Jamie F. Metzl
12/9/2010

Wherever human rights are massively abused today, China is the main protector of the abusing government, writes Metzl. Beijing is promoting a world-wide rejection of postwar international norms. This is in part because China’s concept of sovereignty stands in sharp contrast to the norms of the human rights system. And China’s rise poses challenges to the international community’s ability to effectively confront rights abusers. Metzl concludes that those unlucky souls around the world who find their rights massively abused by their own governments can, thanks largely to China, expect little or no help from foreign states.

Metzl, the executive vice president of Asia Society, served in the State Department during the Clinton administration and as a United Nations human rights officer in Cambodia.

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Edward Luttwak
11/30/2010

Luttwak considers the means by which the government in Pyongyang survives. China props up the Kim regime, South Korea is feckless, and the US is tied down militarily. He argues that nothing is achieved with the North by issuing solemn warnings and indignant declarations; mere words do not impress the hard-bitten North Korean regime. But former President Carter has done us a great service. As usual, we need only do the exact opposite of what he recommends, this time by rejecting talks with the Kim dictatorship until (at a minimum) it makes full amends for its most recent crimes. Nothing will be lost since all past negotiations have proven futile, and the US will avoid rewarding North Korean aggression.

Luttwak, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace” (Belknap, 2002).

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Peter M. Beck
11/24/2010

North Korea’s attack on the South yesterday is a sign of internal pressures on the regime in Pyongyang and a warning that America’s current approach isn’t working. Beck considers realistic goals the international community can pursue to maintain stability on the Korean peninsula. He says the problem posed by Pyongyang will only resolve itself permanently once the Kim regime no longer rules. Until then–and despite efforts to destabilize the regime with sanctions, we can’t necessarily assume that day will come soon–the rest of the world needs to adapt to the reality of a North Korean regime in flux and, on yesterday’s evidence, prone to violent outbursts.

Beck is the Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi research fellow at Keio University in Tokyo.

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Paul Krugman
11/19/2010

China, Germany, and the Republican Party are all trying to bully the Federal Reserve into calling off its job-creation efforts. Krugman says their motives are suspect. He calls the three the Axis of Depression. China and Germany don’t want the dollar to fall because it would make US goods more competitive, and a smaller US deficit would then cause them to run a deficit. Republicans’ reasons are odd and incoherent since the Fed is following the policies of none other than Milton Friedman. Krugman says Republicans are afraid that if the Fed succeeds and helps the economy, it would foul their election chances in 2012.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.

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Ian Holliday
11/19/2010

Aung San Suu Kyi’s release has generated important political possibilities for Burma, says Holliday. Beyond Burma’s borders, key powers are generally supportive of change. China seeks above all a stable, prosperous, and friendly Burma, and has long urged military rulers to embrace national reconciliation and incremental reform. India has no problem with this agenda. The US wants faster progress but is pushing too hard after many years of policy failure. The odds therefore remain stacked against Ms. Suu Kyi. However, by signaling that talks are now possible without preconditions and that sanctions may be debated, she has created an important political opening. For generals keen to settle a fractious nation and bring in Burma from the cold, the offer placed on the table could be enticing.

Holliday is dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong.

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John Lee
10/27/2010

In Asia today, the source of America’s strategic pre-eminence is not just the dominance of the Seventh Fleet but strong regional support for a continued US presence. China has long viewed American pre-eminence in the region as a historical accident and an aberration and wants to ease America out of the region, but other nations want to reaffirm the US role. Therefore it is no wonder that Beijing is now rooting for Asean-plus-three–which does not include America–to be the primary problem-solving meeting. However, if expected US membership transforms the East Asia Summit into the region’s principal security institution, clumsy and impatient Chinese diplomacy will have contributed to the rise of a multilateralism that largely entrenches an extended US-led network of security alliances and partnerships.

Lee is a foreign-policy fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington, and the author of “Will China Fail?” (CIS, 2007).

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Jackson Diehl
10/25/2010

The technology created by UltraReach and its affiliate, Freegate, works as it is intended: it allows internet users in China, Iran, and other countries where the internet is heavily regulated to breach firewalls and surf the web at will. In fact, millions more internet users under dictatorships worldwide could benefit from UltraReach’s software, but at least $30 million in funding is required. That money actually does exist in the form of $50 million in earmarks in the State Department’s budget. Despite rhetoric supporting freedom of the internet, the money sits unused while the “strategy” for its usage is honed. Diehl suggests that the hesitation to act is partially due to a fear of offending China. Regardless, the State Department has a poor record when it comes to promoting freedom of the internet.

Diehl is deputy editorial page editor of The Post.

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L. Gordon Crovitz
10/18/2010

Crovitz reflects on an unprecedented open letter from 23 well-known Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elders calling for free speech. The party elders note that Britain gave its colony of Hong Kong more freedom than the Communist Party gives China. Disillusioned, they are now demanding press freedom. Crovitz says the CCP will reform itself when its splits become too wide to cover over. For the outside world, the opportunity is to encourage the growing number of disillusioned cadres who understand that modern countries rely on a free flow of information, for ordinary citizens and their leaders alike.

Crovitz writes ‘Information Age’ for the Journal.

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Anatole Kaletsky
9/27/2010

Asian nations are interested in American politics because Asian leaders believe that the era of American hegemony is ending and polarized politics symbolizes its inability to adapt to global capitalism after the financial crisis. Kaletsky says Chinese economic policy is now serving as a model for other Asian countries. Japan recently chose to follow China in its currency valuation at the cost of irritating America. Instead of obsessing over China’s currency manipulation, America must understand that the rules of global capitalism have been changed for good since Lehman Brothers collapsed. The market is not always right. Sometimes it can be trusted and sometimes government intervention in needed. Kaletsky looks at other world market models and says if we continue to opt for nostalgia and ideology when it comes to economics, “the new model of capitalism will probably be made in China, like so much else in the world these days.”

Kaletsky, the chief economist of a Hong Kong-based investment advisory firm, is the author of “Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis.”

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