In The News

Wanted: Equal Opportunity Globalization

Branko Milanovic November 29, 2016
Populist stances are resonating with dissatisfied voters in the wealthiest places including Europe and the United States. The West has posted low growth rates for its middle class over the past 25 years while the average income growth of a median household in Asia during the same period was about four times as high – Asia still has some catching up to do as income levels and gross domestic...

The Stakes of Italy’s Referendum

Mario Margiocco November 28, 2016
Italy votes December 4 on a referendum on constitutional reforms –including reducing the size of the upper house of parliament and reinforcing separation of powers. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has promised to step down if voters reject the referendum. “A defeat for Renzi will be read as a victory for Italy’s two major populist parties: the Lega Nord and the larger Five Star Movement, led by the...

South Korea’s Park Faces Existential Question of Survival

Donald Kirk November 18, 2016
Protesters in Seoul are calling for the resignation of South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Koreans are disturbed by “what they perceive as a long-term pattern of embarrassing if not disgraceful conduct,” writes Donald Kirk for Asia Sentinel. “At the heart of the scandal is Park’s relationship, going back four decades, with the woman who won her deepest confidence in shamanistic rituals...

What the Tea Party Tells Us About the Trump Presidency

Vanessa Williamson November 9, 2016
The Tea Party movement foreshadowed Donald Trump’s winning the US presidential race. Vanessa Williamson, writing for Brookings, describes the grassroots activists as a coalition of older, white conservatives and a conservative media infrastructure funded by ideologue billionaires who oppose taxes and regulations. “Donald Trump was willing to address immigration in terms substantially more extreme...

Xi Turns Sights on Wayward Senior Leaders in China Graft Fight

November 3, 2016
The Chinese Communist Party has consolidated power for President Xi Jinping’s and imposed new rules to battle corruption by senor leaders. “The rules detailed by the official Xinhua News Agency late Wednesday put the onus on top officials to set higher standards and called on cadres to report potential violations involving members of the party’s Central Committee,” reports Bloomberg. “The 25-...

China's Leaders Consolidate Power

Frank Ching November 3, 2016
China’s Xi Jinping is the second leader of the People’s Republic of China to be designated “core” of party leadership. Deng Xiaoping “invented the title ‘core,’ bestowing it on Jiang Zemin, whom he chose as the party leader after the tumult of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and the downfall of General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who had sympathized with protesting students,” explains...

The Decline of the West, and How to Stop It

Javier Solana and Strobe Talbott October 25, 2016
Western democracy’s many achievements are in jeopardy as cooperation erodes at both the global and national levels, warn Javier Solana, former secretary general of NATO, and Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. “A vital lesson of the modern era is that internationalism has stabilized the world, while lapses into bellicose nationalism have wreaked havoc,” the two write. Nations...