In The News

Vietnam’s Economy Needs Reoriented Foreign Policy

David Brown February 20, 2013
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the country’s Communist Party embraced a Soviet-style economic model. By the mid-1980s, the country’s elites could not help but compare results of Soviet and Chinese economic models and undertook Chinese-style reforms to enjoy globalization’s benefits. The surge of foreign investment capital since has led to reckless credit expansion and inflation. Businesses...

In Egypt, The Kids Are Not All Right

David Ignatius February 19, 2013
Protests for representative government and human rights in Egypt have given way to thuggery and lawlessness, suggests David Ignatius in an opinion essay for the Washington Post. He compares “soccer thugs” roaming Egypt’s streets, defying authority, to the aggressive youth gangs in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. “They seem to disrespect their fathers’ generation for having...

In China, Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest

Sim Chi Yin February 11, 2013
Resentment is building online and in daily interactions among Chinese over rising income inequality, which is particularly pronounced between urban and rural communities. Sim Chi Yin explores the divisions with photographs of young graduate student who cannot find good jobs; retired laborers about to be evicted from small homes to make way for skyscrapers; street cleaners outside luxury stores...

Singapore Calls for 30% Population Growth

Jeremy Grant February 4, 2013
Asia’s vibrant city state has a problem: Its citizens are not producing enough children to sustain the economy. The government’s response is traditional and paradoxical: More people spur a society’s economic growth and wealth, but more children for individuals can curtail careers and prosperity. Singapore’s government has released a report pointing to a need for foreign workers as long as...

Ambassador: Germany Needs Skilled Workers From India

February 4, 2013
Germany’s ambassador to India has announced that his country welcomes skilled workers from India and noted that immigration procedures and education regulations have been eased, reports the Times of India. One catch: Ambassador Michael Steiner urged Indians interested in studying or working in Germany to learn German. Language study unites country and people, and the ambassador was quoted as...

Cultural Revolution

February 1, 2013
From “cultural backwater” to trendsetter – that’s how the Economist describes the transformation of the Nordic region in just two decades. Immigration, globalization and the internet have contributed to the region’s burst of innovation in the high-tech, entertainment, restaurant and other industries. “The bigger reason why the region’s writers and artists – and indeed chefs and game designers –...

The Legacy of the Silk Road

Valerie Hansen January 25, 2013
Modern-day diplomats in Asia and beyond envision reviving the Silk Road, an ancient network of routes crisscrossing the continent for trade and security. But Valerie Hansen, author and professor of history at Yale University points, out that trade was not the primary purpose of the network. “Instead, the Silk Road changed history, largely because the people who managed to travel along part or all...