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Analyzing China's Future

by Verena Nowotny

The Economist dedicates six pages to an in-depth analysis of China's current state; and as faithful Economist readers we are grateful again for the factual description of China's domestic struggles and its foreign policy ambivalence. I highly recommend this essay to everybody who wants a concise and compact update on what challenges China is facing at the moment.

Pragmatism or corruption?

by Verena Nowotny

Stephen T. Asma, a philosophy professor in Chicago, wrote a very thoughtful article in the New York Times about intercultural (mis-)understandings between Americans and Chinese. He uses the example of the so-called "red envelopes" (hongbao), a Chinese tradition to give money not only on the occasion of family festivities but also to e.g. persuade a doctor to perform well when doing a surgery. Asma tackles the question whether this tradition that usually has a connotation of corruption in the Western world is an expression of pragmatism that once was popular in the U.S.

 

Cooperation Asian style?

by Verena Nowotny

Chandran Nair, founder of GIFT, and usually a provocative thinker, does not believe it is a given that the U.S. are the only intervening country on earth. In his article he pleads for a new form of cooperation among Asian states.

 

TAGS: Asia | China | foreign policy | USA |