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America survives the Trump years
In the end, the result didn’t come as quickly or definitively as many wanted, and as the nation deserved. President Donald Trump and his remaining sycophants are still clinging to fading fantasies about fake ballots and systemic fraud. And the transition of power, if it happens, may be messy, brutish and short. But make no…
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US media shows it’s learned the lessons of 2016 in denying Trump an ‘October surprise’
With the US presidential election drawing to a close, everyone, it seems, is absorbing the lessons from the surprising 2016 contest. Pollsters, largely blamed for failing to foresee President Donald Trump’s stunning victory last time, have been busy tweaking their turnout models, adjusting their survey samples and warning that a potential ‘hidden’ Trump vote could…
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China Feels It No Longer Needs the Foreign Media. But It Still Can’t Hide.
After declaring a resounding victory against the COVID-19 pandemic, a newly-confident China so far this year has tested new sea-launched ballistic missiles, threatened Taiwan by ignoring the median line in the Taiwan Strait, expanded its erasure of Muslim Uigher culture in Xinjiang, and extended its evisceration of Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms.
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China transformed Hong Kong into a typical mainland city, almost overnight
The two decades beginning in 1997, when Britain handed this territory to China, and ending when it became like every other mainland city, were Hong Kong’s best years, and my favorite. It was a proud, optimistic place. The change of sovereignty had led to no mass exodus, no large contingent of People’s Liberation Army troops…
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Asia’s New Normal: Curbing Press Freedom
By almost every measure, press freedom in East Asia has suffered a depressing erosion lately. Professional journalists and citizen bloggers have been jailed or slapped with costly defamation suits. Media outlets have had their operating licenses threatened or revoked. Cybersecurity and fake news laws have given autocrats a new cudgel to crack down on reporting…
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Ground-up versus top-down: how the US and China effect social change
THE STRATEGIST – China’s Communist Party leaders have long understood the potency of symbols and the power to write history. It’s why Hong Kong protesters defacing the Chinese emblem with black paint and throwing a Chinese flag into the harbour were such an affront. It’s why many pro-China stalwarts here were so incensed by Hong…