China 9
Open and Closed: From Russia to China to America, the Largest Societies are Pushing Their Limits
Despite Americans’ instinctive openness, decades of deadly overdoses and mass shooting victims remind them that there have to be boundaries. The difficulty of controlling protests in Russia and China reminds…
Pawns On the Board, on Both Sides of the Pacific
The last few years have shown that liberty and truth are felt less in the bones by each new cohort of educated élites who will go on to craft policy.…
As North Korea Goes Nuclear Far East Ambassadors Must Speak Up
I lived much of my adult life under Terry Branstad’s multiple tenures as governor of Iowa, and I think he did a “pretty fair job,” as farm families are wont…
Memory and the Damming State
The family’s life in this village had come to an end when the lake was dammed in 1958. One wonders who would consider such things worth it.
Creative Destruction and its Benefits, China-Style
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A few weeks ago I was visited by a fellow Wichita resident who was thinking about getting into politics. We talked for a while about…
Of Dragons and Crescents
A revised foreign policy true to the principles of the Porch should turn the present one upside down.
Castles Built on Sand
Even for the average homeowner, ownership all too often is imagined as a way of gaming income flow and consumption over a lifetime, accumulating enough to spend down before one…
Empire’s Heir?
As the old saying suggests, be careful what you ask for, because you may get it. The hubristic here in China are well on their way to discovering some uncomfortable…
The Other Side of China, and What It Might Say When It Speaks
As the heat of late summer subsides here in Nanjing and our university settles into the new semester, many look forward to the annual “Golden Week” holiday in early October. …