The early 1980s saw the first glimpses of China's domestic reforms and interactions with people and economies outside China. This loosening was dangerous territory for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which had ruled with state control and minimal outside influence…
Every year since the death of Mao, it has become increasingly clear that China is on the rise and likely – though never certain – to emerge as a superpower. These four-and-a-half decades were not without setbacks, especially the economic…
On March 13, 1988, at the height of Gorbachev’s glasnost’ policy, an elderly teacher from Leningrad named Nina Andreeva published a letter in a conservative (i.e. anti-perestroika) Russian newspaper, defending traditional Soviet, indeed Stalinist, values against Gorbachev’s perestroika program.[1] The…
The security and economic landscape in the Indo-Pacific is increasingly difficult to navigate. While trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership…
This is an edited version of the original book review published in the U.S. China Perception Monitor, November 15, 2021. https://uscnpm.org/2021/11/15/review-desmond-shums-red-roulette/ Book Review: Desmond Shum, Red Roulette (Scribner, 2021); 310 pp. hardback Billed as a “tell-all” about the scandals of…
Describing Taiwan as an island is appropriate both literally and figuratively. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it lies about 100 miles off China’s southeastern coast. It is surrounded by the South China Sea to its southwest, the East China…
In January 2020, Charles Lieber, the Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was led into a federal court in Boston in a yellow jumpsuit and handcuffs. Lieber, whose lab was lavishly funded by the…
On September 3, 2015, the Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and The World Anti-Fascist War military parade was underway on the Chang An Street in Beijing. It…
In an interview with Fox Business News on May 14, U.S. President Donald Trump said, "There are many things we could do (to China). We could cut off the whole relationship." He went on to say, "Now, if you did,…
Introduction Ethiopia has emerged as one of China’s closest political and economic partners in China’s wider engagement in Africa. In exchange for infrastructure development and support in its ambitions for industrialization, Ethiopia offers business contracts for Chinese firms and has…