Xi Jinping

Expected to meet Carney at APEC

Canada and China had no working channel between their financial regulators for more than seven years. On November 9, in Vancouver, they signed three.

Updated 6 hours ago

Signed the presidential order promulgating the law

China had no national law covering what its citizens, companies and ships do in Antarctica. On November 6, 2026, its legislature passed one. The Antarctic Activities and Environmental Protection Law takes effect January 1, 2027, and requires permits for expeditions, tourism and shipping.

Updated 4 days ago

US officials say invasion before 2028 is increasingly unlikely despite his 2027 readiness orders

On December 29-30, 2025, China executed its largest military drills around Taiwan to date, called Operation 'Justice Mission 2025,' deploying 130 aircraft, 22 warships, and live-fire exercises across seven zones encircling the island. Over two days, fighter jets crossed the median line, naval vessels simulated port blockades at Keelung and Kaohsiung, and PLA ground forces conducted coordinated long-range strikes both north and south of Taiwan. The drills escalated on December 30 with 10 hours of live-fire activities in designated 'temporary danger zones,' forcing cancellation of 76 domestic flights and delays to 300+ international flights affecting over 106,000 passengers. China framed the exercises as dual punishment: for the record $11 billion U.S. arms package announced December 17, and for Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi's warning that Tokyo could intervene militarily if Beijing blockades Taiwan.

Updated Nov 3

Accepted hybrid-export quotas and tariff cuts on European goods in October 2026 while keeping rare-earth export controls

In October 2026, the EU and China defused the trade war that Emmanuel Macron threatened in December 2025. The interim deal caps Chinese hybrid and plug-in hybrid car exports to Europe at 350,000 a year for four years. China, in turn, will cut tariffs on €4 billion of European goods from January 2027 and fast-track rare-earth export licences for EU buyers.

Updated Nov 2

Kim Jong Un visited China on October 24, his first trip there in over a year, after Xi's own visit to Pyongyang.

North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles from the Wonsan area toward the East Sea on October 29, South Korea's military said. The launch came as Seoul accused Pyongyang of a landmine blast that wounded three South Korean soldiers, an accusation the North denied.

Updated Nov 1

In power; expected to seek a fourth term at the 2027 party congress

Of the 376 people named to China's Central Committee in 2022, 279 attended this week's fifth plenum. The other 97 seats were empty. Party media confirmed 33 of them had been formally expelled, the largest single round of removals at such a meeting in modern Chinese history.

Updated Oct 31

Witnessed 2021 groundbreaking for Tianwan 7-8

China's nuclear safety regulator cleared the Tianwan 7 reactor to push past 25% of its rated thermal output on October 16, after a four-day inspection. The Russian-built VVER-1200 unit first sent electricity to the grid on October 8.

Updated Oct 25

In office; visited Pyongyang in June 2026

Kim Jong Un crossed the New Yalu River Bridge into the Chinese border city of Dandong on October 24, nine days after the four-lane span opened, a South Korean government source told Yonhap. China finished its half of the bridge in 2014; it sat unused while North Korea built approach roads and a customs post.

Updated Oct 24

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2012; hosted Trump in Beijing in May 2026 and visited Washington in September

President Trump and President Xi Jinping moved their countries from tariff war to summit diplomacy in 2026. After a phone call in February, Trump traveled to Beijing in May for the first U.S. presidential visit to China since 2017. The two sides agreed to a 'constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability,' a framework Beijing said would guide relations for three years.

Updated Oct 23

In office; affirmed soybean purchase commitment through 2028

Chinese state-owned trading firms booked 10 to 13 more Panamax cargoes of US soybeans on Wednesday night, the second large purchase this week and the first since President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping met in September. The two batches total 18 to 23 cargoes, roughly 1.2 to 1.5 million metric tons, shipping between December and March.

Updated Oct 19

As of October 2026: Returned to Beijing after his first state visit to Washington since 2015; agreed to attend the G20 summit in Miami in December

Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his first state visit to Washington in more than a decade with a handshake on tariffs. The United States and China agreed on $30 billion of reciprocal tariff cuts in each direction and a formal dialogue on artificial intelligence.

Updated Oct 3

As of August 2026: In office; set the country's carbon targets

For as long as China has had a modern power grid, coal has generated most of its electricity. In the first half of 2026, that ended. Coal supplied 49.7% of China's power, dropping below half for the first time.

Updated Aug 6

As of July 2026: Publicly backing the private sector after years of tighter control

China's private firms account for about 60% of its economic output and most of its urban jobs. In April 2025, they got their first dedicated legal protection. The Private Economy Promotion Law, passed by the National People's Congress Standing Committee, took effect May 20, 2025.

Updated Jul 29

As of May 2026: Oversees state media that aired the disclosure

For a year, Beijing said it was not on the battlefield. On May 8, 2026, China's state broadcaster aired interviews with two engineers from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). They said they had been stationed at Pakistani airbases during the four-day clash with India in May 2025, working alongside Pakistan Air Force crews flying Chinese-built J-10CE fighters.

Updated May 31

As of May 2026: Driving military modernization toward 2027/2035/2049 milestones; holds sole CMC operational authority after January 2026 purge of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli

China's National People's Congress formally approved a 7% defense budget to 1.94 trillion yuan ($277 billion) in March 2026, a new record, while setting the country's lowest GDP growth target since 1991. Military spending has outpaced economic growth every year for over a decade.

Updated May 31

As of May 2026: Met Trump in mid-May 2026

A year ago, the US defense secretary used the word Taiwan five times in his Shangri-La keynote. On Saturday in Singapore, Pete Hegseth did not say it once.

Updated May 30

As of May 2026: Overseeing strategic shift toward 'high-quality development'

For three decades, China's annual growth target was a formality — the economy nearly always blew past it. On March 5, Premier Li Qiang set the 2026 target at 4.5% to 5%, the lowest figure Beijing has published since it began the practice in the early 1990s. The downgrade from the previous three years' 'around 5%' signals that China's leadership now expects structurally slower expansion for the foreseeable future.

Updated May 30

As of May 2026: Overseeing the strategic direction of the 15th Five-Year Plan

China adopted five-year economic planning from the Soviet Union in 1953. The 15th Five-Year Plan, unveiled March 5, 2026 at Beijing's Two Sessions, shifts from the growth-first model (dominant since Deng Xiaoping's 1980s reforms) toward technological self-reliance and economic security. The plan earmarks $70 billion for semiconductors and targets 5% GDP growth, per Premier Li Qiang's Government Work Report.

Updated May 30

As of May 2026: Expected to attend Miami summit

The Group of Twenty, operating by consensus since 1999, hosts its December 2026 summit at Trump National Doral Miami. For the first time, it's excluding South Africa—a founding member—and seating Poland instead, the world's twentieth-largest economy.

Updated May 27

As of May 2026: Chief advocate for TCM modernization as national strategy

For over 2,000 years, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have diagnosed patients by reading pulses and examining tongues—subjective skills that take decades to master. Now AI systems are doing it in under two minutes.

Updated May 26

As of May 2026: Ordered a thorough investigation and accountability under the law

A gas explosion ripped through the Liushenyu coal mine in Shanxi Province on the evening of May 22, when 247 workers were underground. By the next day, state media reported roughly 90 dead, more than 100 hospitalized, and the mine's executives in detention.

Updated May 23

As of May 2026: Active - overseeing domestic consumption push

Every winter, China empties its cities. Some 9 billion passenger journeys—more than the total global population—occur over 40 days as hundreds of millions of migrant workers return to their home villages for Spring Festival. This is Chunyun, the largest annual human migration on Earth.

Updated May 23

As of May 2026: Presiding over unprecedented military purge

Xi Jinping appointed all seven members of China's Central Military Commission in 2022. By February 2026, only two remained: Xi and anti-corruption chief Zhang Shengmin. The investigation of Zhang Youxia, Xi's childhood friend and the PLA's most senior combat-experienced officer, marks the most dramatic purge of China's military leadership since the Cultural Revolution.

Updated May 23

As of May 2026: Declared 'complete victory' over poverty in February 2021

In 1820, more than 80% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2019, that figure had fallen to 8.9% at the then-$2.15/day line, a decline of roughly 0.35 percentage points per year sustained over two centuries.

Updated May 22

As of May 2026: In office

In April 2025, average US tariffs hit their highest level since 1943. Nine months later, the global economy is still growing. The IMF's January 2026 World Economic Outlook projects 3.3% global growth (slightly better than feared), thanks to supply-chain rerouting, surging AI investment, and a US-China truce pulling tariffs back from their 145% peak.

Updated May 22

As of May 2026: Advancing strategic ties with middle powers

Canada followed the U.S. in imposing 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in October 2024. Seventeen months later, Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to Beijing and cut them to 6.1%—the first explicit break with American trade policy since Trump began his tariff offensive.

Updated May 21

As of May 2026: Completed back-to-back hosting of Trump (May 13-15) and Putin (May 19-20); signed 40+ Russia-China agreements while holding off on pipeline pricing commitment

Trump arrived in Beijing on May 13 and left May 15 with a trade truce and Boeing jet orders. Putin followed four days later; on May 20, he and Xi signed more than 40 agreements and issued a 9,935-word declaration against US missile defenses. The gas pipeline Moscow had flagged as a 'substantial step' did not materialize.

Updated May 21

As of May 2026: Hosting Trump for May 14-15 Beijing summit; China denied supplying weapons to Iran

The legal foundation for Trump's tariff strategy collapsed on February 20 when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs. The decision voided both the 25% Iran secondary levy and other emergency-based duties on China. Trump signed a 10% global replacement under Section 122 of the Trade Act within hours, dropping China's effective rate from 47% to about 35%.

Updated May 20

As of May 2026: Committed China to carbon neutrality by 2060

China's CO2 emissions fell 1% in the first half of 2025, extending an 18-month plateau that began in March 2024. For the first time, clean power generation—not economic slowdown—has driven emissions down in the world's largest polluter. The peak may finally be structural rather than cyclical.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Directing China's 15th Five-Year Plan infrastructure push (2026-2030)

China just front-loaded $42 billion in infrastructure spending for early 2026—281 projects approved before the calendar even flipped. The U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed with $1.2 trillion in 2021, has spent just 21% of its funds as of December 2024.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Secured rare earth leverage in trade negotiations

China controls 70% of rare earth mining and 90% of refining—the 17 obscure elements that power everything from F-35 fighter jets to iPhones. In April 2025, Beijing weaponized that dominance. When Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, China retaliated by restricting exports of seven rare earth elements. By October, it expanded controls to twelve elements and invoked the foreign direct product rule, the same tool America used to choke China's chip industry. It claims jurisdiction over any product globally that touches Chinese rare earth technology.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Updated 2035 climate targets while renewable curtailment crisis deepens

In August 2023, wind turbines in China's far west nearly crashed the entire national grid. Low-frequency oscillations from poorly integrated wind farms in Xinjiang threatened a blackout across the world's most populous country. Twenty-eight months later, the crisis has intensified. In early 2025, curtailment rates nearly doubled—solar waste jumped from 3% to 5.7%, wind from 3.9% to 6.6%. Record installations overwhelmed transmission capacity. Tibet now throws away one-third of its renewable electricity. China's answer: a 750 million volt-ampere AI-controlled smart transformer and over $83 billion in annual grid investment to stabilize a system buckling under its own clean energy success.

Updated May 16

As of May 2026: Overseeing military modernization toward 2027 Taiwan capability goals

Chinese hackers have burrowed deep into America's power grids, water systems, telecommunications networks, and transportation infrastructure—not to steal secrets, but to flip a kill switch. The Pentagon's December 2024 report confirms Beijing expects to fight and win a war over Taiwan by 2027.

Updated May 16

As of May 2026: Watching a U.S. policy reversal that may still require Chinese regulatory blessing to matter

The Trump administration just did the thing Washington has spent years swearing it wouldn't do: let China buy a near-top-tier Nvidia AI chip again. Now a China hawk in Congress is demanding the Commerce Department explain, in detail, why this isn't a strategic own-goal.

Updated May 15

As of May 2026: Directing coordinated military and economic pressure on Japan while rejecting all criticism

What began with Chinese carrier fighters lighting up Japanese jets with radar near Okinawa has mushroomed into a full-spectrum crisis. After China and Russia sent bombers circling Japan, the US flew B-52s with Japanese fighters over the Sea of Japan.

Updated May 11

As of May 2026: Ultimate authority over PLA posture toward Japan and Taiwan

In early December 2025, China's Liaoning carrier strike group sailed through waters near Japan's southwest island chain and into the western Pacific. Over two days, between Okinawa's main island and Minamidaito and then east of Kikai Island, it conducted roughly 100 take-offs and landings of J-15 fighters and helicopters.

Updated May 10

As of May 2026: Counterparty in U.S.–China trade disputes and soybean purchase commitments

Since 2018, U.S. farmers have been caught in Trump-era tariff battles—first the U.S.–China trade war, now tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico, and others. To counter lost exports and depressed prices, the Trump administrations funded large farm aid through the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corporation: $12 billion in 2018, $16 billion in 2019.

Updated May 10

As of May 2026: Overseeing China’s military pressure campaign around Taiwan and the East China Sea

On December 6, 2025, two Chinese J-15 carrier fighters from the Liaoning locked fire-control radar on Japanese F-15s over international waters southeast of Okinawa. Japan's defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi called the lock-ons "dangerous" and "extremely regrettable," and Tokyo lodged a formal protest.

Updated May 10