The Middle Kingdom – Page 11 – The Scholar's Stage

The Cambodian Tilt Towards China

05 January, 2017Electoral Intrigues, Entangling Alliances, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom

A map of “Khmer Krom,” territory once dominated by Khmer speakers before it was conquered by Vietnam in the 18th and 19th centuries. Image Source: Douc Sokha, “សហគមន៍ខ្មែរក្រោមថារកឃើញឯកសារជាង៤០០០ទំព័រ ទាក់ទងនឹងការកាត់ទឹកដីកម្ពុជាក្រោមឲ្យវៀតណាម“, Vod Hot News (15 February 2015) Folks, I have a piece up at Foreign Policy on two of my favorite topics–Cambodian politics and China’s international relations. Most analysts see […]

4 Comments

History is Written by the Losers

21 November, 2016History, Narrative, Romans and Grecians, The Middle Kingdom

This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable.Meet Sima Qian. I hold him in high regard. You could say that this was a historian with balls. Sima Qian is sometimes called the “Herodotus of the East.” […]

23 Comments

China: The Unknowable Kingdom

16 November, 2016Entangling Alliances, Futuristics, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Earlier this year I wrote that the Chinese do not want our liberal, rules-based order. How America should respond to this rejection was a question I left open. This week, however, in a long two-book review essay published over at Strategy Bridge, I have returned to the question. The two books under review are Lyle […]

6 Comments

Everybody Wants a Thucydides Trap

30 October, 2016Dogs of War, Entangling Alliances, History, Narrative, Romans and Grecians, The Middle Kingdom

This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable. All the world trembles at the dreaded “Thucydides trap.”Of late this phrase has been all the rage. It was first popularized by Graham Allison in 2012, and has only […]

1 Comment

China Was Never an Empire of the Mind

31 July, 2016Complex Systems, Dogs of War, Europa Regina, History, Narrative, Near East, Small and Simple Things, The Middle Kingdom

“Let us go forward as with other matters and other measures similar in aim and effect – let us go forward in malice to none and good will to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people’s provinces or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future […]

13 Comments

Costly Signaling in the South China Sea

06 July, 2016Bargaining and Balancing, Entangling Alliances, Military Affairs, Narrative, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom

This will be my final post in the “China Does Not Want Your Rules Based Order” series. You can read the original post that started the conversation here and the first follow up discussion here. In this post I will focus on a comment left back on the original essay by Andrew Chubb. Chubb is […]

5 Comments

Arms and Influence… and China

16 June, 2016Bargaining and Balancing, Diplomacy, Entangling Alliances, Military Affairs, Political Theory, The Middle Kingdom

Last week’s post “China Does Not Want Your Rules Based Order” created a stir. Many who read it were inspired to write up their own view in response; some of these have been posted in the comments thread to the original post, others on Twitter, and yet others have been sent to me in more […]

9 Comments

China Does Not Want Your Rules Based Order

04 June, 2016Bargaining and Balancing, Entangling Alliances, Geopolitics, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom

While the sun and moon endureLuck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,I’d face it as a wise man would,And train for ill and not for good. —A.E. Housman, “Terence This is Stupid Stuff,” (1896) THE WORDS of Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered on the 3rd of June to the assembled […]

18 Comments

The Real Reason Chinese is “So Damn Hard”

01 June, 2016Education, The Middle Kingdom, Things I Do Other Than Blogging

The Tropical MBA podcast is one of the few I listen to religiously. Theirs is the premier podcast produced by and for ‘location independent entrepreneurs,’ which I’ll define here as entrepreneurs who have built businesses that allow their owners to operate from just about anywhere on the planet–or at least anywhere on the planet with […]

8 Comments

In Hong Kong, Your Clothes Matter

12 May, 2016Crazy Stuff That Costs Way Too Much Money, Culture, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

I have not had much time to devote to blogging this week, but I would like to forward a report I suspect most readers will find as fascinating as I have: the Asian Productivity Organization‘s APO Productivity Databook 2015. I have been slowly leafing through it over the last month; on every page there is a […]

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