RYAN BYRNE WRITES – In recent years, the rhetoric between China and the United States has grown more intense. A trade war, endless diplomatic wrangling over the South China Sea and conflicts with Taiwan have helped make China a point of political interest for more and more Americans. As the…
Full Article CHINA: ONE PODCAST TAKES A DIFFERENT APPROACH
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Kirsten Chen’s latest novel, Counterfeit (2022), follows Ava Wong – a straight-edge Chinese-American lawyer shackled to an agonizingly mundane routine of house chores and taking care of her maddening infant, Henri, who cannot seem to cease his daily tantrums. Married to a successful yet always…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: COUNTERFEIT (2022) BY KIRSTEN CHEN – HOUSEWIFE TURNS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND
ISMAEL HAMMOUNAÏCHA WRITES – It’s hardly any secret that Chinese corporations and overseas partners have been allocating capital in international investments around the globe. In line with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a central component of Xi Jinping’s “Major Country Diplomacy,” these investments are aimed at China’s undertaking of…
Full Article CHINESE INVESTMENT IN US FARMLAND: HARVEST OF SHAME?
This column originally appeared on September 7, 2022, in the South China Morning Post. CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Last week, the last president of the Soviet Union at 91 had to leave us (his wife Raisa had departed in 1999), so it must be said now that a true…
Full Article RUSSIA: THE LESSON MIKHAIL GORBACHEV’S LEGACY HOLDS FOR VLADIMIR PUTIN AND XI JINPING
This piece originally appeared on September 2, 2022, in The Korea Daily. SPENCER H. KIM WRITES – President Yoon Suk-yeol has presented an “audacious” plan in which South Korea will “significantly improve North Korea’s economy and its people’s livelihoods in stages if the North ceases the development of its nuclear…
Full Article NORTH KOREA: FIVE YEAR PLAN IN A 40 YEAR WORLD… ARE NO PLANS AT ALL. HOW TO MAKE A 40 YEAR PLAN
This article originally appeared on August 30, 2022 in China Daily. CHUNG-IN MOON WRITES – The Republic of Korea and China are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their diplomatic relations this year. The relations between the two countries have witnessed a sea change over the past three decades. People-to-people exchanges…
Full Article CHINA-ROK RELATIONS: CHINA AND THE ROK SHOULD AVOID SACRIFICING THEIR LONG-TERM, COMMON INTERESTS FOR SHORT-TERM, PAROCHIAL ONES
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Hiromi Kawakami’s collection of vignettes titled People From My Neighborhood (2020), recently published into English, details the individuals of her neighborhood in a brilliant piece of bite-sized fiction. In 120 pages, the reader is plunged into a lifetime of drama, secrets, and otherworldly quirkiness…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: PEOPLE FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD (2020) BY HIROMI KAWAKAMI – DO YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS?
This column originally appeared in on August 23, 2022 in the South China Morning Post. CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – A media system can filter your world-view not unlike the narrowest religion claiming to know what’s best about everything. Truly professional media platforms, especially if print-based, will aim to…
Full Article US-KOREAN RELATIONS: US MEDIA MUST LAY GROUNDWORK FOR PEACE OFFENSIVE ON KOREAN PENINSULA
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Government corruption. Political scandals. Contract killers. Disappearances. Set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, the world within Kim Un-Su’s novel, The Plotters (2018), focuses on the deaths of random political figures as well as who is pulling the trigger. The shadowy figures responsible for…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE PLOTTERS (2018) BY KIM UN-SU – WHO PULLS THE TRIGGER FOR POLITICANS?
Incantation – 2022 – 1 hr 50 min – Kevin Ko SARAH LOHMANN WRITES – Do you believe in blessings? Intentions and outcomes rarely equal in importance; these two are set in sequence with each other by Ronan’s monologue to the viewer at the beginning of Incantation (2022). Intentions come first, and,…
Full Article MOVIE REVIEW: INCANTATION (2022) – A MONSTER THAT LIVES IN YOUR HEAD
This piece was originally published by Straits Times on 11 August 2022. KISHORE MAHBUBANI WRITES – At the age of 99, Dr. Henry Kissinger finds himself in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, he is widely revered, especially in the West. On the other hand, he is ignored, especially…
Full Article US-CHINA TIES: KISSINGER MAY BE HUMANITY’S LAST HOPE
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Can our world evolve into a collective mindset incapable of losing it even under extreme pressure? Anyone who tracked with growing alarm the American queen’s forced march through East Asia last week might well have asked themselves – but at what cost? The entourage…
Full Article US-CHINA RELATIONS: NANCY PELOSI’S TAIWAN TRIP HIGHLIGHTS NEED TO RESET GLOBAL THINKING
Aerial Concave Without Cloud – 113 pages – $16.95 – Nightboat Books, New York, NY ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Grief is a lonely process as much as it is all-encompassing. Like all pain, it takes away, gives back wisdom, and breaks people open. Aerial Concave Without Cloud (2022) by Sueyeun…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: AERIAL CONCAVE WITHOUT CLOUD (2022) BY SUEYEUN JULIETTE LEE — STUDYING LIGHT AND GRIEF
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Today’s US-China relations are more akin to a rugby match than an elegant balletic pas de deux. Nothing illustrates this better than the Nancy Pelosi Taiwan caper. Sure, when it comes to the moralism of the average American politician, sensitivity to other political cultures…
Full Article US-CHINA RELATIONS: IF PELOSI REALLY WANTS PEACE TO PREVAIL IN TAIWAN, SHE’LL STAY AWAY
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES — South Korea, often referred to as the ‘plastic surgery capital of the world,’ is a place where it’s not only typical but expected for young women to have double eyelid surgery before they hit thirty. Jaw slimming, skin lasering, destructive dieting – these radical approaches…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: IF I HAD YOUR FACE (2020) BY FRANCES CHA – BEAUTY AND WOMANHOOD IN SOUTH KOREA
Violets – The Feminist Press at CUNY – 222 pages — $22.03 BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “Violets, Violin, Violence, Violator,” chants the main character, San, as she reads from a dictionary. In just a few short lines, a beautiful purple flower morphs into “one who breaks rules,…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: VIOLETS (2022) BY KYUNG-SOOK SHIN – A LONE SOUL IN SEOUL.