KISHORE MAHBUBANI WRITES — “Ask not what America can do for you! Ask rather what you can do for America.” If US President Joe Biden were in a position to send a sincere and honest message to the rest of the world in his recent inaugural address, these are the…
Full Article ASIAN PERSUASION: THE US NEEDS HELP
KISHORE MAHBUBANI WRITES (courtesy of The Straits Times) — The first American president to enter my personal consciousness was John F. Kennedy. It wasn’t his stirring rhetoric that reached me as a child in Singapore. It was the news of his assassination. The sense of loss was globally palpable. History…
Full Article CHINA-US TENSIONS: BIDEN SHOULD PRESS THE ‘PAUSE BUTTON’
Loyola Marymount University’s critically acclaimed student-driven website – Asia Media International – has a new managing editor: Zhi Jiao Danielle Goh ’20. This recent graduate of the University’s undergraduate college — the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) – excelled as a double major in Screenwriting and Political Science, and…
Full Article BRILLIANT NEW EDITORS FOR ASIA MEDIA
JOSEPH LITTAUA WRITES — Most popular songs have a lot of things in common. For example, whether it’s a soloist or band song, most songs will have a short, catchy melody that gets stuck in your head, like Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” or One Direction’s “What Makes…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: FORGET ABOUT SILENCING THAT ANNOYING BABYSHARK TUNE
CASEY MCGANNON WRITES — Many immigrants have similar motivations for leaving their home countries. They may seek opportunities that simply don’t exist where they’re from, or wish to escape persecution or, like many Filipino nurses, they seek better pay. The average salary for a registered nurse (RN) in the Philippines…
Full Article COPING WITH COVID-19: HOW FILIPINO NURSES AND THEIR COMMUNITIES SUPPORT FRONTLINE HEALTHCARE WORKERS
KE SHEN WRITES — Just last month, two new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Beijing. Luckily, both patients were wearing masks while they went to the hospital and took tests. Worryingly, China’s Center for Disease Control has already conducted coronavirus tests for people who work at the Haidian district…
Full Article CORONAVIRUS IN CHINA: BRACE FOR SECOND IMPACT?
WILLIAM LIGHTHART WRITES — For almost every elementary school, secondary school, and institution of higher learning around the world, the last 4 months have been comprised of exclusively online instruction. Schools at all levels of education are attempting to create systems so that students can return for at least partial…
Full Article BEIJING AND SEOUL: OPENING UP SCHOOLS DURING A PANDEMIC
ASSOCIATE EDITOR CAMILLE BRYAN WRITES — Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so why are we surprised that after thousands of years of colonialism, those failed by the system are rising up? How could a nation expect to keep such tight control over marginalized communities and expect them…
Full Article FROM TIANANMEN TO MINNEAPOLIS AND BEYOND: HOPEFUL FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
JOSEPH LITTAUA WRITES — “Yellow Peril.” When I first found out about the phrase, it was on my own, doing research for a social studies class in middle school. I don’t quite remember the reason for the research, but the phrase stuck with me. Why would anyone be okay with…
Full Article ‘YELLOW PERIL SUPPORTS BLACK POWER’: RECLAIMING THE WORD ‘YELLOW’
ASSOCIATE EDITOR ZHI JIAO DANIELLE GOH WRITES — Just weeks into the protest of “Black Lives Matter,” a movement among young Chinese people is starting to grow as they shout out their support for the cause. “Chinese For Black Lives,” founded by feminist activist Xiaowen Liang, has been seen organizing…
Full Article US PROTESTS: CHINESE FOR BLACK LIVES
ASSOCIATE EDITOR ZHI JIAO DANIELLE GOH WRITES — Just last week, Chinese Sukhoi-30 advanced fighter jets briefly entered Taiwan’s airspace. It happened as Taiwan announced that its largest annual live-fire drill would be held next month. At the same time, news about British ministers considering plans to support Taiwan were…
Full Article ANGLO-CHINESE RELATIONS: WHY IS RAPPROCHEMENT UNLIKELY?
SARA SHARPE WRITES — Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, countries have been scrambling to create effective and realistic economic stimulus packages. China has promised a year-long fiscal stimulus package amounting to 3.6 trillion yuan ($500 billion USD) in an attempt to continue its strong rate of economic growth,…
Full Article CHINA: UNCERTAIN COMMITMENT TO COVID-19 STIMULUS PACKAGE
From News Service Reports — No sooner had after China signaled it would impose new national-security laws on Hong Kong than markets throughout the world trembled. By early afternoon Friday in Hong Kong (22 May), the Hang Seng Index had lost 5.6%, with property, financial and infrastructure stocks retreating between…
Full Article HONG-KONG-WATCH: SHAKEN MARKETS
(This is the second in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Is this the face of modern-day feminism in Seoul? If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha’s debut novel (Ballantine Books), tells the story of four young women struggling to succeed in…
Full Article KOREA: NEW WAVE LITERATURE AS WOMEN’S LIBERATION (PART TWO)
CHARLES E MORRISON WRITES — About two turbulent months ago, former Vice President Joe Biden had established a commanding lead in the Democratic nomination campaign, although his two more liberal competitors had not yet ended their efforts; and the looming coronavirus pandemic was threatening to fundamentally transform the political landscape. And…
Full Article CORONAVIRUS CHRONICLES: THE ARC OF A HISTORIC CRISIS