ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDER TOM PLATE WRITES — In global diplomatic circles, what is not uttered publicly can reveal more than that which is out in the open. Perhaps no one captured this with more spice and sauce than Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Périgord, the acknowledged French maestro of European diplomacy…
Full Article ENDING THE WAR: BUT IS BEIJING UP TO THE HISTORIC CHALLENGE?
WRITES TOM PLATE FROM LOS ANGELES IN HIS SYNDICATED ASIA COLUMN – ‘Ukraine Isn’t Armageddon.’ Now, how bold and direct is that?! This was the banner headline splashed over the most incisive journalism I have read on Vladimir Putin and the Crimea crisis. It led the April edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, the…
Full Article THE PLATE COLUMN: Russia in the Ukraine – Beyond Good and Evil
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – While some countries snort derisively at Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea, in Japan it’s been love at first sight with the Republic’s new attorney general. In the immediate aftermath of the Russian land grab, a press conference featuring 34-year-old Natalia Poklonskaya went viral — and it…
Full Article JAPAN: Crimea Controversy Leads to Net SensationSYNDICATED 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…
Full Article THE PLATE COLUMN: Should Crimea Be Such a Priority?