BLOG Post #279: In Defense of Confucius Institutes 30 Oct 202029 Oct 2020 Readers may be surprised to learn that while disputes between the US and China over trade, human rights, and the pandemic are making headlines, educational exchange programs are Washington’s chief…
BLOG Post #273: Trump’s China Diversion 12 Sep 202011 Sep 2020 The Trump administration’s orchestrated attack on China is commonly assumed to stem from upset over China’s human rights violations and its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and along…
BLOG Post #267: In China, Your DNA Belongs to the State 7 Jul 202019 Jul 2020 The roundup and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people of a specific ethnic or religious group has all too many precedents in modern history. The fact that the group…
BLOG Post #264: America’s Tiananmen? 5 Jun 20206 Jun 2020 "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."--Sinclair Lewis Yesterday, June 4, is usually best remembered for the 1989 suppression in Beijing…
APB APB: “Standing Up” for Hong Kong 24 May 2020 Has Xi Jinping finally overplayed his hand? The new security law for Hong Kong may be just that. Whereas the “cultural genocide” in Xinjiang, the roundup of lawyers and journalists…
BLOG Post #262: Weaponizing the Virus 22 May 202021 May 2020 China is “the central threat of our times,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in January 2020. Since then, the Trump administration has done everything it can to pump up…
BLOG Post 260: The Coming New World Disorder 3 May 20202 May 2020 After the demise of the Soviet Union and the US intervention that crushed Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait in 1991, President George H. W. Bush pronounced a new world order.…
BLOG Post #256: NUKES: The Unmentionable Election Issue (Part 1) 9 Mar 20208 Mar 2020 Overkill More is Better One of these days, national security policy will get a few minutes of campaign debate time. And when that day occurs, perhaps—just perhaps—attention will turn to…
BLOG Post #255: Donald Trump’s Fantasy World 5 Feb 2020 House speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up Donald Trump’s speech, saying he was “shredding the truth.” It was quite a moment, and though she took some heat for such an impertinent…
BLOG Post #249: Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the Insecurity of China’s Leadership 5 Dec 20195 Dec 2019 Hong Kong is in chaos, with no sign that the protesters will yield on their demands. Mass incarceration and indoctrination of Uyghurs and other Chinese Muslims has become so widely…
BLOG Post #245: Overreach, the Achilles Heel of Autocrats 6 Oct 20196 Oct 2019 It Has Happened Here and Everywhere It seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating the democratic wave sweeping Europe in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. It seems…
BLOG Post #241: China’s Hong Kong Nightmare, and the US Response 16 Aug 201916 Aug 2019 Donald Trump has kept his promise, reportedly made to Xi Jinping in June, that Washington would "tone down" its comments on the spiraling HK protests. "Very tough situation" Trump tweeted…
ARTICLES A Few Suggested New Readings 5 Aug 20195 Aug 2019 Video: A Moving Cry for Change in Gun Laws: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/08/04/relative-of-victims-message-to-trump-dayton-ohio-mass-shooting-nr-vpx.cnn My friend and Asia scholar Mark Selden teamed up to write the following on “The Dangerous New US Consensus on…
BLOG Post #239: The US-China Trade War: A Cease-fire, Nothing More 25 Jul 201928 Jul 2019 The Financial Times reported on July 10 that Donald Trump, at his last meeting with Xi Jinping in Osaka in June, promised to “tone down” criticism of China’s actions in…
BLOG Post #238: Trump-Kim III: Making History Without Making Progress? 2 Jul 20192 Jul 2019 Taking a few steps onto North Korean soil, and posing for pictures with a friendly dictator, seem to fit Trump-era diplomacy better than a carefully laid out process. But unless…
