ASAD LATIF, WRITING FOR THE STRAITS TIMES, SINGAPORE – The veteran American journalist Tom Plate’s writings on Asia have contributed significantly to raising the region’s profile in his home country. His books on Asian leaders such as Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir Mohamad sought to explain the reasons…
Category: Tom Plate
HONG KONG: SPLITTING DIFFERENCES, MOVING FORWARD
THIS SYNDICATED COLUMN ON POLITICAL TURMOIL IN HONG KONG WAS PUBLISHED 8 SEPTEMBER IN THE ‘SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST’, HONG KONG’S LEAD NEWSPAPER. A VERY SIMILAR VERSION WAS PUBLISHED 10 SEPTEMBER IN ‘CHINA DAILY’, THE LEADING ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DAILY OF CHINA: “Hong Kong is one of the world’s great metropolises, most…
A Sane Man Facing the Insanity
America’s 44th president is often cruelly hit, if sometimes quietly and behind his back, with the wicked “w” word. For many angry or disappointed people — here and abroad — that word is: “wimp.” It is hurled in the direction of the White House of Barack Hussein Obama as an…
THAILAND: Generals Should Defend But Not Rule Their Countries
“The United States is an Asian-Pacific nation, and we take our enduring interests there very seriously. We know that America’s security and prosperity are closely and increasingly linked to the Asia-Pacific.” So spoke John Kerry, that peripatetic American diplomat. And so finally, if but for one excellent speech, the secretary…
Asia Media’s New Editorial & Advisory Teams
ASIA MEDIA WRITES – For the soon-arriving academic year at The New ASIA MEDIA Center, publisher of the prominent international e-magazine ASIA MEDIA at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, our fall lineup has now been set, and so we are very happy to announce the following major appointments: 1.…
PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE: On China, Australians Make a Lot of Sense – and Dollars
TOM PLATE WRITES – Among the easiest things on the face of the earth on which one can become quickly aware of is an Australian after-party. That’s because it tends to carry on for so long that with each additional (happy) hour, it gets very audibly happier. But, as a…
IRAQ: Losing When You’re Right
Tom Plate writes in his syndicated column: Since almost no one is coming to the defense of President Barack Obama, whose opinion poll numbers continue to slide, why don’t I give it my best effort? After all, back in 2002, before the actual invasion of Iraq, the then-senator from Illinois…
HOW NOT TO MISUNDERSTAND ASIA: The Farewell Interviews by Editors Fajardo & Garcia
TOM PLATE WRITES – Before graduating with their degrees, Asia Media Magazine managing editors Jeremiah Fajardo and Stephanie Garcia spent time with Asia Media’s editor-in-chief for a final panoramic interview on Asia today. The interviews can be viewed below. Jeremiah’s Interview Stephanie’s Interview A collated version for classroom usage can…
PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES: Getting Hot Over Global Warming
TOM PLATE WRITES – Like each of his seven predecessors, the current occupant of the Office of Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, gets to pick his own impossible dream to imagine solved, and he certainly has his. However, the SG disagrees that he’s tilting at windmills, as…
MONDAY AT LMU LOS ANGELES: THE DRAMA – HIGH AND LOW – OVER DRONES
To use drones against enemies … or not to drone on? You are invited to an unprecedented review of this immense geopolitical, domestic political and ethic controversy over drone warfare on the LMU campus near Marina Del Rey, California, starting Sunday night. The issue is both new — and as…
THE PLATE COLUMN: Should Crimea Be Such a Priority?
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES — Viewed from Los Angeles, tiny Ukraine seems much, much farther away and remote from our core national interests than, for example, gigantic Indonesia. So perhaps something is wrong with us on the West Coast of the United States, and we simply fail to understand…
BANGKOK: THE GRAVE DARKNESS DESCENDING OVER THAILAND
TOM PLATE WRITES: The stakes in the outcome of the ongoing Thai Crisis are huge and go beyond the strict parameters of the country itself. Geopolitically, Thailand has been a solid U.S. ally, particularly during the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Economically, it has been a vital force amid…
SPECIAL EVENT: Tom Plate to Speak on Asia at Japanese American Museum, Feb. 4
World Affairs Council Event Features America’s Only Asia-only Columnist’s New Book “In the Middle of the Future” Tom Plate – award-winning journalist, critically acclaimed book author and America’s only Asia-only columnist – will give a talk Tuesday, Feb. 4 on “In the Middle of the Future: Tom Plate on Asia” and…
LOS ANGELES: Trying to Keep Japan in Perspective
TOM PLATE WRITES IN HIS SYNDICATED NEWSPAPER COLUMN: Try it, you might like it: a sense of proportion. Avoid the extreme cry of apocalypse now — or, at least, of apocalypse soon. Stretch your intellectual and historical horizons to appreciate Japan as an expanse of more than just a few…
LOS ANGELES: Hong Kong – “New York in a Chinese Fortune Cookie”
The following interview with Asia Media founder and editor in chief Tom Plate was conducted by G. Bruce Smith of the firm of SMITH WRITING & PR in Culver City, California (http://www.smith-writing-pr.com). The occasion is the U.S. release of Professor Plate’s new book IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUTURE (Marshall…
INDONESIA: IS ‘JOKOWI’ THE GREAT NEW HOPE?
TOM PLATE WRITES IN THE JAKARTA POST: Our favorite optimist of Asia is at it again, and may the gods of our future bless this learned man. He is Kishore Mahbubani (KM), the savvy Singapore policy-school dean and acclaimed author whose most recent book “The Great Convergence” might almost be…