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In August 1988, the European Community established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, ending the 30-year-long policy of mutual non-recognition, ignorance, and hostility. This step secured the unconditional recognition by the USSR of the reality of the European Community, including the application of Community law to West Berlin. The reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev since 1985 made this normalisation possible. Equally important was the rise of the Community as an independent international ...

Xi-Jinping won a third term in China's top job, as secretary general of the Communist Party, at its Congress in October, solidifying his grip on power over a country which has become increasingly autocratic and abrasive in its foreign policy during his 10-year reign to date. Xi's re-election for a third term broke with China's recent tradition of leaders being replaced after two terms, in a sign he will yield power in a manner reminiscent of communist China's founder Mao Zedong. His new reign begins ...

The 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opened in Beijing on 16 October 2022. Its main task is, in theory, to decide on the composition of the Central Committee, which in the legal fiction in turn decides, immediately following the Congress, whether to grant current General Secretary Xi a third mandate, and determines the composition of the Standing Committee of the Politburo (SCPB). Observers are alert for any sign that the principle of collective leadership has eroded further and ...

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was one of the most tragic periods in China's history. It unleashed a decade of violence, in which more than a million Chinese died, some 16 million were banished to the countryside and many others suffered imprisonment, seizure of property, torture or humiliation. It left in its wake a shattered country, a fractured society in turmoil and a devastated economy. The Chinese Communist Party ignored the 50th anniversary on 16 May of the start of the Cultural ...

With a membership of 86.7 million in 2013 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the largest political party worldwide, representing only slightly more than six per cent of the Chinese population. The CCP is the second-longest lone-ruling communist party, in one of the world's five remaining party-states. It heads assertively towards its 100th anniversary in 2021, since contrary to numerous past forecasts of the CCP's demise, no signs of regime change in China loom on the horizon. The CCP's strong ...

Deals with the participation of women in the labour market, in the political institutions and the support infrastructures, both legal and social. Analysis of the situation of women during the 40 years of the Communist regime, allowing a better understanding of the impact of transition.