Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"The sensible question is not whether China will replace the US, but whether it will start to acquire some of the attributes of a world power, particularly a sense of responsibility for global order." And this has no clear answer
Afghanistan. America's "surge" has been a failure, but Obama has escaped punishment for it. "On no other major issue has Obama been so cynical. And on no other issue has his cynicism proved so politically shrewd"
Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite? It's not just an economic cushion, or pure greed. "One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China’s future." It's a political hedge
Hong Kong is in flux once more. "Now a Chinese special administrative region, it is being remade yet again under diamond pressure. And increasingly this city of over seven million inhabitants floats on a growing sense of unease"
An enduring myth, that surely went down with defenestration of Bo Xilai, is the notion that Party rule is based on meritocracy. To rise in China is to enter a world of bogus degrees, faked GDP data, nepotism and bribery
Story of much-circulated photo of boy facing line of Russian riot police. "I saw a small boy on what looked like a tricycle moving through a scrum of people raining abuse on the police. Then he just stopped"
Outgoing Russian president was never the liberal reformer many hoped he was or would be. His presidency was a farce and will be a mere footnote in history. He leaves Russians demoralised, frustrated. And growing in anger
China imports more than half its oil. It doesn't trust the free market to deliver. Like other great powers before it, it wants guaranteed supplies. It hasn't got enough hard power to do the job. So it's using diplomatic strategies
Tick-tock story of Chen Guangcheng fiasco. For a few hours there was a deal between China, US and Chen. It fell apart when the American diplomats left the hospital. Chen started taking phone calls from friends, and panicked
When British and French forces looted and burned the Chinese emperors' Summer Palace in 1860, they committed one of history's greatest cultural crimes. They destroyed wantonly a paradise of treasures assembled over centuries
Nikita Khrushchev had the biggest chip on his shoulder of any modern leader. Which shows in this account of a visit to Chairman Mao's swimming pool, that led to a disastrous separation of Russia and China's Communist parties
Fine analysis of Bo Xilai's downfall. "The important question is whether the scandal will encourage the development of a politics of democratic participation or merely end up reinforcing China’s practice of ‘backroom politics’"
