TOM PLATE WRITES (THIS COLUMN IS REPRINTED COURTESY OF THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST) — .As Hongkongers can certainly testify, political parades in the public square or citizen protests occupying a thoroughfare can hide as much as they reveal. Last week, Beijing put together for all the world to see…
Category: Tom Plate
HONG KONG: ‘We Are Now in the Soup Together’
TOM PLATE WRITES (courtesy of the South China Morning Post): China, it seems, cannot win for losing. Exports-predator China is always ‘beating us’, bombastic billionaire businessman Donald Trump declaimed yet again on the campaign trail. But his timing on this point could have been better as last week was not…
TOKYO: THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE LATE LEE KUAN YEW
ASIA MEDIA WRITES: For all you Japanese literati types, do not miss the recent issue of GAIKO, the leading foreign policy journal of Japan, with its feature length essay on Singapore’s international-relations policy under the late, great Lee Kuan Yew. The article was translated into Japanese from the English-language original…
VIETNAM: ‘Don’t Leave Us Alone’!
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL WRITES: The recent ice-breaking visit of the top Communist Party official of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Washington triggered a worldwide media flurry of so-called ‘expert’ commentary. Nguyen Phu Trong was the first general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party to visit the United States and…
JAPAN: U.S. ALLY GETS NO RESPECT AT ALL
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDER TOM PLATE WRITES – So what’s in a phrase? Sometimes, it seems, a great deal, but not always what the glib phrase maker intended. History, we learn, often gets the last laugh. Our story begins years ago, you see, with a highly esteemed lady of the…
HONG KONG: NEW COLUMN ON CHINA
Asia Media Writes: The South China Morning Post, one of Asia’s premier daily newspapers, is offering readers a new regularly appearing column on China. But, surprisingly, the fortnightly ‘Insight’ essay comes from the mind and pen not of a Mainland or even Asia-based commentator but from Professor Tom Plate, founder…
FROM BBC LONDON: TONY BLAIR, KISHORE MAHBUBANI, CHRIS PATTEN, KISSINGER, PLATE AND OTHERS ON LKY
BY ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL – Hear the world famous World Service’s weekend assessment of Lee Kuan Yew, who has died at 91. LISTEN AT: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mtsbv
SHANGHAI: THE BUND MAGAZINE
Asia Media International writes – In China there are few magazines more upscale or highly regarded than The Bund. From its main office in central Shanghai, it has become a magazine of choice for middle-class-and-up mainland hipsters. A recent edition featured an interview with Asia Media International editor in chief…
FROM THE PUBLISHER’S OFFICE: A Story of Risk and Reward
Building something from the ground up is a daunting task. Whether it’s a new business start-up or a book manuscript, the process is a labor of love. You put everything you have into it, often sacrificing things along the way to make your dream a reality. Ultimately, it’s an immense…
ASIA AND THE U.S.: TRIANGLE DIPLOMACY
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF WRITES IN HIS SYNDICATED COLUMN: Our intellectual (and tall) US president is a well-known connoisseur of the sport of basketball. One of the game’s famous offensive strategies is named ‘the triangle’. And so with the very welcome announcement by Barack Obama’s National Security adviser Susan Rice…
PARIS: ‘WE ARE CHARLIE HEBDO’
OUR FOUNDER TOM PLATE WRITES IN HIS SYNDICATED COLUMN – As the editor in charge of the opinion pages of newspapers in New York and Los Angeles, what was the hardest part of my job? Dealing with annoying, demanding bosses? Calming down angry readers? Smoothing the enormous egos of neurotic…
JAPAN: WHY ROOT FOR FAILURE?
The following syndicated column by Asia Media Founder Tom Plate appeared Monday 15 Dec. in the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong: There will be little rejoicing over this weekend’s Japanese election. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains leader of his party and his country, but who can imagine him…
CHINA: Dumb and Dumber?
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES: Perhaps the so-called US “pivot” to Asia is an immense self-delusion; perhaps America is hopelessly glued to its 20th-century past – yes, the oft-labelled American century; and so perhaps this Western “world power” is in effect emotionally handicapped – unable to prioritise geographically and always…
HONG KONG IN CRISIS: SHOULD ‘OUTSIDERS’ BE ALLOWED TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS?
The ‘Umbrella Revolution’ proceeds apace in Hong Kong, with the world’s spotlight on it undimmed. Editorials and columns appear in newspapers and websites around the world, supporting the protestors or calling for calm, or even urging Beijing to remain open to discussion and permit some review of its decision on…
MEDIA POWER: DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
BY TOM PLATE, COURTESY OF THE JAPAN TIMES OF TOKYO — Benjamin C. Bradlee, who has died at 93, was a far more thoughtful editor than he appeared to be. Sure, the Harvard graduate and friend of John F. Kennedy was well caricatured by the virtuoso stage and screen actor…
CHINA-U.S. RELATIONS: KISSINGER’S ‘WORLD ORDER’ WORRY – ‘DISASTER BECKONS’
TOM PLATE WRITES: If you wanted to make a huge point that would explode inside the mind and indeed soul of your reader, would you do a kind of Beethoven, or a kind of literary Mozart? Come right at the theme and hit you over the head with it; or…