China Backs Another Dictator
Xi Jinping, the 64-year-old ruler of China, is giving money to Hun Sen, the 65-year-old ruler of Cambodia, at a time when the Cambodian leader is strengthening his grip on power and losing support...
Tagged: South China Sea
Teacher in Ho Chi Minh City, 6
It was Tuesday morning, 7:00am, the third week in October, exactly two weeks after I had flown into Ho Chi Minh City from Kuala Lumpur. I was jogging in Hoàng Văn Thụ Park, which...
Xi Jinping’s Power Play
China’s communist party officials are jockeying for position in the months before the next party congress in Beijing this October or November. Many of the Asian nation’s decision makers will learn their fates at...
Xi Jinping’s New Bank
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will replace the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, according to Xi Jinping and his colleagues in the Chinese Communist Party. The new bank, known as the AIIB,...
Xi Jinping Gets Serious
Xi Jinping wants more time to execute his plans for China. One analyst, Willy Lam, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says, “Like his good friend Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping wants...
Myanmar and Chinese Money
Myanmar’s new leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, finds herself at a critical juncture. As head of the nation’s first democratic government since the military seized power in 1962, she now has the chance to bring...
Indonesia Checks China’s Advances
Last Tuesday, August 16, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo appeared before the nation’s parliament in the capital, Jakarta, to deliver two speeches. It was one day before the nation’s annual holiday to celebrate independence from...
Defeat in Court Upsets Xi Jinping
“China will never accept any claim or action based on those awards,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a show of defiance. It was a Tuesday in the middle of July, outside Beijing. A...
Professional Woman, Part I
“I am 31, work full time, and have a daughter who’s ten years old,” she said. “I’m a typical Davao professional woman, I guess you could say.” Rosalie sat across the table from me in...
China Populates the South China Sea
China is not only building commercial and military infrastructure on the disputed islands of the South China Sea. It is also trying to establish communities of Chinese residents there in a bid to strengthen...