Unless you’ve been on a different planet for the past 3 months, or don’t have children, you would know what I am referring to when I say ‘Gangnam Style’. PSY, and his catchy tune, is an international phenomenon that, through the power of You Tube, has reached virtually every computer screen and living room in […]
Last month the United Nations published a highly critical internal report in which it admitted it didn’t do enough to protect Tamil civilians in the final months of the Sri Lanka civil war. In late 2008, the UN had withdrawn staff from the northern part of the country in anticipation of the Sri Lanka government’s bloody military […]
Most male drop-outs living in Bangkok’s most notorious slum, Klong Toei, are presented with two principal career paths: speed dealer or stevedore. The first involves ducking cops, consorting with junkies and hardening your neighborhood’s rep as a crime-infested no-go zone. Klong Toei’s reputation for selling “ya ba” — pink meth tabs that smell like cotton […]
Lying in a Beijing military hospital in 1990, General Wang Zhen told a visitor he felt betrayed. Decades after he risked his life fighting for an egalitarian utopia, the ideals he held as one of Communist China’s founding fathers were being undermined by the capitalist ways of his children — business leaders in finance, aviation […]
t every South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference member states advocate strengthening regional integration through the creation of some kind of common economic union, expanding people-to-people contacts, and reclaiming South Asia’s shared heritage. No doubt engagement between these eight nations has increased over the years. Trade between the bloc and people to people contacts have […]
The passing year was the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) first opportunity to get up close and personal with the United States’ pivot back to Asia, the strategic rebalancing that looks a lot like containment. The PRC spent a lot of 2012 wrestling with contentious neighbors emboldened by the US policy, like Vietnam and the […]
“A modest man,” Winston Churchill supposedly quipped about Clement Attlee, his successor as prime minister, “but then he has so much to be modest about.” We should say the same about economists, particularly their ability to forecast anything in a useful and timely manner. Those predicting an imminent American economic decline have usually been no exception. This […]
East Asia has witnessed the recent ascent of conservative leadership amid territorial tensions – signaling not a futuristic vision for international harmony but a return to past rivalries. China‘s new leader Xi Jinping has already vowed to strengthen its military, creating what U.S. Admiral Michael McDevitt identifies as a “security dilemma” in Asia. While China understandably wants […]
Earlier this month the National Intelligence Council released its Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds report — a document that comes out once per presidential administration — mapping out likely geopolitical trends over the next two decades or so. As usual, it’s a must-read, offering comprehensive analysis of the disparate factors that will drive global politics through 2030. […]
Multinationals operating in China have been setting up factories deep in the interior in search of affordable labor. The drawback: These plants can be more than a thousand kilometers (621 miles) from the coast. For companies exporting to Europe—still one of the largest markets for Chinese goods—shipping by air from Chongqing or other inland cities […]
looking beyond borders 