Posts tagged as:

Politics

Language: American Politicians Speak Mandarin

August 26, 2009

Here is a post about the comments made during recent US-China exchanges. It is taken from a local article and some comments by my Chinese teacher.
Oh, and FYI – the English following the Mandarin is a translation, in case you cannot read.

美国政治领导说华语

美国国务卿希拉莉2009年2月访华时用了中国成语“同舟共济”。从那以后，我们经常听到奥巴马政府官员引用中国成语。今年七月，中美战略与经济对话在美国召开时，她又引用了一句中国谚语 “人心齐，泰山移”，来强调美中合作的重要性。美国财长则在开幕式上引用中国成语“风雨同舟”，来形容当前美中关系的现实。奥巴马却引用球星姚明的话。姚明说新旧球员之间需要时间调整才能合作。

During US Secretary of State Hillary’s visit to China in Feb 2009, she [...]

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Politics: American Luminaries and U.S. Diplomacy towards Pariah States

August 22, 2009

Guest Post from Dragoman

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) had successfully negotiated the release of John Yettaw, the American much maligned for his unwitting involvement in the recent intrigue against Aung San Suu Kyi. Earlier this month, Bill Clinton returned from Pyongyang with the two American journalists whom North [...]

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Politics: Asymmetry Theory of International Relations

August 20, 2009

I am hoping to write a few posts about politics in East Asia over the next month (now that I have some time to blog). To start it off, I thought I would post an outline of Asymmetry Theory, which is how I view international relations. I can then link back to this post when [...]

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Politics: Indonesia’s Parliamentary Elections: What’s Next?

May 23, 2009

Guest Post from Dragoman
The official results of Indonesia’s legislative elections were recently announced in Jakarta, indicating that President Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party (PD), with 150 seats out of the total 560, will hold the largest number of seats in the upcoming parliamentary session. Golkar will hold 107 seats, while Megawati’s Indonesian Democratic Party—Struggle (PDI-P), with 95 [...]

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Politics: Indonesia’s Embrace of Democracy and the Future “Asian Values” Debate

May 11, 2009

Guest Post from Dragoman
More than ten years ago, popular agitation in Indonesia, particularly in Jakarta, led to the downfall of post-colonial Southeast Asia’s longest-ruling strongman Soeharto. Since May 1998, Indonesia has moved from soft authoritarianism to being a thriving regional democracy with the experience of three relatively orderly and popularly legitimate general elections. With the [...]

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Politics: The Democratic Party in Singapore

March 29, 2009

I have been reading some articles on the Singapore Democratic Party website, and I have found them quite interesting. In a country that has been run by one part for so long, I rarely read/hear about other opinions (this may or may not have something to do with the way media works in Singapore…). Anyway, [...]

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Link: James Reynolds’ Clinton Post

February 24, 2009

James Reynolds has a good post about Hillary Clinton’s China visit, specifically about her discussion on woman’s rights. There are some great quotes from the article:

“I tried to memorise an English phrase my daughter taught me : ‘I hope you win!’ But when I got to see you [during the campaign] I forgot to say [...]

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Current Events: More Shoe Throwing

February 3, 2009

I guess political leaders need to start watching out for shoe throwers…

A 27-year-old man has been charged after a shoe was thrown at Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during a visit to Cambridge University.
Police said the man, who has not been named, would appear before magistrates in Cambridge on 10 February accused of committing a [...]

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Politics: Fred Hiatt on Singapore

December 12, 2008

Fred Hiatt wrote an article on Singapore for the Washtington Post. I first came across the article when I was reading Mr. Brown, a famous Singaporean blogger’s feed. He quoted a short section from the article, and posed a question about Singapore’s democracy.  Here is what he had to say (post taken from here):

Excerpt from [...]

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Religion: No Yoga for Malaysian Muslims

November 23, 2008

I have always been frustrated by the strong influence of religion in politics. Last week, I read dozens of articles about the Mormon Church’s involvement with proposition 8. This week, religion over-stepped its bounds in Malaysia. There, a top Islamic organization banned Yoga. This is what the Straights Times quoted:

‘We are of the view that [...]

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