TOM PLATE WRITES – Indian MP and former high UN official Shashi Tharoor is easily one of the most graceful, intelligent and accessible writers well known to the public-policy world. For my rupees, his 2012 book ‘Nehru: The Invention of India’ might well be the best short political biography in…
Author: Tom Plate
HONG KONG: KEEP THE PEACE
TOM PLATE WRITES – Not far down the freeway from my own university is the University of California Irvine, for years the faculty home of one of the West Coast’s better-known China-watchers/worriers. He is the controversy-prone professor Peter Navarro, of the Paul Merage School of Business. For the foreseeable future,…
AUSTRALIA: THE WAY TO DEAL WITH CHINA
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating (1991-1996, pictured right) offers a crystal-clear vision of China’s rise in Asia in a deeply thought-provoking interview with Kerry O’Brien, one of Australia’s most respected journalists. The hour-long radio session with the highly informed, forward-thinking Keating, now 72, covers a valuable range of topics,…
UC BERKELEY: IS CHINA’S PRESIDENT XI SINCERE IN HIS ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN?
The following summary (or ‘Abstract’) of an invaluable study titled “…China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign” arises from exemplary research by Xi Lu and Peter L. Lorentzen of the University of California, Berkeley. Their study comes at an especially helpful time: Scholars (not to mention journalists and Western government officials) have been endlessly…
BANGKOK: THE ROMANTIC EXISTENCE OF THE EXPAT IN MYSTERIOUS THAILAND
One of the most popular writers in English living in Southeast Asia is Christopher G. Moore. His ‘Vincent Calvino’ novels in particular crashed one bestselling list in Asia after another. A video on his work, on the ‘dark but rich’ side of Bangkok, and the life of the expat in…
SINGAPORE: SCARY MOMENT FOR THE PM
TOM PLATE WRITES – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong suffered a scary spell during his deliverance of the annual National Day speech, but after fast work by an emergency team and a brief rest, returned to the microphone to soldier on. And this is very good news indeed. Lee,…
LOS ANGELES: PREVENTIVE FORCE, PREVENTIVE THINKING
America has used so-named drones against enemies abroad (real or misidentified) far more extensively than it has thought through the complex implications of such usage. Now come a mid-course thought-correction, as it were, in the form of a nearly 400-page book that takes on the ethical, political and international law…
HONG KONG: HOT SPOTLIGHT ON ONE OF ASIA’S BEST NEWSPAPERS
One of the most interesting, and politically pivotal, newspapers left on the face of the earth is the South China Morning Post. Located in southernmost China – in the special administrative district of Hong Kong – the SCMP has stood proudly as a stubborn and delightful outpost of honest, non-ideological…
CHINA: SEA-ING INTO THE FOG OF WAR
TOM PLATE WRITES – Win some – lose some. The Obama administration was shocked and rocked: “We recommend that the United States bring its [raised tariffs against China] into conformity with its obligations.” That, just two years ago, was the sharply worded ruling from an international body whose judgment Beijing…
TOKYO: TIME OUT FOR CATS!
I don’t know about you, but when I travel to Asia and lodge in one of its great cities, such as Tokyo, probably the first print item I reach for after the magnificent Japan Times newspaper is TIME OUT TOKYO. This worldwide chain of urban guides offers the traveler unbelievably…
PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE COMMENTARY: THIS MEMO IS NOT CLASSIFIED!
TOM PLATE WRITES: A long time ago, it seems like a thousand years now, I worked in the State Department, however briefly, with the honor of a formal security clearance. In that role, as a backup speechwriter (I was quite young, but loved the experience, totally respected the careerists there),…
CHINA VERSUS AMERICA: THE TRUMPET OF THE DON
TOM PLATE WRITES: Stumped by Trump? Horrified by Hillary? Apprehensive about America? As a therapeutic aid, dear distinguished reader, this column proposes to examine – and even appreciate – a totally different style of public leadership: the low-key. Yes, that kind. Remember the old days? Remember Hu Jintao, the predecessor…
A PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE COMMENTARY: THE BRUTAL REALITY OF THE BREXIT VOTE
The Brexit outcome was a complete surprise only to those well insulated in the corridors of power and the economic and political elite. And our summer of discontent is anything but played out yet. Great Britain has voted (52-48%) to disengage from the European Union, and while the U.S. had…
CRAZY U.S. ELECTION: WHICH CANDIDATE MIGHT BE BEST FOR CHINA, JAPAN?
TOM PLATE WRITES – These are times that try one’s pro-American soul. To succeed Barack Obama as president, the fight looks to have come down to a duel between know-nothing and a know-it-all – between a candidate who has never held any political office, and one who has held only…
LMU: ‘Strongly Committed to the Ideals of the UN’ – UNSG Ban Ki-moon
The following are remarks from the Honorable Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nationa, upon receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles 06 April 2016 “Thank you so much for your warm welcome. It is a pleasure to be here at Loyola…
PARIS AND THEN NEW YORK: HOW THE POLITICAL CLIMATE CHANGED SO DRAMATICALLY
TOM PLATE WRITES – The irrefutable fact of current geopolitics is that Chinese-U.S. concordance offers the greatest potential transnational force for good (or evil) on this planet. When Beijing and Washington can get together — and then can get it together — the effect can be stunning. So for this…