China’s spreading labor unrest is rightfully portrayed in the Western press as an immense challenge to that country’s status as the “world’s factory floor.” But to Beijing’s bosses, it’s likewise a tool for addressing rising income inequality, which is why the Communist Party has remained most reticent to address it head on. Such a hands-off approach carries additional dangers, however, the most prominent being that, once emerging labor activists get a taste for pressing their collective demands, China’s political leaders could find themselves riding a Solidarnosc-like trade-union tiger that’s not easily tamed. China has long suffered isolated sparks of labor […]

One year ago, the Iranian people shocked their rulers, and their rulers, in turn, horrified the world. When the Iranian regime announced an implausible landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just hours after polls closed on the country’s June 12 presidential election, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Iranians spontaneously poured onto the streets. The regime responded with brutality, and the course of Iranian history was suddenly put into play. One year ago, it looked as though the ruling regime stood inches away from a gaping precipice. Experts all but proved (.pdf) that the government stole the elections, and the […]