Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
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A century of the Communist Party of China: no Great Wall
In the final piece in the series, CARLOS MARTINEZ looks at how market reforms and ‘opening up’ after 1978 built on the first 30 years of the revolution, rather than reversing it
Washington’s lawless behaviour towards countries in the region it considers its ‘back yard’ should be condemned by all law-abiding people, says LUKE DANIELS
In part I of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY takes a look at the early days of organising government workers
Colombia’s success in controlling the drug trade should be recognised and its sovereignty respected, argues Dr GLORY SAAVEDRA
The shadow lord chancellor has recently made a name for himself as an rabid hater of immigration – but there are exceptions to every rule, says SOLOMON HUGHES
Plaid Cymru’s front-bench spokesman on health and social services MABON AP GWYNFOR, in a two-part series, analyses the Caerphilly by-election and the wider political scene in Wales ahead of the 2026 Senedd election
MANY consider that “reform and opening up” was a total transformation of Chinese economics and politics and a negation of the first three decades of socialist construction.
Certainly, the strategy adopted by the Deng Xiaoping leadership from 1978 was in part designed to correct certain mistakes and imbalances; however, it was also a response to changing objective circumstances — specifically, a more favourable international environment resulting from the restoration of Beijing’s seat at the United Nations (1971) and the rapprochement between China and the US.
Thomas Orlik, chief economist at Bloomberg Economics, correctly observes that, “When Deng Xiaoping launched the reform and opening process, friendly relations with the United States provided the crucial underpinning. The path for Chinese goods to enter global markets was open.”
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