“America has lost,” President Duterte of the Philippines said to China’s top leaders in Beijing this October. As the leader of the oldest American ally in Asia, Rodrigo Duterte’s speech and behavior have been regarded by many as outlandish. Duterte’s anti-American rhetoric has warned international observers about a geopolitical tectonic shift, one in which the Philippines […]
Author: Tianlang Gao
Taiwan’s President Must Prove She Can Lead
On May 20th this year, I landed in Taiwan’s Taoyuan Airport, full of excitement because I was finally able to live through a historic moment. It was Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration day. Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party, came across as a capable, pragmatic politician, famously known for her pro-independence stance about […]
A Middle Ground for Snowden
Three years ago, Edward Snowden shocked the world with his revelation of NSA mass surveillance programs. Now he wants to come home. As a new wave of public debate surrounding privacy and national security takes place, now is the best time for the U.S. government and Mr. Snowden to find a common ground. The U.S. […]
A Case for Opening the Great Firewall
“Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world,” read the first email from China to Germany in 1987. Today, the prophecy looks rather ironic; China’s internet censorship protocol, “the Great Firewall,” blocks Chinese netizens from Google, Facebook, and the rest of the world. To ask for total internet freedom is impractical, […]
When News Speaks for the Party
“I don’t trust WeChat anymore,” a friend told me. “It’s terrifying.” She had recently updated the popular Chinese instant messaging app on her iPhone and was logged out because she forgot her password. WeChat instructed her to choose three friends for identity verification. It then sent texts to her friends, including me, with verification codes. […]
The Art of Unapologizing
Political apologies are flawed, especially from the perspective of comfort women. About 20,000 women and girls were taken against their will to “comfort stations” throughout East Asia to provide sexual service to Japanese troops before and during WWII. The sacrifice of these “comfort women” were not formally recognized until fifty years after the war: the Kono […]
Our renminbi. Your problem.
“If an alien landed on earth they would be puzzled by its international financial institutions as China is grossly underrepresented” (BBC). In fact, it’s not just China; the vast majority of Asian countries are severely underrepresented in international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), though Asia is home to the world’s fastest […]