Police detained this supporter of Xu Zhiyong who had gathered with other activists outside the court Human Rights Watch accused China on Tuesday of failing to meet its people’s demands for political reform and for its pursuit of anti-corruption activists — despite its declared crackdown on graft. The New York based organization accused the Chinese […]
China is engaged in a soft-power war with America and the West. America may not have noticed this, but China has. While America takes its soft power around the world for granted, China struggles to win even the “hearts and minds” of its own citizens. “Soft power” is defined by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye […]
Relationship managers across Asia have a potently difficult year ahead as news reports continue to highlight actions and words that are anything but conducive to cooperation and understanding between regional states. When a former British ambassador to North Korea writes an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph titled “Are China, Japan and South Korea fanning the […]
In recent months, Turkey—more specifically, Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP)—has been the center of controversy and the subject of passionate debates. The other side of this political controversy is the spiritual leader of the Hizmet or Gulen Movement, Fethullah Gulen. However, as with all matters political; things are […]
Prominent Chinese legal scholar and human rights activist Xu Zhiyong (许志永) will go on trial January 22 on charges of disrupting public order. A founder of the pro-democracy New Citizens’ Movement (中国新公民运动) and an outspoken advocate of greater transparency in Chinese government, Xu has been detained since July 2013. Xu and his lawyers believe that […]
Credit: PostonPolitics.blogspot.com On January 13, Marvin Kalb, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, published an interesting post on his blog on the think tank’s website. Kalb contended that in order for Israel to stir up the peace process pot, it should publicly accept the 1967 lines as the basis for a permanent peace […]
Israeli Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni and Israeli lawyer and chief negotiator in the Israeli negotiating team with the Palestinians on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Yitzhak Molcho met with United States Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday to discuss the details of the framework that the U.S. wants Israel and […]
Our favorite long reads and blog posts from the past week.
Xi Jinping at the Steamed Bun Shop by Tutou Jueren (“Stubborn Baldy”) The Chinese Communist Party has a long tradition of using its state media as a tool to maintain its legitimacy and control its masses through party propaganda. While ancient China also used propaganda, Chairman Mao Zedong was the first Chinese leader to successfully […]
Prominent Uighur economics professor and dissident Ilham Tohti (Uighur: ئىلھام توختى, Chinese: 伊力哈木土赫提) was detained by police in Beijing on January 15, according to multiple reports. Also detained were at least six of Tohti’s students. Tohti’s family has not been informed of his whereabouts or the nature of the charges against him. The U.S. State […]
Kamran Bokhari is Vice President of Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a leading geopolitical and intelligence consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. Mr. Bokhari is a distinguished scholar and expert in Middle Eastern and South Asian affairs. He has given briefings to the U.S. and Canadian governments on important geopolitical issues in […]
Western “cultural threats” will be among several types of “unconventional security threats” targeted by China’s new National Security Committee, according to an article by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) senior colonel Gong Fangbin (公方彬). Additional “threats” the committee will target include extremist groups, cybersecurity threats, and online dissent. The article follows a familiar recent pattern of […]
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