Amazingly, the US Senate just sent a bipartisan request to the White House.　In a hopeful if small sign that there are matters of state that Republicans and Democrats can still agree on, a coalition of senators is arguing that the United States is at serious risk of losing the international race to get 5G wireless technology.　This could constitute a major national security threat, the senators argued in a letter to Peter O’Brien, national security adviser to President Trump.　China is by all

As the House Intelligence Committee has ended its hearings and is racing at a most un-congressional top-speed toward an apparent impeachment of President Donald Trump for crimes including bribery, we need to rewind and cover a late-breaking impeachment witness who almost everyone missed.Testimony came from a definitely knowledgeable first-hand eyewitness who addressed the same topic that was testified to so memorably and powerfully on Thursday by Trump’s former National Security Council st

Impeachment proceedings have overshadowed another riveting drama half a world away: ongoing pro-democracy protests in the iconic city Hong Kong.Peaceful marches of millions of Hong Kong citizens have given way to violent student protests as Beijing continues to curb the city’s freedoms. In the meantime, an almost unanimous vote in Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week to support the protesters, as Beijing fumes and a reluctant President Trump prepares to si

Boris Johnson is running a People versus Parliament campaign for the UK’s Dec. 12 election. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is also running a “people versus” campaign. Only in Corbyn’s narrative, the other corner of the ring isn’t occupied by obstreperous lawmakers, but rather that muscled colossus he sums up as “billionaires and bankers.”Corbyn’s strategy for defeating the titan was laid out in an election manifesto and accompanying funding

Geography aside, Japan and the European Union have never been so close. With Europe’s long-standing transatlantic ties under strain, and China presenting a challenge as well as an opportunity, the EU has sought like-minded allies in the Pacific. And there is none better than Japan.The EU-Japan bond transcends mere interests: It is a relationship based on shared values of freedom, democracy and open markets. Today, these values are under threat. The United States has decided to transact wit

When a nonagenarian political veteran runs a campaign promising change, it’s only a matter of time before that message comes full circle. For Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, that means succession planning can’t be delayed any longer.In May 2018, Mahathir pulled off a stunning election victory to lead Malaysia for a second time. In defeating Najib Razak, who denies allegations of siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars from a state investment fund, the new prim

Passing the halfway point in his five-year tenure, President Moon Jae-in’s approval rate hovers just above the 40 percent mark, half the level immediately after his election in May 2017. Woes grow among manufacturers, traders and consumers, security threats loom large and political groups are sharpening hostility. Amid rising discontent, the energy denuclearization policy has emerged as a top destabilizing issue.University students at nuclear science departments see no future in their chos

As Sri Lanka makes another crucial political transition, it faces a major risk of macroeconomic instability. Minimizing that risk will depend, above all, on whether the country’s newly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa can defy his reputation and embrace inclusive politics.This idyllic island in the Indian Ocean was once a star performer. In the years following independence in 1948, progress on leading social indicators such as poverty, infant mortality, and primary education put Sri La

Movies and television dramas are excellent social documents in that they faithfully reflect societal change and the alteration of consciousness throughout history. Sometimes they illuminate us with profound insights into and powerful criticisms of contemporary society. Since films and TV shows enjoy enormous popularity, their impact is huge, more widespread and more powerful than traditional literature. The celebrated HBO series “Game of Thrones” is a good example. In the eighth and

You know times are hard in provincial South Korea when the guy selling walkers and hearing aids can only make ends meet by day trading. Lee Ho-cheol, 52, keeps his eyes on flashing stock quotes while his shop, crammed with wheelchairs, canes and other equipment for seniors, sits empty. Lee has run the store for roughly two decades, and his plight shows just how dire things have become. Few of his neighbors make enough money sticking to their day jobs, he says, and many have turned to selling bea

A long-held belief of analysts in India is that the economy is supply-constrained. Demand isn’t even worth a footnote, while a temporary squeeze in the onion market deserves obsession because it could be inflationary. It’s increasingly obvious that this view is outdated. In October, inflation quickened more than expected to 4.62 percent because of, yes, an onion shortage. Yet core inflation, which strips out volatile commodity prices, slumped to 3.4 percent, the lowest since the

The most dismaying thing about the impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump is that they are falling so short of the constitutional gravamen of the issue. True, some Democrats in the House of Representatives, particularly Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, do appear to understand the seriousness of the question before them. But most Republicans -- egged on by Trump, who often complains that they are not doing enough for him -- are o

A crown jewel of President Xi Jinping’s Made in China 2025 plan is faltering.Tsinghua Unigroup is the business arm of the prestigious Tsinghua University, Xi’s alma mater. The company has been trying to establish itself as a leader in China’s nascent memory-chip industry since 2015, when it famously tried to acquire stakes in US rivals Micron Technology and Western Digital. Both advances were rejected amid concerns that US regulators wouldn’t approve the deals on national

Thirty years ago this week I was on my way to Prague to watch Czechoslovak communism end with the Velvet Revolution. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, the Soviet communist party was headed for collapse, and the Cold War would soon end.Five months earlier, Chinese leaders had cracked down on student admirers of Western democracy in Tiananmen Square. That tragedy didn’t stir the same geopolitical shock waves as the events in Europe, because China was still a poor, developing country.Yet 30 ye