“With God’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City,” Kenneth Wherry, then the mayor of a small town in Nebraska, proudly proclaimed in 1940. It was a glaring display of race-driven paternalistic attitudes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nearing a century later, the United … Read more
The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Richard Fontaine – CEO of the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C. and co-author, with Robert Blackwill, of “Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to … Read more
Advertisement If one were to assess the United States’ change in approach toward Southeast Asia over the past decades, it might be worth examining two movies on the Vietnam War, made more than 30 years apart. In an iconic scene in the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola classic “Apocalypse Now,” a surf-loving fanatic colonel leads his … Read more
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters hours after he was ousted as Speaker of the House, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File Advertisement The political drama in Washington has taken a fresh turn, with Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) voted out as speaker of the … Read more
Advertisement Democracy is waning in Southeast Asia, yet the United States is ever more friendlier with its autocratic leaders. The sight earlier this month of U.S. President Joe Biden standing alongside Nguyen Phu Trong, the Vietnamese Communist Party chief, warmed the veins of all those keen to lambast Washington for rank hypocrisy and double standards. … Read more
Advertisement The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Zachary Shore – professor of history at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of “This is Not Who We Are: America’s Struggle Between Vengeance and Virtue” … Read more
Advertisement The overdue visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken may not have yielded a breakthrough in the strained China-U.S. relationship, but it served as a symbolic reminder that dialogue remains a viable option for thawing the frosty ties. Although such an ice-breaking attempt by the Biden administration invited unabashed criticisms from … Read more