Chinese are fond of saying that they have 5,000 years of history, which makes their country “old.” To their minds, European countries are also “old,” since most of them have at least 1,000 years of history. The comparison is also … Continue reading
It was indignity that drove the Germans, Chinese, and Americans to want revenge. The Germans almost had their revenge in World War Two, after having been humiliated by the settlement after World War One. Many Chinese today now want their … Continue reading
Nationalism has a justifiably bad reputation, given its responsibility for many or most of the horrors of the last two centuries. Is there anything good about nationalism? According to Liah Greenfeld in Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, the origins of … Continue reading
We who live in China and have engaged in the least with local intellectuals in the debate about democracy in China should all be familiar with the argument that freedom requires discipline and responsibility. How, they ask, can we give … Continue reading
Many Chinese feel surprising affection toward Forest Gump. Chinese are drawn not only to the sappy melodrama of Gump and his sweetheart “fated” to be together, but to the “simplicity” of the dim, but infinitely “wise” Forrest Gump, whose life … Continue reading
Observers starting with Tocqueville in Democracy in America have taken note of the vitality of voluntary associations in America. Chief among these has been the diversity of religious organizations. Although Europeans are apt to denounce the United States an overtly … Continue reading
In the traditional Chinese family, the father is a stern figure. While the children might find genuine human affection with the mother, they feared the father’s watchfulness. The son, especially, was watched for correct expressions of concern, affection, and filial … Continue reading
Put a kid in a room with a tempting cookie, and nothing else but that cookie, and see if he chooses to eat that cookie immediately or wait ten minutes, so that he is rewarded with another cookie. If he … Continue reading
As Walter Russell Mead points out in his blog, December 17th, 2011 was the 234th anniversary of French recognition of the United States of America. Louis XVI had been convinced by the American victory at Saratoga in 1777 that the American … Continue reading
Julia Lovell’s The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China is generally a successful, highly readable history, especially in how it seems to collect every humorous detail about the Chinese war effort (not humorous to all, of course) … Continue reading
We were very pleased to host Walter Russell Mead at our lecture series last week. At The American Interest and at The Council on Foreign Relations, Mead has been one of the foremost foreign policy thinkers of the past decade. His thought has straddled the academic and … Continue reading
A lot of people have been asking me recently about how I like my new job, so I thought I’d try to answer them all in one place, and try to place this into some larger theoretical context. I’ll start … Continue reading