ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL has concluded a negotiation with Marshall Cavendish International Asia to launch a joint book publishing operation, with an elite number of titles originating from the AMI West Coast operation from the campus of Loyola Marymount University. The well-known Singapore-based international publisher of a wide variety of book…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Without becoming too defensive about America at this rocky passage in its political history (well, it is difficult to defend), I nonetheless will offer something of a defense, since almost no one else wants to try, but maybe someone ought to. So we start with this: Whether…
TOM PLATE WRITES — There’s often little more than a thin line between admirable principle and annoying stubbornness, and that line is not always easy to identify. Lost in the miasma of mutually exclusive righteousness, each side says the other is wrong or evil or both. The tragic consequence is that…
TOM PLATE WRITES — American foreign policy rarely rises to the level of coherence recommended by its policy intellectuals and thoughtful diplomats; but without their persistence, it would be bereft of any coherence at all. When World War Two ended, for example, the American establishment came to rally around the containment…
From Asia Media International in Los Angeles — Congratulations, Hong Kong! Under conditions of the greatest stress, you have pulled off a mainly spotless and brilliant territory-wide election whose results resonate worldwide. Clean and clear elections are not that easy to pull off. (We in the U.S. are learning more…
TOM PLATE WRITES — The stars and stripes of the American flag, as if sliced by partisanship into bipolar bands of red and blue, never seemed more at cross-purpose. Only true haters might find pleasure in the proceedings. In the House, as if plowing through a field of empty dreams and…
TOM PLATE WRITES — There are a few, though not yet many, Republicans openly furious with beleaguered President Donald Trump for seemingly asking Beijing to join his reelection campaign, in effect, by actively degrading a leading Democratic opponent. The target – former Vice President Joe Biden son’s alleged business activities…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Right, you don’t have to remind me: the Chinese civilization of three thousand-plus years has at its ready ancient sayings for almost everything that comes up in life – sort of like the French who “always have a word for it”. Well, we Americans are not voiceless…
ASIA MEDIA WRITES – The following succinct commentary was solicited by the editors of USA Today and provided by our founder and president, Prof Tom Plate. It was published in this well-known national newspaper on Thursday 15-16 August. Please see: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/15/donald-trump-right-china-over-hong-kong-editorials-debates/2024883001/ TEXT By Tom Plate The notion that the U.S. should…
[Pix above of US Secretary of Sate Mike Pompeo] TOM PLATE WRITES – Let’s get some simple facts straight: Hong Kong is not in the sovereign hands of the People’s Republic of China due to crass invasion or communist subversion or anything nefarious. This historic territory was semi-willingly deeded back…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Australia has a China problem, and it’s not clear that anyone can help it out of the box it’s in. Yes, it’s a China box: The ground underneath the Asia-Pacific is starting to shake, and the incipient foreign-policy shakeout ‘Down Under’ may well tell those of…
TOM PLATE WRITES – One of the most significant political events in years and potentially one of the most historic will be known as the Battle for Hong Kong. And it is anything but played out. Beijing achingly wanted Hong Kong and decades ago got what it wanted. But is…
TOM PLATE WRITES — How should citizens react when Big Government does a bad thing that screams out for correction? One approach is to slip into denial and imagine nothing at all happened, because leaders are apt to err, so the best thing for your mental health is to look…
TOM PLATE WRITES – This is about the downside of overwrought moralizing. For inconvenient truths must be carefully considered on this week marking the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising and suppression. Much is at risk in the clarity and ethical framework with which the U.S. views China – and…
TOM PLATE WRITES – ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’: Trust takes a long time to build up. Worse yet, in clumsy hands it can vanish before you know it. Notice how the trust-factor between Beijing and Washington seems to be bottoming out almost faster than you can say ‘the Spirit of Mar-a-Lago…
TOM PLATE WRITES – When President Donald J. Trump abruptly folded his diplomatic tent in Hanoi and flew back to Washington without a de-nuclearization/sanctions-relief deal with North Korea, the temperature in the Vietnamese capital had been pleasantly upper-70s (F). But on landing, the American capital seemed much, much colder in…
