Who’s ruling China? I just found what has to be the best resource available in English to find out.
China Vitae is an online database that claims more than 4,000 biographies of Chinese political officials. They also track the movements of the officials in the form of new appointments, official government travel, and the like.
I’m not entirely sure how it came about, but its director is David D. Gries, formerly of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (video of him speaking here). The advisory board includes important academics and former diplomats, and the information looks good as far as I can tell.
What’s perplexing about it is that there’s no discernible revenue stream and no apparent disclosures about funding. All we get is that the data is owned by Wen Wei Publishing Co., which appears to publish Who’s Who-type books. Whatever. It looks like a great reference.
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