[David Rothkopf] Will Trump get what he wants in China?

Donald Trump is reinventing the kowtow for the Twitter age. Last week, in fawning tweets, he celebrated Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “extraordinary elevation” at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, and in a TV interview he bragged that he and Xi had the best “president-president” relationship ever. It was over the top -- especially in light of the fact that Xi is an authoritarian leader.Clearly, Trump, a man not known for his humility, wants something. China is the most important stop o

Nov. 7, 2017

[Cass R. Sunstein] What if a tyrant can’t be booted out of office?

With the indictments of two campaign associates of then candidate Donald Trump, and the guilty plea of one of his foreign policy advisers, some people are starting to talk again about the possibility of impeachment. Let’s put contemporary issues to one side and instead ask an enduring question: Did the framers get impeachment right? In other words, does the Constitution strike the right balance?　To answer, we need to separate two decisions made during the founding era. The first involves the sta

Nov. 6, 2017

[Chicago Tribune ] Trump should speak up for the Rohingya people

The Rohingya people of Myanmar have long been despised and persecuted as a Muslim minority in a majority-Buddhist country. Now, they are being slaughtered.A brutal campaign of terror has driven more than 600,000 of the Rohingya to flee the country to neighboring Bangladesh, and a political and humanitarian crisis is rapidly unfolding. The United Nations calls it “a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.”The exodus was sparked by a disturbing escalation of long-simmering tensions between Myanmar’s ma

Nov. 6, 2017

[Tatiana Schlossberg] Europe needs to be frank about biomass

Great Britain, the country that, during the Industrial Revolution, got the rest of the world hooked on burning coal, is planning to end its own dependence on the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Drax, the operator of Britain’s largest coal-fired power plant, plans to stop using coal by 2020, in line with the country’s effort to phase out coal entirely by 2025.　How will Britain make this happen? In part, by switching to biomass, largely in the form of wood pellets. Biomass already accounts for about 8 p

Nov. 6, 2017

[Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry] Social business isn’t an oxymoron in France

Social entrepreneurship is a concept perfectly suited for Emmanuel Macron’s France: It sounds both left-wing and right-wing, speaks of innovation and compassion, and is a little fuzzy.　But while the hype seems deceptive, the numbers tell a good story. According to official figures, employment in social businesses, defined as corporations, for-profit or not, incorporated with “solidarity and social utility” as a key goal and reflecting it in their governance structure, grew by 24 percent between

Nov. 5, 2017

[Pankaj Mishra] America’s wars are spreading chaos in Africa

The Indonesian military killed as many as 1 million suspected communists in the mid-1960s, paving the path for a dictator, Suharto, who ruled the country for more than three decades. Newly declassified documents from the US embassy in Jakarta reveal an extraordinary degree of American complicity in what remains one of the Cold War’s biggest crimes. The US not only ignored information that could have prevented the atrocity; it facilitated the killings by providing the Indonesian military with mon

Nov. 5, 2017

[Markos Koulanakis] China is using fentanyl in chemical war against America

Fentanyl is the synthetic opioid driving America’s public health crisis. Its cheap price, widespread use, addictive quality and deadly effect make it more dangerous than other narcotics classified by the DEA.It is, ultimately, a chemical. And it’s being used as a weapon in China’s 21st century Opium War against America.President Donald Trump’s 12-day, five-nation Asia tour will focus on North Korean nukes and international trade. In Beijing, however, he plans to address China’s fentanyl producti

Nov. 5, 2017

[Andrew Malcolm] How DC’s Democrats have become irrelevant

Perhaps you’ve heard a little something about President Donald Trump fighting publicly with members of his own party. The media loves these he-said-then-he-said stories of political conflict. They’re so easy to cover and self-destructive to the GOP cause. So they’re churned out day after day, enabling this president to manipulate coverage through mere tweets and dominate consecutive news cycles.What you haven’t heard much about is the acidic disarray among Democrats. That’s understandable. Democ

Nov. 3, 2017

[Editorial] Hypocritical nominee

Hong Jong-haak, President Moon Jae-in’s nominee for minister of SMEs and Startups, has run into a lot of flak for being unconscionable and hypocritical.Two years ago, his spouse and daughter were each gifted a 25 percent stake in a commercial building owned by his mother-in-law. Dividing property stake before giving it to children is an effective way to reduce tax payments. His daughter, now 13 years old, made a deal with her mother to borrow 220 million won ($198,000) from her to pay the relate

Nov. 2, 2017

[Shlomo Avineri] Like the Palestinians, the Kurds deserve a state

Nowadays, almost everyone agrees that the Palestinian people deserve a state, and that they should not live under Israeli rule. Most Israelis share this view, including even Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has reluctantly stated his own commitment to a two-state solution. And in many Western democracies, a strong left-wing constituency regularly organizes demonstrations in favor of Palestinian independence.The argument for Palestinian statehood is anchored in a fundamentally moral claim f

Nov. 2, 2017

[Los Angeles Times] Calming the Catalonia crisis

As if Europe weren’t struggling with enough problems, from Brexit to rising nationalism to a relentless influx of migrants fleeing tumult and war in the Middle East and Africa, Spain now finds itself mired in its worst political crisis since the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco and the creation of a democratic Spanish state in 1978. The crisis stems from a growing desire in Catalonia — the semiautonomous northeastern region anchored by Barcelona — to secede and form an independent nation.

Nov. 2, 2017

[Noah Smith] Free college would help the rich more than poor

Free college sounds like a great idea, when you first hear the words. That might be why Bernie Sanders was able to whip up so much enthusiasm around the idea in his 2016 presidential bid, and is still campaigning for it to this day. For anyone who has had to pay sky-high tuition at a big-name university, or dealt with the crushing weight of student loans, those two magical words must seem like a rope being thrown down from heaven.　But the dream of free college is a mirage. While much needs to be

Nov. 2, 2017