President Donald Trump’s handling of the trade relationship with China poses a threat both to the US and to the world economy -- but even his harshest critics agree with him on one thing. China’s bid to dominate the high-tech industries of the future often bends or breaks the rules of liberal international commerce, and needs to be checked.What’s important, and what this administration finds so difficult, is to be smart about it.　Through its “Made in China 2025” blueprint and assorted plans and

Saturday’s announcement by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that his country will stop testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles is a sign that Kim is ready to do a deal with Donald Trump -- and that he understands how a deal with Trump can be made. It’s a delicate dance that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Iran are no doubt watching closely. If Kim can swing this, the devil himself presumably could.　Even before the US enters an agreement with North Korea

The case for high-skilled immigration to the US isn’t hard to make. All those Ph.D.s in science and technology help build the nation’s advanced infrastructure while adding to the store of human capital and generating national wealth.　As a 2016 Congressional Research Service report stated, “This workforce is seen by many as a catalyst of US global economic competitiveness and is likewise considered a key element of the legislative options aimed at stimulating economic growth.”　 The low-skilled im

President Donald Trump is full of surprises -- major surprises, such as getting elected in the first place. Can he now deliver the biggest surprise of all by getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal, something that just might save the world from annihilation?　Probably not, many observers say. They agree it would be hallelujah time if he pulled something like that off in a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of the socialist slave state. But Kim and his family have spent mur

In July 1971, President Richard Nixon jolted the international status quo -- and set diplomatic nerves worldwide fluttering -- by announcing he would visit China. “Never in history, to our knowledge, have diplomatic relations progressed so fast from the Ping-Pong table to the Presidency,” this page breathlessly observed.　Nixon’s bold overture reshaped the modern world and has paid vast dividends to Washington, to Beijing and to the general stability of global geopolitics.　Now another potentially

Human rights activists can be forgiven if they show less than complete enthusiasm for the upcoming summit meetings between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his South Korean and American counterparts. It is not just the distinct possibility of failure that they fear, although there is that. There is also the prospect that even if the talks succeed in lowering peninsular tensions or -- in a best-case scenario -- bringing a peace treaty and denuclearization, they will do so at the cost of legiti

When Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France last year, he was presented as a kind of European savior, a wunderkind who had burst onto the French political scene just in the nick of time. Now, many are asking, with a combination of schadenfreude and defeatism, whether Macron’s star burned too bright -- and so is destined to burn out fast. But this focus on Macron’s record so far threatens to overshadow his crucial message about the future of European democracy.Macron won the French presi

The conventional TV era is expected to come to an end. Trends have changed to TV-centered content received via set-top boxes, such as cable TV and internet-based online video-streaming contents. The impact from the emergence of “Over the Top” services, resulting from the swift development of information and communication technology, has spelled the end for the conventional TV age. Even the number of households with no TV has been increasing.The top issue in the cutting-edge media industry is now

Something odd is happening in the relationship between Congress and the executive branch regarding the use of military force. For decades, or even longer, countless senators and representatives have complained that presidents are not properly respectful of their constitutional prerogatives in making decisions on employing US military power. And today, most Democrats and a number of Republicans seem to agree that President Donald Trump is an impulsive, erratic, even dangerous commander-in-chief.