Some said it would come by sea. Others worried it would come from outer space. But the most serious Chinese challenge to US leadership is happening on what used to be America’s home court: the court of global public opinion. Read more >
Gregory's Latest Posts

America’s 66-Year War (and Counting)
September 15, 2016 1:03 PM EDT
The “forgotten war” that institutionalized the division of the Korean peninsula—a war that has not ended—might have been avoided if the United States and the People’s Republic of China had come to terms with each other in 1949 instead of 1979. Sixty-six years on, as the Kim dynasty develops nuclear weapons, mutual suspicion between the United States and China continues to abet a perpetual state of crisis in Korea. Read more >

Obama in China: Lessons from the Red Carpet
September 12, 2016 3:55 PM EDT
President Obama’s precipitate decent onto a Chinese red carpet generated more media attention than what could be a planet-saving commitment to combat climate change. This triumph of the trivial raises important questions about the future of US-China relations.
Japan’s Top Hawk Calls for the United States to End Hair-Trigger Alert
April 27, 2015 11:31 AM EDT
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe is not a peacenik. He sidesteps the pacifist constraints in Japan’s post-war constitution. He chafes at international criticism of Japan’s role in World War II and pressures publishers to soften descriptions of wartime Japan’s sexual enslavement of women. The conservative leader of Japan’s ruling party frequents a Shinto Shrine that lionizes convicted war criminals and glorifies the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He picks fights with Russia, China and South Korea over disputed islands and supports a significant increase in Japanese defense spending. Read more >
China’s Not So Silent Spring: Can One Video Save China’s Environment?
March 2, 2015 4:56 PM EDT
Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival (春节), is a time each year when hundreds of millions of Chinese travel home to reunite with family and friends. Observers routinely note it is the largest human migration event on the planet.
This year, on the Sunday before returning to work from Spring Festival, an equally impressive number of Chinese downloaded an explosive on-line exposé on Chinese air pollution produced by former CCTV reporter Chai Jing. The film, called “Under the Dome,” is not the first Chinese effort to document the country’s growing environmental problems, but it is the first to generate this much interest. Read more >