Tesla CEO Makes Smooth Drive into China
on April 23, 2014
Tesla’s China launch, accompanied by a well-crafted publicity blitz, could help the company sell up to 5,000 cars in the market this year.
America Should Step Back from the East China Sea Dispute
on April 23, 2014
The Diaoyu Islands, which are of little real strategic or economic use, are hardly worth disrupting relations among the world’s three largest economies. It is time to put the issue back into a box.
Graft Inquiry at CNPC Uncovers Shady Deal
on April 23, 2014
A little-known deal related to an equally little-known, yet highly productive oilfield has come to light as a graft investigation unfolds at oil giant China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). A businessman with strong ties to officials is behind the deal, which generated hundreds of million in annual income for its backers, despite little investment.
Workers at CNPC Changqing Oilfield's Wangtai Block in Wuqi County, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, have speculated the oilfield would be linked to graft since a probe started to rock the company last year.
From Half the Sky to ‘Leftovers’
A Q+A with Leta Hong Fincher, Author of “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China”
on April 23, 2014
The three-plus decades since the inception of the ‘one child’ policy have resulted in a huge female shortage in China. The country is now seriously unbalanced, with 18 million more boys than girls. By 2020, there will be some 30 million surplus men in China, a condition some demographers call—in all seriousness—a male bulge.
The laws of supply and demand, which armchair social scientists seem to apply to this situation with abandon, China’s women should have the upper hand.
Former journalist and sociologist Leta Hong Fincher disagrees.
Welcome to Uighur Web—Now Watch What You Say
on April 23, 2014
China’s Internet is vast, with millions of sites and more than 618 million users. But nested within that universe is a tiny virtual community comprising just a few thousand websites where China’s Uighur, the country’s fifth-largest ethnic minority with a population of approximately 11 million, gather online to communicate in their own language and script.
June Teufel Dreyer
on April 22, 2014
June Teufel Dreyer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, where she teaches courses on China, U.S. defense policy, and international relations. She has also lectured to and taught a course for National Security Agency analysts.
Formerly Senior Far East Specialist at the Library of Congress, she has also served as an Asia policy advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and as Commissioner of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission established by the U.S. Congress. Dreyer’s most recent book is China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition, ninth edition (Pearson, 2014). A partially-completed manuscript on Sino-Japanese relations is under contract from Oxford University Press. Dreyer received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and has lived in China and Japan and paid several visits to Taiwan. She has published widely on the Chinese military, Asian-Pacific security issues, China-Taiwan relations, Sino-Japanese relations, ethnic minorities in China, and Chinese foreign policy.
Edward N. Luttwak
on April 22, 2014
Edward Luttwak is a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Washington. He has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, and a number of allied governments as well as international corporations and financial institutions. He is a frequent lecturer at universities and military colleges in the United States and abroad and has testified before several congressional committees and presidential commissions. In 2004, he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Bath (United Kingdom).
Luttwak is the author of numerous articles and several books, including The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (John Hopkins, 1976–2005); Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy (HarperCollins, 1999); The Endangered American Dream (Simon & Schuster, 1993); and Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook (Harvard, 1985), which has been published in fourteen languages. His new edition of Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Harvard, 2001) has been published in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Estonian, and Turkish as well as English editions. Luttwak serves on the editorial board of the Washington Quarterly and Geopolitique (Paris). He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, and he speaks French, Italian, and Spanish, among other languages.
Obama Faces Headwinds on Trans-Pacific Partnership in East Asia trip
on April 22, 2014
Negotiations with Japan on a 12-nation transpacific trade liberalisation deal are bogged down, while support for it is waning in Malaysia, which could pull out altogether under pressure from business concerns. Analysts say the negotiations, which are already behind schedule, run the risk of a collapse if no major agreement is reached in the next few months.
China’s Growing Human Rights Movement Can Claim Many Accomplishments
on April 22, 2014
Since Xi Jinping became president of China, there has been a sustained crackdown on advocates of democracy and civil society. A couple hundred Chinese citizens have been arrested and tried or await trial. Lawyer and activist Xu Zhiyong , a founding leader of the New Citizens’ Movement, was arrested in July; his four-year prison sentence was upheld this month. The sentences of other New Citizens’ Movement leaders, including Ding Jiaxi, Li Wei, Zhao Changquing and Zhang Baocheng, were recently announced: Each will be imprisoned for at least two years.
China Could Become the World’s Largest Christian Country
on April 22, 2014
China likely already has more Protestants—an estimated 58 million—than South Africa or Brazil, major centers of evangelical revival, and 67 million Christians in all—larger than the total population of France. More people go to church on Sunday in China than in all of Europe.