In Tiananmen Square last year, when the stolid National Museum of China reopened its doors following a costly renovation, a 31-foot-tall statue of Confucius stood outside. A short while later the statue mysteriously disappeared. The museum offered no explanation. But speculation ran high that as the decade-old effort to reinsert Confucius into Chinese society has […]
THE imagery is graphic enough. A mob scales the walls of the American embassy in the Egyptian capital, raises an Islamist banner and burns the Stars and Stripes. A female announcer dons a headscarf on state television for the first time in its 50-year-long history. Bearded police officers demonstrate for an end to the force’s […]
It is true that foreigners are never really viewed as Chinese. The sooner foreigners accept that, and learn what limitations that means, the faster they can focus on building profitable businesses. Few foreigners have lived in China for decades (even five years is considered a long time by many), so most are viewed as vagabonds […]
Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks. Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in […]
The storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday echoed events following the 2005 Danish publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that led to widespread protest in 2006 and assaults on Danish embassies around the world. Today, Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, and his government are playing the same role that his predecessor Hosni […]
Sometimes, raw courage is the only way to break political gridlock. With a flurry of bold executive decisions yesterday on foreign investment — the most extensive policy changes since his government was re-elected in 2009 — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India has rediscovered his reformist zeal. India’s consumers, media watchers and flyers will benefit from the Cabinet’s approval of […]
Many Arabs believe that the Arab Spring is a Western, and more specifically an American, plan since the days of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to divide the Middle East into smaller rival nations to breed discord and plunder their wealth. Some subscribe to the theory that recent events in Egypt, Libya, Yemen […]
A new free-trade agreement is under negotiation in the Asia-Pacific. If the talks are successful, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) will bring closer together at least 11 economies in East Asia and the Americas. But it faces many hurdles, and raises broader geopolitical issues. For example, China, the world’s second-largest economy, is not part of […]
In the latest step in its naval modernization and expansion, China recently announced that it is accelerating serial production of an advanced destroyer. This will tilt the regional balance of power at sea in its favor and put it in a stronger position to enforce its sovereignty claims over Taiwan and in the South and […]
Russia is moving toward a major military buildup even though the external military threat is at an all-time low. The Moscow leadership is committed to pursuing this military course in one form or another, convinced that a strong army is needed in the unfolding world order and that the buildup will stimulate the country’s development. Meanwhile, many adhere to the conventional theory that maintaining a large military force is […]
