NEW YORK – China’s successful transformation from a middle-income country to a modern, high-income country will depend largely on the reform…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – Ruling elites almost everywhere – whether in democracies or in authoritarian regimes – believe that clever sloganeer…

BEIJING – In the last 200 years, there have been more than 250 cases of sovereign-debt default, and 68 cases of domestic-debt default. None …

CAMBRIDGE – On the question of how the evolving relationship between the United States and China will influence the international order, the…

NOTTINGHAM – North Korea’s third nuclear test is a game changer not only for the United States and Japan, but also for the regime’s last all…

SHANGHAI – China’s economy is at a crossroads. As 2013 begins, foreign and domestic observers alike are asking which path the country’s econ…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – One question that should have been asked about the Chinese Communist Party’s just-completed leadership transition is…

BEIJING – On November 15 Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commi…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – Sometimes the books that a country’s top leaders read can reveal a lot about what they are thinking. So one of the b…

HONG KONG – After less than 100 days in office, C.Y. Leung, Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive, is already in political intensive care. In reco…

BEIJING – If the recent tension between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea is any indication, relations between the…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – China’s current economic slowdown has no shortage of causes: Europe’s financial turmoil, sputtering recovery in the …

SINGAPORE – Behind a veil of secrecy, China’s development of strategic and tactical missiles is well into its third generation of modernizat…

NEW YORK – The compelling drama of former Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai’s ouster amid allegations of corruption and murder, and o…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – Political scandals sometimes perform a valuable function in cleansing governments. They destroy the political career…

HONG KONG – Henry Kissinger, who learned a thing or two about political paranoia as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and Secretary …

LONDON – You would think that the British, having practically invented appeasement, and paid a heavy price for it, would know better. But ap…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – When sound economic advice is divorced from political reality, it probably will not be very useful advice. The histo…

HONG KONG – Political mayhem has broken out in Hong Kong, and has caught China’s government, already in the midst of a delicate political tr…

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – When US President Richard Nixon embarked on his historic trip to China 40 years ago, he could not have imagined what…

NOTTINGHAM – In vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s draft resolution on Syria, China claims that it has acted in the interests of …

LONDON – At first, it seems difficult to grasp: global capital is flowing from poor to rich countries. Emerging-market countries run current…

LONDON – No sooner had I finished reading an article that eulogized Václav Havel, the playwright turned dissident turned peaceful revolution…

WASHINGTON, DC – China had an advanced and prosperous civilization for millennia until the eighteenth century, but then degenerated into a v…

NEW YORK – China’s economy is now taking its next great leap forward: parts of its manufacturing sector are now moving up the value-added ch…