Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the South China Sea and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion

by Humphrey Hawksley

During the Brexit campaign, professional after professional delivered advice warning that, should Britain sever its ties to such international institutions, living standards would suffer. A key Brexit campaigner, cabinet minister Michael Gove, caught the public mood on both sides of the Atlantic when he said sharply, “People have had enough of experts.”64 The repercussions of this thinking cannot be overestimated. “The idea that the expert was giving considered, experienced advice worth taking seriously was simply dismissed,” writes US national security analyst Tom Nichols. “To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to demonstrate their independence. They want to weigh in and have their opinions treated with deep respect and their preferences honored not on the strength of their arguments or on the evidence they present, but based on their feelings, emotions, and whatever stray information they may have picked up here or there along the way.”