Sharp power central to China’s ‘superpower plans’
As the U.S. retreats, Beijing is talking more boldly about how it wants to change the global order and assert its own values and interests, according to Elizabeth Economy, the… Read more »
Category: Asia
China’s surveillance state: ‘totalitarian ploy’ redux
The idea of constant monitoring is not unprecedented in China. Indeed, the name of the government’s 2020 project — xueliang, or “sharp eyes” — is a throwback to a Communist party… Read more »
Why Putin abandoned Russia’s Western orientation
Less than a decade ago, it seemed self-evident that Russia, despite all of its cultural and political differences, was reclaiming its rightful place as part of the Western world. In… Read more »
Autocrats’ sharp power fails to curb activists’ U.N. role
An alliance of authoritarian states lost a bid on Friday to weaken a U.N. resolution upholding civil society activists’ role in highlighting human rights violations, according to campaigners. The United… Read more »
China: the emerging ideological struggle of the 21st Century
The new world order that China’s ruling Communist party is constructing with frightening rapidity and success is deceptively dangerous because economic and political subjugation of the rest of the world… Read more »
The real China model: ‘autocracy with democratic characteristics’?
There is a growing fear in the West that developing countries are finding the so-called “China model” more appealing than liberal democracy, notes Yuen Yuen Ang, Associate Professor of Political… Read more »
Taiwan’s example counters apologists for authoritarianism
The U.S. State Department has reportedly requested the deployment of Marines (HT:CFR) to protect the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan. The move comes against a background of China’s… Read more »
How to challenge China’s power play
The United States and China are locked in a geopolitical competition that will largely determine the rules, norms, and institutions that govern international relations in the twenty-first century, according… Read more »
Time to resist China – ‘fueling corruption & autocratic behavior in struggling democracies’
Western-style multi-party democracy is inappropriate for Asia, the Chinese state-controlled Global Times said Monday. An op-ed titled “Multi-Party System Misfit in Asian Nations” suggests that pluralist democracy is inherently divisive, and that polarization… Read more »
Time for world to stand up to China’s ‘hegemonic’ sharp power
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (left) called on the international community to “constrain” China by standing up for freedoms, casting her island’s giant neighbor as a global threat to democracy. Her… Read more »