https://www.scmp.com/rss/326132/feed Philip J. Cunningham has been a regular visitor to China since 1983, working variously as a tour guide, TV producer, freelance writer, independent scholar and teacher. He has conducted media research in China as a Knight Fellow and Fulbright Scholar and was the recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. He is the author of Tiananmen Moon, a first-hand account of the 1989 protests in Beijing. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Recent weeks have seen US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen fly to Beijing, and climate envoy John Kerry is due to make the journey this weekend. CCTV news reports give the impression of a Beijing awash in foreign visitors coming to pay their respects. There’s an argument to be made that Chinese diplomacy values face above all else. China’s long dynastic history is replete with examples of treating foreign visitors, even from comparably powerful countries, as... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3227639/if-us-officials-have-cross-ocean-meet-chinas-leader-so-be-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3227639/if-us-officials-have-cross-ocean-meet-chinas-leader-so-be-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jul 2023 00:15:16 +0000 Is Xiongan a new Pudong or a Potemkin? Is it the latest Shenzhen or just a Shangri-la? President Xi Jinping took a bullish attitude during his recent inspection of the city-in-progress, describing it as “sophisticated” and “a miracle”. He also said practice had shown the Communist Party Central Committee’s decision on building the Xiongan New Area is “entirely correct”. Xiongan is a done deal, politically, given that it’s a prestige project backed by the party, but the build is still incomplete... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3220507/strict-city-planning-lack-dynamism-could-limit-xiongans-growth-its-even-finished?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3220507/strict-city-planning-lack-dynamism-could-limit-xiongans-growth-its-even-finished?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 May 2023 08:15:07 +0000 It is too soon to say for sure that Qin Gang’s appointment as China’s new foreign minister will lead to an improvement in US-China relations, but it’s possible it might. It’s not that policy will change – Qin is not in a position to call the shots – but his replacement of the veteran Wang Yi represents a welcome change of tone. Diplomats are tasked to perform for their countries, and sometimes it is not the hard delivery of policy under the spotlight but the soft public relations efforts on the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3205803/us-china-relations-new-foreign-minister-qin-gang-offers-some-hope-calmer-days-ahead?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3205803/us-china-relations-new-foreign-minister-qin-gang-offers-some-hope-calmer-days-ahead?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Jan 2023 00:15:09 +0000 Space exploration, once a spirited rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, has now become a contest between the US and China. Recent weeks have seen advances in the space programmes of both countries, and these advances have left Russia in the cosmic dust. A powerful new US rocket propelled an uncrewed module to the moon and beyond while the International Space Station, primarily funded and run by the US, continues to do good science. Meanwhile, China’s newly expanded Tiangong... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3202379/artemis-tiangong-successes-us-china-space-race-leave-russia-eating-cosmic-dust?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3202379/artemis-tiangong-successes-us-china-space-race-leave-russia-eating-cosmic-dust?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Dec 2022 06:45:15 +0000 It’s back-to-college time in the United States. Students are descending on university towns and cities, enjoying a few more days of summer before they become saddled with coursework, writing papers and exam preparation. At Cornell University and other prestigious colleges across the country, some 10 per cent of these students are Chinese. At first glance, it looks like a return to the days before the pandemic and the downward spiral of US-China relations. Yet Chinese students, who in recent... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3189973/americas-universities-will-welcome-fewer-chinese-students-year?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3189973/americas-universities-will-welcome-fewer-chinese-students-year?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Aug 2022 22:45:11 +0000 China’s space programme may lag behind the US in accomplishments to date, but it is not to be underestimated. For example, the US-led International Space Station is bigger and has been in orbit much longer, but it is getting creaky and harder to maintain. Then, there is the political fallout, since the project has from the start depended on close US-Russia cooperation. For a decade, the US has relied on Russia to ferry its astronauts back and forth from space. The US module depends on the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3182480/why-chinas-ambitions-space-should-not-be-underestimated?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3182480/why-chinas-ambitions-space-should-not-be-underestimated?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:30:25 +0000 Ever since February 24, the day Russian troops crossed the Ukraine border and began firing missiles and dropping bombs, Beijing has had to balance itself on a narrative tightrope based on its twin policy of leaning towards Russia and away from the US. While much of the world’s media has tuned into the tragic and heroic spectacle of outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian defenders trying to outfox the Russian invaders, the Beijing media sphere has created a parallel universe where the Russians are... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3175143/how-chinese-state-media-paints-alternative-picture-ukraine-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3175143/how-chinese-state-media-paints-alternative-picture-ukraine-war?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Apr 2022 01:15:13 +0000 Beijing and Moscow have good reason to feel isolated and unloved these days, and in their loneliness they have found each other. The two erstwhile fraternal communist giants are closer to an alliance than they have been since Mao Zedong broke with Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. There’s still plenty of disparity between the national interests of China and Russia, but faced by containment on all sides, they are finding important points in common, too. China has an economy six... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3167520/bipolar-world-re-emerging-china-and-russia-join-hands?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3167520/bipolar-world-re-emerging-china-and-russia-join-hands?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Feb 2022 19:30:18 +0000 There’s enough strife on land, sea and in the air to keep US Cold Warriors and their Wolf Warrior counterparts in China sparring for a long time to come, but the race to create zones of influence and secure resources doesn’t begin and end with planet Earth. With the roll-out of Nasa’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft last March in support of the US Artemis Programme, the moon has been added to the mix. “Through Artemis, Nasa aims to land the first woman and first person of colour... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3164195/us-extends-rivalry-china-moon-it-resists-cooperation-and-seeks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3164195/us-extends-rivalry-china-moon-it-resists-cooperation-and-seeks?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jan 2022 03:00:20 +0000 At a distressing, destabilising time like this, with repeated lockdowns and quarantines, with the collapse of tourism, travel and educational exchange, with jets turned around in the sky and ships turned around at sea, with all the economic dislocation and supply-chain snags, frictions are mounting and tempers getting short. The underlying tension only gets worse when the two strongest powers on Earth battle it out in public, each playing to a home audience. For now, it’s a ruthless war of words... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3162391/us-china-war-words-fuelling-rise-anti-asian-hate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3162391/us-china-war-words-fuelling-rise-anti-asian-hate?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jan 2022 19:30:14 +0000 During his recent visit to Southeast Asia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken found just the right diplomatic note to describe the sudden uptick of US interest in a region long neglected in Washington’s corridors of power. “It’s not about a contest between a US-centric region or a China-centric region – the Indo-Pacific is its own region,” he said. Diplomatic niceties aside, the competition between the US and China for the hearts and minds of Southeast Asia is heating up. It is a contest, and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3160412/how-indo-pacific-became-new-arena-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3160412/how-indo-pacific-became-new-arena-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Dec 2021 01:15:18 +0000 China’s US$6 billion high-speed railway in Laos has just opened for business. Promotional videos in both Lao and Chinese feature shots of a slick new train gliding through tunnels. Lao songs use the Chinese phrase yidai yilu, praising the Belt and Road Initiative. Uniformed train attendants press their hands together in greeting, promising a journey that is as smooth as silk. It remains to be seen, however, just how much business there is in Laos, a poor country where annual GDP is around US$18... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3158751/china-brings-laos-its-fold-will-us-seek-reset-relations-counter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3158751/china-brings-laos-its-fold-will-us-seek-reset-relations-counter?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Dec 2021 01:15:08 +0000 One of the few silver linings to the Covid-19 cloud is the discovery that a great deal of business travel is unnecessary, as is the daily commute for many workers. The sight of world leaders jetting around the globe to stay at top-end resorts with huge delegations in tow was once considered normal, but is it really necessary? That’s not to say face-to-face talks don’t have a role to play, but shouldn’t they be kept to a minimum, if not for the pandemic, then in the spirit of stemming climate... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155550/why-joe-bidens-criticism-xi-jinpings-cop26-no-show-out-line?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155550/why-joe-bidens-criticism-xi-jinpings-cop26-no-show-out-line?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Nov 2021 19:30:24 +0000 Something strange has happened to public discourse in the West, perhaps magnified by the dislocation and despair of the pandemic. People are not just covering their mouths with masks to avoid viral harm; they are covering their mouths so as not to say things that challenge the master narrative of the moment. The free media is itself complicit in the silencing and outright ridicule of views that don’t comport with the flavour-of-the-month trends coming out of the corridors of power. Take... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3131106/west-china-villain-narrative-few-dare-challenge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3131106/west-china-villain-narrative-few-dare-challenge?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Apr 2021 21:30:12 +0000 The image of US ambassador Jim Sasser peering out the broken door of the paint-splattered US embassy in Beijing is more than a moving photograph; it provides a mini-course in diplomacy. The context: an anti-US demonstration whipped up in the angry aftermath to the US stealth bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999. The bombing was precise enough to destroy the building and kill three people. There were those who claimed it was an accident, and others who insisted it was an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3125131/why-us-should-look-jim-sasser-model-its-new-ambassador-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3125131/why-us-should-look-jim-sasser-model-its-new-ambassador-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Mar 2021 17:00:21 +0000 China is well on its way to being a moon power, not in leaps and bounds, but in carefully calibrated steps. The launch of Chang’e 5, which left the earth on November 24 and now orbits the moon, is an important milestone, not just for the rocks it aims to collect, but as a test of the technology necessary to establish a lunar base. China may be a late arrival to the space race, long dominated by the United States and Russia, but it has not been for the lack of imagination. Chinese literary legend... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111525/late-space-race-china-making-strides-change-5-moon-landing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111525/late-space-race-china-making-strides-change-5-moon-landing?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Nov 2020 03:15:21 +0000 In one orbit, you have a politician from Tennessee, in another orbit you have a science fiction writer from Shanxi. Though their lives have followed very different trajectories thus far, each has begun to perturb the movement of the other due to the dark tug of nationalism. Marsha Blackburn, a US Senator from Tennessee, nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, denies climate change and rejects the science of evolution. Liu Cixin is China’s first winner of the Hugo Award for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3103483/why-us-senators-attack-chinese-writer-liu-cixin-and-netflix-smacks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3103483/why-us-senators-attack-chinese-writer-liu-cixin-and-netflix-smacks?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 29 Sep 2020 17:00:12 +0000 The desperate quality of US President Donald Trump’s failing administration is evident in the gross mishandling of the pandemic and the frittering away of diplomatic goodwill, so much so that influential Republican strategists have suggested the approach, “Don’t defend Trump, attack China”. The sudden closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston is in keeping with the erratic behaviour of the embattled Trump administration. What new provocation has the president triggered today? Expect more in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3094350/closure-chinas-houston-consulate-shows-danger-desperate-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3094350/closure-chinas-houston-consulate-shows-danger-desperate-us?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:00:07 +0000 These are tough times for internationally minded people, and international students in particular. Chinese students, who are the largest national cohort of international students in the United States, bear a special burden since their home country and host country are increasingly at odds. The dislocation and distress caused by the pandemic are bad enough, but what is a Chinese student supposed to feel when the US president calls Covid-19 “kung flu” or a “Chinese virus”? On July 6, the Trump... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3093146/trumps-student-visa-rules-have-been-rescinded-damage-done?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3093146/trumps-student-visa-rules-have-been-rescinded-damage-done?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Jul 2020 22:00:09 +0000 The pragmatic, protocol-driven dialect of diplomatic discourse that has long served as lingua franca for US-China exchange is at risk of being replaced by trash talk, gratuitous insult and rash accusation. Old-school diplomats such as Cui Tiankai, currently China’s ambassador to the US, are being outshouted by brash new voices such as foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Zhao recently borrowed a page from Donald Trump’s unorthodox playbook by whipping up a virulent misinformation storm on... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3080339/does-brash-rash-zhao-lijian-really-speak-chinese-government?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3080339/does-brash-rash-zhao-lijian-really-speak-chinese-government?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Apr 2020 15:00:08 +0000 The news that a titan of business successfully escaped house arrest in Tokyo via a carefully choreographed flight overseas cannot have gone unnoticed in certain quarters in Vancouver. The sudden turn of events in the miscarriage of justice against Japan’s gaijin prisoner No 1, Carlos Ghosn, is bound to unsettle, and perhaps galvanise, people close to Canada’s star prisoner, Meng Wanzhou. There are striking parallels between the cases of Ghosn and Meng, who both went from jet-setting lifestyles... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3044551/carlos-ghosn-fled-japans-legal-system-canadas-star-prisoner-meng?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3044551/carlos-ghosn-fled-japans-legal-system-canadas-star-prisoner-meng?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Jan 2020 01:00:23 +0000 In Hong Kong, there’s poison in the air and it isn’t just toxic tear gas. Too many people are making excuses for inexcusable violence. It’s one thing to hear protesters claim it’s all the fault of the police, but even journalists and foreign commentators are joining the protesters-can-do-no-wrong bandwagon. “We in the West have no right to condemn the violence of protesters facing tyranny,” writes Richard Lloyd Parry, talking about Hong Kong in British daily The Times. On November 28, in the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3040383/hong-kong-protest-paradox-can-democracy-movement-backed-bigotry-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3040383/hong-kong-protest-paradox-can-democracy-movement-backed-bigotry-and?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Dec 2019 05:00:09 +0000 Li Peng was not the “butcher of Beijing”, but he certainly was an embarrassment. Awkward and homely, bumbling and bashful, he was a loyal apparatchik pushed far beyond his own meagre talent, a tech nerd out of his depth and forced into a wholly inappropriate role at a historic moment. The protesters on the streets of Beijing in the spring of 1989 loved to hate him and it was not hard to see why, even if he was picked on for the wrong reasons. His imperious airs, his unbridled arrogance made him... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019908/li-peng-wasnt-butcher-tiananmen-just-man-who-took-fall-deng?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019908/li-peng-wasnt-butcher-tiananmen-just-man-who-took-fall-deng?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:00:11 +0000 The US-North Korea summit in Hanoi produced little more than photo ops, but much can be learned from the logistics of the affair. What looked at first glance like material for comedians – Kim Jong-un’s 60-hour journey to Vietnam by train – may be one of the summit’s inadvertent points of success. Not for US President Donald Trump or the North Korean leader, but for China. Beijing’s transport support to Kim went beyond the technical to the symbolic; as this train chugged across a country vast in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2188520/trump-kim-summit-failed-kim-jong-uns-china-train-trek?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2188520/trump-kim-summit-failed-kim-jong-uns-china-train-trek?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Mar 2019 01:04:24 +0000 The pride of foreigners living in Beijing has been injured by the prejudiced policy of restricting foreign entry to certain bars and eateries for the duration of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. The question remains whether the clumsy policy, geographically isolated and not widely enforced, is a misunderstanding misconstrued as prejudice, or an act of prejudice wrapped in talk of security concerns. Either way, the mini crackdown has touched a raw nerve, and for good reason. If what... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137873/beijings-ban-gatherings-foreigners-restaurants-raises?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137873/beijings-ban-gatherings-foreigners-restaurants-raises?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:30:15 +0000 A newly declassified British telegram suggests that the death toll in the Tiananmen crackdown was worse than realised. Relying on a high-level Chinese source, the intelligence document cites “at least 10,000 dead” and some 40,000 injured. Stories of gratuitous violence are included in the report, written after the tragedy by the then British ambassador to China, Alan Donald. This unexpected exposure nearly three decades after the fact raises questions about Beijing’s failure to come to terms... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2125981/tiananmen-was-tragedy-beijing-wont-face-regardless-death?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2125981/tiananmen-was-tragedy-beijing-wont-face-regardless-death?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Dec 2017 07:21:19 +0000 Part of the folklore of being a foreign student in China in the 1980s was that Big Brother was watching, all the time. Very few people had first-hand knowledge, fewer even had proof, but the discomfort, if not fear, was pervasive. A foreign student in China could easily get the impression that the country was one big spy machine, based on documented tales of abuse that came out of the Cultural Revolution and other score-settling periods, and undocumented, anecdotal tales from more tranquil times... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1268781/living-snoops-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1268781/living-snoops-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Sales of George Orwell's works are said to be enjoying a small boom ever since the National Security Agency spy story broke, suggesting that, in confusing times, people still find solace in aphorisms and essays, fiction and fantasy, seeking to get a better grip on the uncharted and unclear dangers of the present. America is going through a rough patch, engaged in a contentious national debate about how best to balance freedom with security, and how to handle secrecy with accountability. It's a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1262235/us-security-state-laid-bare?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1262235/us-security-state-laid-bare?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 While Barack Obama played golf on an estate in California, a young man named Edward Snowden emerged from hiding in Hong Kong to tell the world how the US was at risk of becoming a surveillance state at odds with its own better nature. As a former intelligence insider, Snowden knows he cannot escape the electronic dragnet of the National Security Agency for long. Then there is Glenn Greenwald, a US lawyer and constitutional rights activist who Snowden shared information with. Greenwald writes for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1257885/us-whistle-blower-edward-snowden-finds-haven-hong-kong-how?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1257885/us-whistle-blower-edward-snowden-finds-haven-hong-kong-how?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 On the eve of the much-anticipated Sunnylands summit between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama, government mouthpieces in the US and China had a brief but revealing spat. Not surprisingly, given the mutual penchant to spin the truth for political reasons, each side smugly portrayed itself as being in the right and the other in the wrong. Furthermore, each side reverted to type, the US as the holier-than-thou finger-wagger, China as the self-styled victim of conspiratorial slander. US State Department... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1253500/eve-their-summit-china-and-us-are-playing-script?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1253500/eve-their-summit-china-and-us-are-playing-script?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The right-wing revisionism of Japan's ruling party, stacked to the decks with organisation men who are either progeny of former war criminals and war profiteers, or unduly inspired by the warriors interred at the Yasukuni Shrine, is worrisome enough, but even independents are marching to the militant drumbeat. Osaka's maverick mayor Toru Hashimoto recently said that the so-called "comfort women" - long-suffering and justice-deprived sex slaves and prostitutes - were necessary to Japan's war,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1241330/maverick-japanese-mayor-confuses-prostitution-sex-slavery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1241330/maverick-japanese-mayor-confuses-prostitution-sex-slavery?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The United States should urge Japan and China to “avoid any steps that might escalate tensions in and around the disputed islands”, says Sheila Smith of the US Council on Foreign Relations. It’s a view that resonates in Washington, but is it not the pinnacle of hubris for the US to chide China and Japan, as if they were schoolchildren fighting over a rock, when the US is part of the problem? US cold-war strategy created the Senkaku/Diaoyu conundrum in the first place, with the Nixon... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1234174/wind-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1234174/wind-change?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 May 2013 18:49:51 +0000 To follow the drama of the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers online through Twitter, Reddit, television news, police scanners and newspaper updates was to be inundated with an abundance of almost real-time information. Anyone with a computer and internet access could get a virtual view of events, blow by blow, and connect the dots, rightly or wrongly, along the way. To follow the tweets of Watertown eyewitnesses, in particular, was to be thrust into a front-row seat of a real-life movie of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1222249/beware-overzealous-response-acts-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1222249/beware-overzealous-response-acts-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 There are 108 ways of remembering 1989, like the little beads on a prayer string; simple, humble, tactile reminders of the days when Beijing was a city of hope, caught in the throes of a peaceful uprising. When I'm in Beijing in the spring, I like to walk up and down Changan Boulevard and across Tiananmen Square, to pause, reflect and move on. It's a private way of remembering, but I know I am not alone. Everybody lost and nobody won when the tanks rolled in on June 4, 1989 to crush a peaceful,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1214552/till-day-million-may-gather-tiananmen-square-remember?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1214552/till-day-million-may-gather-tiananmen-square-remember?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Thai politics is never dull but too much excitement is a cause for concern. Just as the mercury starts to soar, political foes are gearing up for a dry season offensive. First, there's the news that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will be taken to task for financial irregularities that could jeopardise her tenure in office. Then there's Yaowapha Wongsawat, her elder sister, who is being positioned to wait in the wings as a replacement. The manipulation of these two sisters as political... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1204857/thaksin-busy-talking-anyone-listening?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1204857/thaksin-busy-talking-anyone-listening?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Japan is in a cold burn now; cool on the exterior, simmering underneath. It's obvious in a geological sense; Japan sits above an unstable hot zone, but it's also a metaphor for a seemingly stable but deeply volatile and incendiary political system. Take Mount Fuji, for example. It is quintessential Japan; its understated majesty is the Yamato essence writ large. Graceful in contour, shimmering slopes, peak powdered white, clean and wind-swept by clouds, it is in harmony with forest and field, it... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1187715/japans-fault-lines-still-worry-two-years-after-quake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1187715/japans-fault-lines-still-worry-two-years-after-quake?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 When politicians stake out the high moral ground and order a crackdown, it can be a smokescreen for business as usual, or it can mean they really mean business. Incoming leader Xi Jinping has signalled that he wants to cut back on banquets, but it's too soon to say whether this means the Communist Party's anti-corruption campaign is for real, or is being used to manage public opinion. Excessive consumption and corruption, especially on the part of state officials who are supposed to be public... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1157596/how-far-will-chinas-crackdown-corruption-go?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1157596/how-far-will-chinas-crackdown-corruption-go?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Chuang Song-lieh grew up in the rice farming community of Yun Lin in central Taiwan, son of a teacher and a nurse. Raised a Catholic, he thought about entering a seminary, but after graduating from high school he did three years mandatory service in Taiwan's Air Force 'learning how to shoot down mainland jet fighters'. Then, after a brief stint in the hotel business, he decided to go have a look at the other side and moved to the mainland 'to get away from the one-pattern thinking of my island... https://www.scmp.com/article/411506/chuang-song-lieh?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/411506/chuang-song-lieh?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Apr 2003 16:00:00 +0000