The Scholar's Stage

Chinese Influence and Intelligence Activities: A Few Notes

20 September, 2017By The People, Entangling Alliances, Spies and Spooks, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny

Image Source The most important thing you will read this week—likely the most important thing you will read this month—is Anne-Marie Brady’s report “Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping.” In this report Dr. Brady describes in detail what is known about Chinese influence and intelligence operations inside New Zealand. In many ways […]

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Leveraging Indian Power The Right Way

04 September, 2017Bharat, Dogs of War, Entangling Alliances, Military Affairs, The Middle Kingdom

Image source. Now that the affair in Doklam has come to a close, analysts of various stripes are trying to make sense of what happened and what lessons can be learned from the episode. One of the smartest of these write ups was written by Oriana Skylar Mastro and Arzan Tarapore for War on the […]

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Learning From Old China

24 July, 2017Books and Literature, Community, Education, Possessions For All Time, The Middle Kingdom

Last week’s posting (“Everything is Worse in China”) caught the attention of Rod Dreher, who reblogged it with comments over at the American Conservative. I sent him an e-mail in response introducing a few Chinese thinkers who might be relevant to the traditionalist cause, especially in its Benedict Option version. As he has published the […]

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Everything is Worse in China

19 July, 2017Books and Literature, Community, Culture, Narrative, Religion, The Middle Kingdom

One of the benefits of living in China is a certain sense of perspective. China exists outside of the Anglophone culture wars. It would not be accurate to say the Chinese don’t have an opinion or even a stake in American cultural crusades. They do. But our fights are not their fights, and even when […]

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A Parable Concerning Tolerance

06 March, 2017Culture, Demographics, Domestic Politics, Electoral Intrigues, History

There once lived in a far country a people of gentle nature and perceptive understanding. They were led by a man of great vision. At great cost he decided to dedicate his life to preserving this people’s way of life. He saw in them a beauty and virtue he could find nowhere else. In a […]

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Travels and Meet Ups

17 January, 2017Things I Do Other Than Blogging

One quick announcement for the readership: posting will probably be light over the next three weeks, as I will be spending that time away from Beijing, instead criss-crossing my way across America. I will certainly spend at least a week in Utah, and a week in DC, and possibly a bit of time in Texas […]

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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 […]

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Every Book I Read in 2016

03 January, 2017Books and Literature

Image Source New Year’s Day has come and gone, meaning that it is time, per established tradition, to report the full list of books that I read over the last year. This tradition is now four years old, but I am still surprised with its popularity. These posts have not generated the highest hit counts […]

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The Election We All Saw Coming

21 December, 2016Cognition, Electoral Intrigues, Media, Narrative, The Presidency

Image source. Now that the heat of the election season has passed, it is possible to examine the heat itself. The election’s aftermath was a grand spectacle. Some convulsed in desperation and despair. Others surrendered to frenzied, twitter-fueled fits of rapture. In the midst of all this noise, a pattern arose. In simplest terms: there is a […]

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Beware the Alcibiades Point

14 December, 2016Complex Systems, History, Romans and Grecians

A supposed bust of Alcibiades. Image source. I spent the later part of my teenage years in the forbidding climes of southeastern Minnesota. In those days I’d often hear a joke that I sometimes still repeat: “In Minnesota we have four seasons: near-winter, winter, still-winter,… and road construction.” Minnesota’s northern reaches are pockmarked with lakes […]

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