Islamist politics in the Middle East cracked wide open with the Arab Awakening: Islamists have emerged on top in Tunisia, Libya, Iraq and Egypt. Western publics, lulled by the sight of iPhones and other social media at work, assumed that the demonstrations, rebellions and regime changes were all driven by Muslim wannabe Westerners and that Islamist politics were relics of the past.But when dictators started to fall, it shouldn’t have been any surprise that Islamists quickly came out on top. This

Viewpoints May 7, 2012

Lai Shing-yuan, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), was asked a couple of days ago at the Legislative Yuan if Taiwan would cooperate with the People’s Republic of China in the defense of the small archipelagoes in the South China Sea. She said Taiwan would never do so, perhaps to please the Philippines, Vietnam and probably the United States as well. These countries are very concerned about Taiwan ganging up with China to fight another mini-war over the island groups known to be su

Viewpoints May 7, 2012

A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success.To be sure, today’s ongoing global power shifts are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise, the speed and scale of which have no parallel in world history. With the world’s fastest-growing economies, fas

Viewpoints May 7, 2012

TEL AVIV ― The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies, and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their fear of anarchy. Given the Syrian opposition’s manifest ineffectiveness and disunity, so the argument goes, President Bashar al-Assad’s fall, when it finally comes, will incite civil war, massacres, and chaos, which is likely to spill over Syria’s borders, further destabilizing weak neighbors like Iraq and L

Viewpoints May 6, 2012

Three decades ago, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was confronted with a nation bordering on irrelevance, a stagnant economy and a set of entrenched beliefs about the relationship between government and the people. Thatcher faced down striking coal miners and forced through a series of free-market reforms that unshackled Britain’s economy and made it vibrant once again. To the chorus of accusations that she was killing the economy, she replied: “There is no alternative.” She was right. Sho

Viewpoints May 6, 2012

The one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden has reignited public debate over the effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques in U.S. antiterrorism efforts.The discussion is welcomed by an ex-CIA official who has published a book defending controversial interrogation techniques such as simulated drowning, also known as water boarding, as needed to save American lives.That might have been the case when fictional spy Jack Bauer would save the day on the old TV series 24, but top

Viewpoints May 6, 2012

BEIJING ― The Bo Xilai saga of power, wealth, corruption and murder has brought the issue of China’s princelings (offspring of the Communist Party’s former and current senior leaders) to the front and center of the international discourse on contemporary China. Three underlying assumptions about the princelings drive the noisy speculations about Chinese politics by many mainstream commentators: The princelings form a powerful interest group, akin to a political aristocracy, that exerts decisive

Viewpoints May 6, 2012

Spain is the crucial front in Europe’s battle to contain its economic crisis, and the fight is going badly. Spain’s economy is in a tailspin. Some forecasters say the unemployment rate, already a punishingly high 24.4 percent, could reach 30 percent. The government’s credit rating has just been downgraded, and its cost of borrowing ― close to 6 percent ― is putting its solvency in question. Investors are watching the country’s banks with mounting concern. Europe’s leaders cannot blame Madrid. Ma

Viewpoints May 4, 2012

The biannual meetings of the world’s leading financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are generally pretty staid affairs ― after all, how riled up can gatherings of central bankers and finance officials really get? In recent years, the answer is “pretty much.”Then again, a global financial crisis that refuses to go away, overlaid with (and compounded by) complaints about how the global financial architecture is run, makes for a combustible mix.At last month’s m

Viewpoints May 4, 2012

The influence of celebrities is an asset they can exploit, but they should be careful that their endorsements do not backfire and damage their image. The appeal of celebrities is an invaluable resource for brand publicity. When they recommend and praise certain products, audiences unconsciously link their reputation and personalities with the products, as if the quality and effectiveness of the products are naturally guaranteed. But appearing in advertisements is a double-edged sword for celebri

Viewpoints May 4, 2012