Issues concerning economic and technological modernisation, party discipline and geopolitical manoeuvring were central to President Xi Jinping’s New Year's address.
India’s success as the 2026 BRICS Chair will depend on its ability to keep the group focused on functional cooperation, including health, climate finance and multilateral reform.
The political status of Tibet in relation to China has been a contentious issue. It has invoked the question of the right of a people to self-determination. Melvyn C. Goldstein’s book titled The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama presents an expounded historical account of the cultural as well as political survival of Tibet from a Western, primarily American, lens. The book’s essential objective is to define the boundaries of what he refers to as the ‘Tibet Question’ and analyse Chinese Tibetan policies in the light of the relationship shared with the US. The ‘Tibet Question’, a nationalist issue at its core, here symbolises the struggle to control territory and the representations of history and current events.
While China’s growing strategic cooperation with Russia is increasingly evident, historical and geopolitical issues still pose challenges to more coordinated collaboration.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee’s core focus was on ‘High-quality Development’ in pursuit of China’s ‘Socialist Modernisation’.
