JAPAN: AMID US-CHINA TENSIONS, JAPAN MUST CHOOSE DEFT DIPLOMACY, NOT TOP GUN TOMFOOLERY, TO ENSURE PEACE

This column originally appeared in the South China Morning Post on January 4, 2023. CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Is it conceivable that the risk-taking pilot of the Chinese Navy J-11 fighter that flew within metres of a US Air Force RC-135 over the South China Sea two weeks ago…

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US-CHINA RELATIONS: IF PELOSI REALLY WANTS PEACE TO PREVAIL IN TAIWAN, SHE’LL STAY AWAY

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…

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WORLD: ASIA NEEDS LEADERS OF THE CALIBRE OF SINGAPORE’S LEE KUAN YEW TO NAVIGATE A MESSY WORLD

CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – You might well be starting to believe that the calibre of today’s political leadership isn’t what it used to be. Suddenly, the global field of play is cluttered with stunning individual wreckage. Political uncertainty rules, a war sparked by an invasion reveals our current…

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RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: NO ONE, CHINA INCLUDED, WANTS TO SEE THE UKRAINE WAR GOING NUCLEAR

CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Major participants in the Russia-Ukraine war, whether involved directly or by proxy, lack agreement about when and how it must end. These varying perspectives result in an unseemly policy scrum, adding more confusion to this humanitarian tragedy. This obscene war, despite the many ways…

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U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: WHY U.S. ARROGANCE, NOT THE RUSSIA-CHINA RELATIONSHIP, IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO PEACE IN UKRAINE

CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – It’s just possible that a favorable diplomatic wind is forming that could alter the trajectory of the storm of war raging over Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe. Pushing this war out to sea might help clear the gathering clouds of world economic collapse.…

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UNITED NATIONS: PERHAPS CHINA, NOT THE U.S., CAN SAVE THE WANING ORGANIZATION

TOM PLATE WRITES — Maybe the United Nations – fumbling, hopelessly bureaucratic, partly-corrupt – is in fact beyond redemption. Just forget about it: Let it career down the slippery slope of mediocrity and geopolitical irrelevance and splash ignominiously into New York’s East River — like some waterside condo with a…

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