Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 1416

China faces barriers in the Indian Ocean

The Chinese leaders will
have to figure out a way to reach from the South China Sea far to the
west of Malacca and all the way to the core Middle East. China's costs of doing
that will rise as it attempts to reach across the Indian Ocean, a region where
it has no real allies and no partners, save for an increasingly dysfunctional
Pakistan, but a region where the United States has both.

Is China Losing Hong Kong?

China’s continuing failure to appeal to, please and placate so many of the former colony’s residents despite historic, ethnic and economic ties, suggests a soft power failure that has implications well beyond Hong Kong’s harbor. Read more

Chinese hold anti-censorship protest outside newspaper

Hundreds of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated
outside its headquarters on Monday, backing a strike by journalists against
interference by the provincial propaganda chief. Read more

Abe's shrine visit calls for wider reflection

In one of his last acts of 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in late
December visited the controversial Yasakuni shrine, where among the souls of war
heroes, 28 war criminals are also celebrated. The visit put a new spin to
heightening tensions in East Asia. Read more

Five Key Questions in 2014

The political picture in Asia looks quite confusing at the start of the new year. Read more

On the Trail of a Forgotten Massacre

One day in July, we went with to the "martyrs' cemetery," which is a long way outside Drepung Monastery. There are several large army camps nearby, directly under the command of the Tibetan airforce command base under the Chengdu military district, and other unknown military entities. Many years ago, this was lush forest that probably belonged to Drepung Monastery. Now, there are shiny high-rise

Abe urges dialogue with China, Korea

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he wants to explain to leaders in China and
South Korea about his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors the
country's war dead. Read more

China Destroys 6 Tons of Ivory

Over the past five years or so, as the poaching of elephants has swelled to record numbers, environmentalists and researchers have pointed a finger firmly at China’s ravenous appetite for ivory as the main cause for what is now widely described as a crisis. On Monday, however, the Chinese authorities received widespread plaudits when they destroyed more than six tons of confiscated ivory

The Curious, and Continuing, Appeal of Mark Twain in China

“Just about anyone who has had a middle-school education in China knows Mark Twain and ‘Running for Governor,’ ” Su Wenjing, a comparative literature professor at Fuzhou University, says. Read more

'How Mao's Lie Changed My Life And Changed China'

In President Xi Jinping's weighty speech on the 120th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong, he cited that quotation: "a rapid rise, a hasty demise." This is a very serious topic containing half a century of bitter memories of historic tragicomedy that the Chinese people should never forget. A commentary by Bao Tong