The phrase “useful idiots” may be of uncertain provenance but its applicability is rarely in doubt. Oxford defines the term as referring to someone “naive and susceptible to manipulation for propaganda or…similarly manipulable for political purposes”, especially by totalitarian regimes. Not for nothing was it first applied to the
China is now showing its true face to the world: a brutal bully, too gutless to pick a fight with the biggest kid in the playground, so it tries to shove around someone smaller. For decades, the communist state has tried to soft-soap a gullible world that it’s a
As China escalates its war of trade and words against Australia, the Morrison government has won the unequivocal support of its key ally, the United States. For now, anyway. Another key ally, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is taking a rare risk of angering the communist giant by raising
Beijing is clearly feeling under pressure, as it ramps up its trade and diplomatic attacks on Australia to near-hysterical levels. China has apparently singled out Australia as its post-COVID whipping-boy, not least for Australian PM Scott Morrison’s determination to force an international investigation to get behind China’s non-stop
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Van Morrison and Eric Clapton are amongst my favourite musicians. Now they are making a stand against lockdowns. They’ve teamed up for a protest song about lock downs called Stand and Deliver due to be released December 4: Rock music legends Van Morrison and Eric Clapton have teamed up
One of the most remarkable turnarounds in modern history is that of bitterest enemies becoming fast allies within less than a century. The depth of the enmity between Australia and Japan in WWII cannot be overstated. The treatment of Allied POWs in Japanese camps is legendary for its brutality. For
If there’s one thing we know for certain about the Wuhan plague, it’s that China has lied and continues to lie through its teeth. Did the virus arise as a random zoonosis in a filthy live animal market, did it escape from a lab or was it deliberately
Hong Kong Free Press globalvoices.org “What Animal Crossing represented was not just entertainment […]” The following post was written by Candice Chau and originally published on Hong Kong Free Press on November 21, 2020. This edited version is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement. Japanese video game
Mark A. DeWeaver mises.org Mark A. DeWeaver, PhD, CFA, is a co-founder of the fund management company Ithaca Advisors, LLC, and the author of “Animal Spirits with Chinese Characteristics: Investment Booms and Busts in the World’s Emerging Economic Giant.” On October 29, the nineteenth Central Committee of the
Michael Cook MercatorNet Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet An expert on women’s issues has rung alarm bells about the potential for eugenics in China’s latest “five-year plan”. Columbia professor Leta Hong Fincher told a panel of China watchers at a virtual conference by the Center for
In the Cold War, the NATO alliance formed the bulwark of the free world against deadly communist expansion. The Iron Curtain across eastern Europe was often an uncomfortable flashpoint and the Berlin Wall was an open scar, but the alternative, an aggressive, brutally expansionist Soviet Union given free reign in
William Huang William Huang is a product of the one-child policy as he is the only son in the family. Born and raised in China, it is only when he went overseas to study that he had an epiphany, realizing just how much damage this policy has done to the
Nicholas Coppel lens.monash.edu Since the advent of web-based social media platforms, the creation and dissemination of information is no longer in the hands of a few. Citizens can now simultaneously be creators, consumers and spreaders of content. The analytics and algorithms of social media mean citizens have a
In The Lord of the Rings, the great J R R Tolkien described how the price of peace is eternal vigilance. “Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again”. Indeed, despite the seeming happy-ever-after ending of The Lord of the Rings, an abandoned
