pp. New York: Routledge, 2018. ISBN: 978-1315194004 (e-book). Open access. Olga Velikanova, Mass Political Culture under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936. 260 pp. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. ISBN 978-3319784427. $109.00. In late January 1934, the leaders and members of the Communist Party, inspired by the results of the First Five-Year Plan, gathered in Moscow to celebrate the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union. The 17th Party Congress, dubbed the “Congress of the Victors,” highly praised the socialist achievements that included, among others, the success of the collectivization campaign and progress toward a modernized, industrialized country. The party leaders also announced their objectives for the Second Five-Year Plan—to overcome the remaining capitalist elements and class divisions in society and to mold all laborers into conscious and active citizens. Thus the narrow sectarian and class-based approach of the previous decades as reflected in the Soviet Constitution of 1924 became obsolete. A new social contract needed to be adopted, reflecting these dramatic changes in the social sphere. The draft of the new constitution was submitted to public discussion on 12 June 1936. By the end of the six-month all-union debate, more than 43 million people had taken part in its discussion, with some 43,000 suggested changes submitted. Although most of these comments were ignored, Stalin’s Constitution, adopted on 5 December 1936, was regarded as the most democratic in the world. It anticipated a classless, socialist society and promised [End Page 201] universal suffrage and secret elections. It guaranteed personal freedoms and recognized many social rights, including the rights to work, rest and leisure, health care, housing, and education. Most importantly, by inviting the public to participate in the discussion of the draft constitution, the party declared its trust in the Soviet populace, recognizing their decisive role in socialist construction. These personal freedoms and civil rights, however, became a dead letter once the unprecedented campaign of political repression was unleashed by People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) Order no. 00447 of 30 July 1937. The two books under review examine popular opinion regarding the draft constitution. Both scholars follow the same line of argument and, as such, complement each other. Olga Velikanova draws on sources from the central archives to reflect on the broader phenomenon of Soviet political culture of the 1930s, whereas Samantha Lomb shifts readers’ attention away from the party headquarters in Moscow to the local level and examines the discourse between central state leadership and citizens about the new Soviet social contract in the Kirov region. Despite a similar research focus, argument, and scarce scholarship on the popular discussion of the 1936 Constitution, it is noteworthy that neither of the scholars seems to be aware of each other’s work; there are no references to or “communication” between their approaches in their books.1 For Velikanova, the public discussion of the 1936 Constitution serves as one of the parameters to measure mass political culture under Stalin. She focuses on examining the evolution of society’s mindset—the thoughts, beliefs, and opinions of Soviet people. Perhaps this focus on political culture in transition explains her lengthy digressions into the entirety of Soviet social and economic history, with abundant references to Putin’s Russia in addition. With such a broad historical context to cover, the author unsurprisingly relies heavily on secondary literature. Thus many parts of Mass Political Culture under Stalinism resemble a literature review. Those parts that do deal with the 1936 Constitution and its popular reception utilize, as the author herself has admitted, previously studied primary sources from central party and secret services archives.2 Both studies build upon J. Arch Getty’s conclusions, [End Page 202] outlined in his 1991 seminal article on state and society under Stalin. Based on his research in the central party archives, Getty saw “a genuine extension of popular participation” as a primary motivation behind adoption of the new constitution and its public discussion union-wide. The unsatisfactory outcomes...

“One country, two histories”: how PRC and western narratives of Chinese modernity diverge

Held in October 2017, the 19th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress enshrined not just Xi Jinping's grip on power. It also re-coated its ideology with a medley of Socialist and traditionalist buzz words that had been marginalized in the 1980s. During the height of the reform era, these increasingly made way for ideas borrowed from market economies. Predictably enough, the ideological ferment surrounding the 19th Party Congress has since also played out in the realm of education. This article examines in detail the most current history textbooks used in PRC classrooms to construe China's recent past. To that end, included in my exploration will not just be changing PRC attitudes to Chinese modern history, but also PRC instruction of world history. In passing, I will also compare the school material with the latest authoritative Western scholarly studies of the same topics by way of eliciting how PRC official historical narratives of 19th–20th century events diverge from Western ones. A better understanding of those narratives is crucial to predicting how the PRC will behave on the world stage as an emerging global superpower.

Multiple Shades of China’s Taiwan Policy after the 19th Party Congress

The study begins with descriptions of the changing political landscape of Taiwan’s domestic politics and China’s increasingly influential role in global politics to show the strategic terrain of asymmetric relations between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan (cross-Strait relations) and some lessons of Taiwan’s 2016 elections. It attempts to delineate the 19th Party Congress report for meaningful contemplation of and conjecture about China’s purposes and policies in dealing with the prickly Taiwan issue. In essence, China’s policy under Xi Jinping after the 19th Party Congress has been characterized by a dualist approach in which a soft power charm offensive has been the primary strategy to appeal to the Taiwanese public, whereas coercive measures in the diplomatic arena and military sphere have served as the supplementary approach to pressure the Democratic Progressive Party government.

Post-Congress China

China is on the right track for undertaking the ambitious reforms announced at the 19th Party Congress. Growth strengthened in 2017 amidst fiscal tightening and prudent monetary policy, though the trade war entailed temporary disturbances in late 2018. The shift from quantitative to qualitative growth in the coming &#8220;New Era&#8221; does not depend on present geopolitical uncertainties in its orientation. The long- term restructuring of the economy investigated in this article, including the project for a new paradigm of globalization by 2050, can be read without worrying too much about the vagaries of current US policy.China is entering a new era because the main contradiction that drives development has changed. The former contradiction was the scarcity of goods and services produced in the economy, which led to poverty and required enforced industrialization to lift people out of it. Since the goal is now moderate prosperity, the main contradiction lies in the imbalances generated by past and present development.Promoting the quality of growth aims first and foremost at reaching the technological frontier through innovation (digital economy, new energies and networks). It aims also at restructuring cities to achieve a harmonized urban/rural development and rethinking mobility. Migrants between the countryside and city should be able to retain their social rights when they move.To fulfill the promise of prosperity in the socialist economy, the core reforms on the demand side involve centralizing social security, unifying retirement regimes and reforming the tax system to reduce the disparities between regions. Public goods must be delivered throughout the country through tax and transfer mechanisms, so that less-favored regions are not forced to resort to excessive indebtedness to provide the common goods and services to which people are entitled.The &#8220;New Era&#8221; also has a global dimension. Recovering great power status under the full restoration of the Middle Empire for the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the People&#8217;s Republic of China is an ambition to be fulfilled through restructuring the world economy, according to the mammoth project &#8220;One Belt, One Road&#8221; (OBOR). This is intended to set out a new concept of globalization.OBOR opens opportunities to recipient countries that are infrastructure- constrained, where a lack of public goods is hindering their development. OBOR also constitutes a platform to push China&#8217;s soft power across Eurasia, strengthening economic linkages through trade, capital flows and construction deals. The OBOR initiative will successfully strengthen Asian integration, since China will become the world&#8217;s leading economic power before 2030. This is why the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) complements OBOR.

China in the Post-Xi Jinping Era May Well Be Different

China in the Post-Xi Jinping Era May Well Be Different Lance L.P. Gore (bio) The United States and China are parting ways. The United States, along with the West in general, has abandoned the hope that China would become more liberal and democratic once it becomes more affluent. That hope had undergirded the United States' engagement policy for more than three decades. It was the primary argument of the Clinton administration for giving the green light for China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. But it has become widely accepted that the engagement has failed. With dissipated hope, tough policies to confront China in every conceivable way are proposed with a vengeance. "All-government" or even "all-society" responses to the challenges posed by China's rise are advocated in the United States and elsewhere. The ideological thrust of this new "containment" is unmistakable in the bipartisan consensus in US Congress, which recently passed the "Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act" and the "Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act" with overwhelming majorities. Taiwan is once again held as the beacon of democracy for Chinese societies. The United States has reiterated the commitment to Taiwan's defence against the communist threat from the Mainland, whereas barely a decade ago it talked about giving up on Taiwan in exchange for the group of two (G2) cooperation with China. In its thinly veiled Indo-Pacific strategy, America is rebuilding its old Cold War treaty alliances and forming new partnerships against China. In short, the world is facing the prospect of a new Cold War—a war between competing world orders, political and economic systems and visions for humanity. It is precipitated by a dramatic left turn in Chinese domestic politics under the stewardship of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Riding on the rapid rise of China on the world stage, especially following the 2008 financial crisis, China has gained confidence in its own "road, theory, system and culture"—the so-called "four confidences" espoused by Xi ever since he took over. The 19th Party Congress offered "the Chinese alternative" to developing countries. Liberal democracies, in particular the United States, feel threatened by the resurgence of a communist state almost three decades after the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Old anti-communist urges are being revived and "Cold Warriors" are drawing new battle lines against China. [End Page 3] The incipient new Cold War is, however, based on the assumption that China will continue on the current trajectory, with its values, ideological outlook and an authoritarian political system inherently incompatible with liberal democracy. The United States sees China posing a serious threat to the liberal democratic ideal, a threat which has to be contained if not defeated like the former Soviet Union. The new Cold War is also expected to be a long drawn-out battle because China's 2018 amendments to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which now includes a new official ideology dubbed "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" and has dropped the term limits for the state president and vice president, suggest that China would stay on its current course for a long time to come. In this special issue, the articles put this assumption under close examination. The starting point is the belief that the trajectory of Chinese politics, and any other politics for that matter, is not cast in stone by Xi's policies and political line during his tenure. While Xi may dominate the political agenda for a long time to come, other senior leaders could also influence policies in a variety of ways and the post-Xi Jinping era will arrive eventually. The likely changes and continuity in the post-Xi era would have tremendous bearing on the course of US–China relations and the direction of world history, which would be determined, to a great extent, by the characteristics of the post-Xi generation Chinese leadership and the sociopolitical context in which they operate. This special issue identifies and examines the characteristics of the political elite most likely to succeed Xi and his cohort...

The Cadre Resignation Tide in the Wake of the 18th Party Congress

The Cadre Resignation Tide in the Wake of the 18th Party Congress

How Xi Jinping Enhances Power and Legitimacy through Institutional Adaptation: Assessing China’s the 19th Party Congress

How Xi Jinping Enhances Power and Legitimacy through Institutional Adaptation: Assessing China’s the 19th Party Congress

Anti-corruption, Tax Enforcement and Private Firms’ Tax-Avoidance

From a theoretical perspective (Vishny and Shleify, 1993), corruption in tax reduces costs. Using firm-level cross-country data, an important paper by Alm, et al. (2016) provides evidence that it is corruption that largely drives higher levels of tax-avoidance. According to the above conclusions, when a country or region takes anti-corruption and tax inspectors no longer dare to accept bribes, will the degree of tax-avoidance of firms naturally decline? The conclusions of this paper show that things are not that simple. In China, private firms can be divided into conservative tax-avoidance private firms and aggressive tax-avoidance private firms according to the income tax rate and the inspection and supervision from the government and other firms. Aggressive tax-avoidance private firms achieve higher degree of tax-avoidance through rent-seeking before the anti-corruption campaign since the 18th Party Congress in China. Using the sample of Chinese listed private firms during 2009-2016, we choose the private firms which are conservative in tax-avoidance as a control group and use the DID method to assess the impact of the recent anti-corruption campaign in China on tax-avoidance of aggressive tax-avoidance private firms. The empirical results show that the recent anti-corruption campaign in China enhances rather than lowers the degree of tax-avoidance of aggressive tax-avoidance private firms. We employ and develop the theory model initiated by Mookherjee and Png (1995) to explain this conflict. We find it is obvious that the degree of tax-avoidance of firms will decline as tax inspectors become less corrupt when information is symmetric between firms and tax inspectors or the inspector intensity of tax inspectors keeps constant before and after the anti-corruption campaign. However, the symmetry of information between the two parties is a very strong assumption. Under the condition of information asymmetry, if the performance incentives for the honest inspection and the penalty for the collusion set by the government meet the conditions of tax corruption, bribes will give tax inspectors stronger incentives to inspect. When the government increases the penalty for corruption of tax inspectors, the latter will choose a lower intensity of inspection, providing a more tax-free environment for aggressive tax-avoiding private firms. In spite that firms choose a lower degree of tax-avoidance in a certain intensity of tax inspection, the equilibrium of firms and tax inspectors may still be manifested as an increase in the degree of firms’ tax-avoidance. Bribery is an inefficient way to motivate tax inspectors. By increasing the penalty for corruption of tax inspectors and providing higher performance rewards or greater promotion prospects, the government can simultaneously achieve the dual goals of eliminating tax corruption and reducing firms’ tax-avoidance. During the anti-corruption campaign in China, the ouster” of senior tax inspectors will provide unexpected promotion for junior tax inspectors. Using this natural experiment” condition of the position vacancies of the ouster” of senior tax inspectors as a measurement of promotion for junior tax inspectors, this paper also examines the impact of promotion prospects of tax inspectors on the degree of tax-avoidance of aggressive tax-avoidance private firms. The empirical results show that ceteris paribus, the promotion prospects of tax law enforcement personnel are negatively related to the degree of tax-avoidance of aggressive tax-avoidance private firms. Promotion prospects have a reverse adjustment effect on the degree of tax-avoidance of aggressive tax-avoidance private firms due to the anti-corruption campaign in China. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: First, the existing literature is less empirically examining how the dynamic changes in the level of corruption of tax inspectors in a country or region affect the degree of tax-avoidance of firms. Using the exogenous shocks provided by the anti-corruption campaign in China, we make up for this deficiency and enrich the relevant literature on anti-corruption (corruption) economics. Second, based on the Mookherjee and Png (1995) model, this paper expands the scope of incentives for client granted by the agent, from simple material incentives to material and political (promotion prospects) incentives. In China’s political system, promotion is a very important incentive for government employees. Our empirical results also show that promotion prospect is an effective incentive to improve tax inspectors’ inspection intensity. This treatment has a stronger explain ability to Chinese economic phenomena.

“Xi Jinping Thought”

Introduction: A context of epochal change Xi Jinping’s full report to the 19th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in October 2017 seeks to “ensure and improve living standards through sustainable development;” it condones market “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang 改 革 开 放) and encourages Chinese enterprises to “go out” (zou chuqu 走出去) especially along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (2017: 2). China’s relatively slow growth rate since 2009 has required a re...

The Evolution and Differentiation of Economic Convergence of Resource-based Cities in Northeast China

A key target of the overall strategy implementation for regional development since the 18th Party Congress of China has involved taking measures to narrow regional disparities. This is because resource-based cities’ economic development has fallen below general levels due to resource exhaustion and an unbalanced industrial structure, among other factors. Further, an economic gap has long existed between Northeast China’s large number of resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities. This article comprehensively studies the economic convergence of Northeast China’s resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities from 1996 to 2015 by using a dynamic panel to analyze not only the economic development of different industries and types of cities, but also the main factors that influence economic development. The empirical results demonstrate that economic convergence exists in both resource-based and non-resource-based cities, but the economic gap between them has clearly narrowed since the implementation of a strategy to revitalize the Northeast’s old industrial base. Shrinking cities are the fastest to converge, as mature cities are slower and regenerating cities are the slowest; regarding industry structure, the secondary industry dominates the economy in mature and shrinking cities, and the tertiary industry in regenerating cities. The primary stimulus in resource-based cities’ economic development involves upgrading the industrial structure and investing in human capital. As China faces a ‘new normal’ economy, resource-based cities in Northeast China should restructure the economy and perfect their market system to avoid again widening the economic gap.

China’s New Guiding Ideology: The Unfolding of the Xi Jinping Era

Unveiled at the 19th Party Congress, China’s new guiding ideology of “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” offers a blueprint for development to mid-21st century. Xi is in a position to demand loyalty, enforce strict discipline and fight the centrifugal forces within the Party. Domestically Xi faces the challenge of motivating the cadre corps demoralised by anti-corruption campaigns. Internationally a more assertive foreign policy is expected.

Xi Jinping’s Building of a New Central Leadership at the 19th Party Congress

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China announced its new central leadership, namely, the 19th Central Committee and the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, in October 2017. President Xi Jinping directly led the selection of the candidates. Through this congress, he has hence taken a significant step to place his forces and strengthened his grip on the military.

Introduction

Introduction Bhubhindar Singh (bio) This Asia Policy roundtable grew out of the workshop "Contesting Visions of Regional Order in East Asia" convened in November 2017 in Singapore by the Regional Security Architecture Programme—a research unit of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). This workshop focused on the very important and much discussed topic of the evolving East Asian regional order. It considered the various visions of this order and analyzed the responses from regional states. A common view within the academic and policy communities of East Asia is that the region is in a period of transition. While one could argue that this is a perennial feature of any regional order, the current transition in East Asia is unique in its own right. This is due to the fast-changing developments in the region that have escalated tensions and uncertainty. Some of the issues that contribute to this negative scenario are growing competition between the United States and China, increasingly strained relations between China and Japan, North Korea's significant progress in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs despite international sanctions, and the fracture and disunity, perceived or real, within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Though the rise of tensions from these issues could be explained in a variety of ways, it is critical to note that these strategic challenges have escalated in seriousness under the specific condition of a transitioning East Asian order. One could argue that the common cause of these issues is the weakening or decline of the aging U.S.-led regional order. The U.S.-led regional order, which is defined by several features, including the hub-and-spoke system of alliances, has been an important source of stability since the end of World War II. During the Cold War, it overcame the challenge posed by Communism and brought economic progress to East Asia. This U.S.-led order continued into the post–Cold War period, during which the United States was the sole superpower. The U.S. economic, political, and strategic presence in East Asia has evolved through the expansion of strategic partnerships with East Asian states; greater engagement in multilateral political, economic, [End Page 2] and security arrangements (such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus); and the strengthening of the network of bilateral alliances. However, this order is increasingly strained, especially in the post-2010 period. Some have even argued that U.S. primacy has ended, and we are ushering in a new world order in which China's leadership will expand.1 The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House has hastened the collapse of Pax Americana through the implementation of "America-first" and anti-globalization policies and the questioning of the value of the U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea. China has emerged as the main potential challenger to the U.S.-led order.2 Though it has benefited from the U.S.-led postwar order, China is widely believed to desire an alternative order that would allow it to pursue its interests as an emerging power unhindered by existing rules and norms. This push is visible in China's efforts to launch the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank under the strong leadership of President Xi Jinping—a leader who has enshrined his name in the Chinese constitution alongside Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. In the completed 19th Party Congress held in October 2017, President Xi announced that China is on the path of being a "great modern socialist country," and "a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence" by 2050.3 With bold initiatives supported by strong leadership and vast amount resources, it is not far-fetched to argue that Beijing will achieve its goal of building a Chinese-led order in the near future. However, the picture of the evolving regional order is more complex than the situation described above. Much about the U.S. and Chinese approaches toward the East Asian regional order, as well as these countries' attitudes toward each other's role in the region...