In recent months, veterans of China’s armed forces have staged large-scale demonstrations to demand financial compensation and other benefits they say they have not been given. The government responded in March by creating a new Ministry for Veterans’ Affairs, but many veterans remain dissatisfied. While the demonstrations have so far not broadly threatened the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy, they pose a unique challenge to President Xi Jinping’s government. To learn more about the historical context and broader significance of the veterans’ protests, WPR spoke via email with Jieren Hu, an associate professor at Tongji University’s School of Law in Shanghai. [...]
No stranger to political controversy, the International Monetary Fund may soon find itself embroiled in one that pits China’s interests against those of the United States. Beijing’s hugely ambitious international development project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, is raising fears of debt crises in the developing world, and the IMF may be called in to clean up the mess. The U.S. is poised to oppose any IMF deal providing funds that would ultimately go to pay off Belt and Road-related tabs. How the IMF handles this situation could give clues about how the institution will deal with competing [...]
