Miles Yu
Columns by Miles Yu
Inside China: Storm over Russia border rages
Last week, a seemingly innocuous news item in China's state media sparked an unexpected firestorm in China and Russia, exposing the shaky foundation upon which the much-hyped Beijing-Moscow united front challenging the West and the existing geopolitical order has been built. Published November 12, 2015
Inside China: Luo Yuan: A profile in chutzpah
He is arguably China's most jingoistic senior military voice, heralded by some as a national hero while hated by many more for his unvarnished battle cries for military actions when tensions soar between Beijing and its many adversaries and rivals, including Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and most prominently, the United States. Published November 5, 2015
Inside China: Toxic voice of history
One of China's most outrageously cool superstars is a high school history teacher, wildly popular among the nation's young, who follow him online and offline in the tens of millions. Ironically, he is also one of the nation's most censored public intellectuals. Published October 22, 2015
Inside China: Marxism: The opium of the Chinese masses
Last week, Beijing hosted the inaugural "World Congress on Marxism," accompanied by much celebratory fanfare in the capital city. Over 400 luminaries, government officials and scholars from the United States, Egypt, Cuba, North Korea and more than a dozen other countries were flown in for the proletarian extravaganza. The event lasted for two days and it will be held every other year in Beijing, the newly self-anointed center of global Marxism studies. Published October 15, 2015
Inside China: The Nobel conundrum
Like all communist governments obsessed with finding every piece of tangible evidence to prove their all-around greatness, China has yearned to have genuine homegrown Nobel Prize winners to showcase the achievements of the vanguards of the Chinese proletariat. Yet, several Chinese laureates later, Beijing is finding out that Nobel glory can also be a double-edged sword. Published October 8, 2015
Inside China: The knifing of the People’s Liberation Army
At the massive Sept. 3 military parade in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping -- who meets President Obama in Washington as part of his state visit Friday -- made a surprising announcement that the PLA would cut its troop strength by 300,000, or 13 percent, to about 2 million troops. Published September 24, 2015
Inside China: Li Kai-shing, Asia’s Donald Trump, targeted as ingrate to China
With a net worth of about $30 billion, much of it in real estate investments in China and Hong Kong, Li Kai-shing is the richest man in Asia, known for his shrewd business acumen and extraordinary ability to cultivate cozy relationships with communist officials in China to strike great deals in the world's fastest growing real estate market. Published September 17, 2015
Inside China: The Party commands the gun — and writes the history
"Comrade President, the troops are ready for your inspection!" shouted the People's Liberation Army general in charge of the extravaganza. Published September 3, 2015
Inside China: Chinese parade, Russian games
As China gears up for a communist-style extravaganza with a military parade and ceremonial grandiosity next week to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II, Beijing is determined and eager to show off its military might to the world. It's also making a clear attempt to isolate Japan from the international community and send a special message of China's military might to its most distinguished guest, Russia's equally bombast-loving President Vladimir Putin. Published August 27, 2015
Inside China: Tianjin explosions cover-up exposes Beijing’s own toxic fault lines
The blasts that rocked the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin on Aug. 12 are said to have released a destructive power equivalent to an earthquake of 2.3 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the political aftershocks have been even more devastating to the Chinese government, revealing design flaws in the communist system's ability to control information and some glaringly negligent safety regulations. Published August 20, 2015
Inside China: Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s former president, says Senkaku islands belong to Japan
Key political figures in the island democracy of Taiwan are embroiled in a war of words over an explosive issue: Who owns a tiny, uninhabitable island chain in the East China Sea? Published August 6, 2015
Inside China: Liang Zhu warns of U.S. ‘historical nihilism’ plot
To denounce one's past is to doom one's present; and when one's present is doomed, one's future is ruined. That is not something from Confucius or from a Chinese fortune cookie. It is the battle cry of a fierce war on "historical nihilism" being waged by the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping, who has a doctorate degree in "scientific socialism" from China's prestigious Tsinghua University, the intramural rival of its next-door neighbor, Peking University. Published July 30, 2015
Inside China: Official: China stock crash is U.S. economic warfare
Last month's stock market crash in China was without any doubt an economic war against China covertly waged by the United States, with the direct objective of subverting the ruling Communist Party, according to the most powerful leader of China's massive state-owned corporate enterprises. Published July 23, 2015
Inside China: Stock market crash blamed on U.S. conspiracy
China's spectacular stock market crash over the past several weeks has led the world to wonder: What caused such a panic sell-off? Published July 16, 2015
Inside China: James Soong shakes up Taiwan presidential election again
He is the most enigmatic figure in Taiwanese politics. Admired by many, loathed by some but courted by most, he has commanded attention in all of the island's key elections and helped decide the outcome in the most crucial ones since Taiwan embraced full-blown democracy in the 1990s. Published July 2, 2015
Inside China: Hung Hsiu-chu’s Taiwan president nomination sign of KMT party weakness
Without the usual boisterous and contentious primary election, and without the traditional backroom wheeling and dealing among party elders and luminaries to decide their next presidential candidate, Taiwan's ruling political party, the KMT, has moved with uncharacteristic alacrity to select a political lightweight to compete against opposition Democratic Progressive Party heavyweight candidate Tsai Ing-wen in next year's election. Published June 18, 2015
Inside China: China’s government’s credibility sunk over Yangtze River ship capsize
The worst domestic maritime tragedy since China's Communists came to power — the still-unexplained capsizing of a Yangtze River cruise ship that claimed more than 440 lives in the dark of night June 1 — has generated worldwide media attention. Published June 11, 2015
Inside China: Credibility of Communist China’s revolutionary heros being challenged
The credibility of the Communist Party's long list of revolutionary military heroes is being challenged as never before by the Chinese people, who are obliged to endure state-sponsored propaganda and forced emulation of these larger-than-life communist model soldiers from kindergarten on. Published June 4, 2015
Inside China: Anti-Japanese TV propaganda dramas backfire
China's sustained, state-mobilized anti-Japanese propaganda campaign, one that has permeated the main news, arts and entertainment industries, has run into a wave of domestic criticism, as many World War II-themed anti-Japanese dramas on television have come across as bizarre, vulgar, even pornographic kitsch. The campaign is causing public revulsion and condemnation. Published May 21, 2015
Inside China: French flotilla in Shanghai fuels talk of deal with China
A French naval flotilla left Singapore and arrived in Shanghai on May 9 for a weeklong visit, fueling a wave of speculation that the timing of the rare naval visit, the first since 2013, signals the two sides may be ready to cut a deal. Published May 14, 2015