In The News

Scandal Erodes China’s Soft Power

Frank Ching May 4, 2012
China invests billions on Confucius Institutes and CCTV broadcasts to spread Chinese language, culture and perspectives on world news. But China’s harsh authoritarian rule, exposed by a few incidents or individuals attracting global attention, can undermine efforts to build soft power through a stream of crafted messages, reports journalist Frank Ching. Recent events highlight internal struggles...

A Plague on All Houses

Pranab Bardhan May 2, 2012
In China, India and the United States – political leadership is trapped in systems of governance that reinforce power, encouraging short-term gain with grave long-term costs. Complex policies mask dysfunction, curtail innovation that threatens the status quo, and ease corruption for those in the know. Dysfunctional government is unleashing inequality and dangerous populism in all three nations,...

Power Shift in China – Part I

Cheng Li April 16, 2012
Leadership transition in China is an opaque process. New appointments to the powerful standing committee of the Politburo are anticipated in October, as President Hu Jintao relinquishes his post as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and hands control to Vice President Xi Jinping. The firing of an ambitious Chongqing party secretary and investigation of his wife for a murder of a...

Children of China's Future – Part II

Karen Eggleston, Jean Oi, Scott Rozelle, Ang Sun, Xueguang Zhou March 14, 2012
Inequality has many forms, most with insidious and tragic consequences for children. This two-part series examines the opportunity gap for children of wealthy urbanites in China and those of the rural poor. In the second and final article, Karen Eggleston and a team of faculty members and researchers with Stanford University focus on the plight of China’s rural poor and an 8-year-old boy. Like...

With Hunger Growing, North Korea Returns to Nuclear Talks

Shim Jae Hoon March 7, 2012
China’s policy toward North Korea is increasingly viewed as self-serving, cynical and awkward. On one hand, China sides with the international community, echoing demands for a nuclear-free peninsula and, on the other, props up the Kim regime with food and military aid. At first glance, North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, has let China off the hook by offering to restart talks on...

Applying the Responsibility to Protect to Syria

Bennett Ramberg March 5, 2012
More than 9000 people have been reported killed in a year of Syrian unrest, after the government used troops and tanks to crack down on determined protesters, and thousands of Syrian refugees try to escape the violence by crossing into Lebanon and Turkey. Human rights advocates had lauded application of the United Nations’ Responsibility to Protect doctrine in Libya to end the violence by Muammar...

Elites Loot Africa While Foreign Debt Mounts

James K. Boyce, Léonce Ndikumana February 27, 2012
Too often, borrowed monies are salted away from Africa’s most impoverished nations to offshore banks through inflated contracts or kickbacks. The complexities and bank-secrecy laws of the international finance system, combined with a lack of enforcement, assist such transfers, contend James K. Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana, authors of Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled...