It is well documented that the Chinese government attempts to use (a very small minority of) ethnic Chinese living in other countries as instruments of its foreign policy. This includes using them as intelligence sources as well as agents of influence. Almost any experts on Chinese strategy will say so. Joshua Kurlantzick, author of “Charm Offensive,” touched on the subject in his book, and discussed it in a recent podcast interview, although he was careful to preface his statement with a disclaimer clearly meant to preempt critics who would accuse him of prejudice toward ethnic Chinese: It’s not right necessarily [...]
The Commentary Week in Review is posted on the blog every Friday. Drawing from more than two dozen English-language news outlets worldwide, the column highlights notable op-eds on major issues from the past week. The Stage Is Set With the much anticipated September report due this week by U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the status of the Iraq war, there was little surprise last week’s opinion pages were dominated by claims of what’s gone wrong, what’s gone right and what the U.S. should do now in Iraq. Leading the charge was Madeleine K. Albright, [...]
RABAT, Morocco — Getting people on the streets and in the cafés to talk about today’s elections in Rabat has been difficult. Nobody seems to have strong opinions about the candidates; and fewer than I expected planned to go to the polls. Perhaps it is the fact that true power rest with the king, no matter what the parliament looks like. Suprisingly though, about half of the people I talked with over the past couple of days here have been very eager to talk about politics in Libya. It seems that the freeing of the Belgian nurses did notplay well [...]
