China Adjusts

China watchers are waiting to see whether the country has engineered a soft landing, cooling down an overheating economy and achieving a more sustainable rate of growth, or whether Asia’s dragon will crash to earth, as others in the neighborhood have before it. But some, particularly American politicians in this presidential election year, focus on only one thing: China’s trade balance.True, not long ago the renminbi was substantially undervalued, and China’s trade surpluses were very large. Tha

March 28, 2012

The cracks in the BRICS

As it prepares to hold its latest annual summit in New Delhi on March 28-29, the BRICS grouping -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- remains a concept in search of a common identity and institutionalized cooperation. That is hardly surprising, given that these countries have very different political systems, economies, and national goals, and are located in very different parts of the world. Yet the five emerging economies pride themselves on forming the first important non-Weste

March 28, 2012

Chinese coup rumors run wild online, disappear

These are strange days for China’s netizens. On March 15, the Chinese Communist Party relieved Bo Xilai, the Chongqing party secretary, of his duties after his police chief allegedly attempted to seek asylum in the United States. It was arguably the biggest political story to hit China in two decades, and Chinese microbloggers embraced it with gusto. In the hours following the concise, two-sentence official statement the state media carried about the firing, citizens posted millions of tweets to

March 27, 2012

Too old to get hired, too young to retire

A friend of mine had his name in the paper the other day. It was an article speculating about who might inherit a prestigious post in the literary world when the current grandee retires. The article said that my friend would have led the list 10 years ago. Ouch! The obvious though unstated implication is that now he’s too old. He just turned 60. He says he already has his dream job and didn’t mind the idea that, because he is 60, some career opportunities have moved beyond his reach. But I mind.

March 27, 2012

First World problems

After being bombarded with news of Third World problems for so long, I figured it was time to give a bit of equal time to First World suffering. Every so often I reach a boiling point with modern Western culture and feel the need to rant ― so I’m going to bleed it out through my fingertips, as Ernest Hemingway used to say of writing, before my brain explodes from the pressure.― After years of not owning a television, I finally broke down and bought one in November, thinking that maybe it was tim

March 27, 2012

Which way is China’s red Ferrari headed?

Seek truth from facts,” goes an old Chinese saying favored by Deng Xiaoping. That injunction should also apply to the story of Bo Xilai, the recently ousted party chief of Chongqing whose fall has become something of a morality tale. To hear some tea-leaf readers tell it, the high-flying Bo was the creator of the “Chongqing model,” a program that melded support for state-owned enterprises and measures to help the poor with a relentless campaign against crime and corruption and a rekindling of re

March 26, 2012

Sanctions noose on Iran should be further tightened

Barely two weeks ago, the drumbeat of war against Iran pounded like a throbbing headache. Israel’s prime minister made the rounds in Washington threatening to launch a preemptive attack, while President Barack Obama argued his best case for letting economic sanctions run their course.After the prime minister’s departure, the international banking system came together like never before. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, broke a longstanding neutrality poli

March 26, 2012

Korea’s effective way to combat student bullying

Students all over Korea are hard at work posting comments on the Internet, positive comments! With more than 2.5 million positive comments posted to date, our Sunfull Movement, which I started five years ago, is proving an effective way to reduce students’ posting of malicious comments. Now we are looking to expand our idea to other countries.The harassment of children and teenagers via the Internet and cellphones is becoming common in countries around the world. Every month, there are more stor

March 26, 2012

A proposal to make democracy compatible with thriving economy

In any country in the world, most citizens tend to want more social/welfare programs from their governments. When politicians are running in local or national elections, they become particularly sensitive to the pressure from groups advocating their pet social/welfare programs. It is quite natural for politicians in any democracy to cater to the citizens’ wishes, hoping to ingratiate themselves to the voters. All is good except for the problem of paying for the programs, or more specifically, wh

March 26, 2012

Don’t punish Kim Jong-un’s people for missile madness

U.S. policy toward North Korea is crazy ― that is, if you believe the old chestnut that insanity means repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results. Each time the U.S. thinks North Korea has agreed to curtail its nuclear or missile programs, usually in return for some concession, the North either breaches or skips away from its obligations. Brinksmanship and rupture ensue, followed by a laborious and tentative rapprochement ― and then the cycle commences anew. It’s like watchi

March 25, 2012

Green is not enough

Clean water is increasingly scarce. About a third of the world’s fisheries have collapsed and desertification now threatens the livelihoods of a third of the world’s people. Parts of our planet are in peril. For a comprehensive solution, green is not enough.To protect our home, we must empower people. The Arab Spring and the Occupy movement are clear calls for equality. We must heed them. Only by working to ensure the next generation has jobs, basic services and opportunity, as well as a protect

March 25, 2012

Verizon to the cable industry: Let’s be friends

Three months ago, Verizon Communications Inc. and three major cable companies announced a $3.6 billion joint marketing deal. Today, Congress is getting around to the question of whether it’s a good idea. The Subcommittee for Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing titled, “The Verizon/Cable Deals: Harmless Collaboration or a Threat to Competition and Consumers?” A better question might be: Why isn’t the American public paying closer

March 25, 2012

Lessons for Tokyo

Within 10 minutes of landing in Tokyo Narita International Airport, I encountered my very first earthquake, and it was a brutal one. More than 15,000 people were confirmed dead and more than 3,000 are still missing. While Japan marks its first year since the quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, I contemplate the incident. There’s one lesson for Tokyo: Do not hide a problem under the rug and pray that it will simply go away.Tokyo was quick to silence dissent when a spokesman for the Nuclear and I

March 25, 2012

Israelis grow confident strike on Iran can work

In 2005, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then Israel’s finance minister, made an official visit to Uganda. For Netanyahu, visits to Uganda are weighted with sadness. It was at the airport in Entebbe that his older brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, was shot dead by a Ugandan soldier. Yonatan was the leader of an Israeli commando team dispatched by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in July 1976 to rescue Jewish hostages held by pro-Palestinian terrorists. The terrorists had diverted an Air France flight to Ugand

March 23, 2012