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Erin Cunningham 
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CHAN AKYA
ASIA HAND 
SUN WUKONG 
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SINOGRAPH Francesco Sisci
SEX IN DEPTH
Weird
BBC
#Lukashevich: The UN Security Council's mediation role in #Syria cannot be substituted by any group of self-appointed friends of Syria
The riddle of Scarborough Shoals
In the matter of the Scarborough Shoal mess, the Philippines started it and the infamous Chinese nine-dash line encompassing almost the entire South China Sea looks like an audacious claim drawn from an appetite for aggression. A closer look reveals that there is some genuine method to Beijing's madness, and a chance that gas and greed, rather than international law and principle, may salvage peace in the South China Sea.
- Peter Lee
(May 18, '12)
Is Business
China's start-ups hold global potential
Western opinion has largely greeted China's early attempts at innovation with skepticism. Yet companies such as Tsing Capital and Chrysalix Venture Capital are discovering entrepreneurs whose concepts represent a potential next wave of innovative technologies that could impact the world.
(May 18, '12) US gives green light to investment in Myanmar
The United States is to permit investment by US companies in Myanmar, while a ban will remain on imports from the still largely military-run country. Critics say the move is too early, with armed conflict still raging in the north, and will inevitably benefit human-rights abusers.
(May 18, '12) IT WORLD
Facebook floats
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now officially worth close to US$20 billion after successfully bringing off the initial public offering for his young social network site. Fans keen to grab a piece of the company may have to pay 50% more than the initial price when the shares start trading Friday.
(May 18, '12) TAPI price deal close
All parties to the proposed TAPI gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan may reach final agreement on transit fees as early as next week, just as Russia's Gazprom looks set to quit involvement in the remnants of Iran's pipeline to Pakistan.
(May 17, '12) Coverage by Sector
ATimes.net
THE ROVING EYE
NATO occupies sweet home Chicago
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization hopes that If you can't beat them in Pashtunistan, you can at least corral them in the home of the blues, with NATO's Chicago summit planned to instill in members the "common values" behind drone warfare and base expansion. As riot police lock down the city, some partners likely fear they've married into the mob.
- Pepe Escobar
(May 18, '12)
US Iran hawks in some disarray
Hopes by Iran hawks for the United States Congress to provide enough ammunition to threaten Iran with a military strike on the eve of critical talks over Tehran's nuclear program have fallen unexpectedly short. The House has retracted its talons, while over in the Senate a new sanctions bill was blocked by Republicans because it wasn't sufficiently aggressive.
- Jim Lobe
(May 18, '12)
Tehran: To talk or not to talk
The possibility of direct talks between the United States and Iran emerged in January when new sanctions gave the White House political cover to revert to a policy of engagement. However, Tehran's profound mistrust of American sincerity hampers progress. The only sensible way forward is to let bygones be bygones and work through an intermediary such as Turkey or Oman.
- Peter Jenkins
(May 18, '12)
The 'illogic' of China's North Korea policy
China's refusal to use its leverage as North Korea's friend and protector to halt its provocations strengthens the United States alliance system that Beijing considers a tool of encirclement. As Pyongyang blithely continues with missile launches and other acts that undermine China in the international arena, it seems hard to image a policy more damaging to Chinese national interests.
- Ralph A Cossa and Brad Glosserman
(May 18, '12)
Speaking Freely
Nepal's constitution: Respect the dissenters
The transition to a new constitution and the rule of law cannot be achieved overnight (South Africa's model constitution was seven years in the making). Yet the rush to get Nepal's new code into shape has been seemly, with the result that it will not have legitimacy, simply because politicians have failed to hear the dissenting voices of the people.
- Gyan Basnet
(May 18, '12)
Best of Before
Javed back to top PSM post
Former army officer Muhammad Javed is to head up an effort to put struggling Pakistan Steel Mills, the country's only integrated steel plant, back on its feet, four years after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani turfed him out as company boss. Rooting out corrupt managers is one priority.
(May 02, '12)BOOK REVIEW
Mainstream political science masks Western clientelism
The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents For Life by Roger Owen
This study of repressive modes of governance in the Arab Middle East falls flat due to a failure to examine the West's historical role in perpetuating those authoritarian regimes. By whitewashing the legacy of interventionism, such works prevent a better understanding of how clientelism delayed democratization from below and kept the region a "subordinate sub-system" in global politics.
(May 11, '12)This study of repressive modes of governance in the Arab Middle East falls flat due to a failure to examine the West's historical role in perpetuating those authoritarian regimes. By whitewashing the legacy of interventionism, such works prevent a better understanding of how clientelism delayed democratization from below and kept the region a "subordinate sub-system" in global politics.
CHAN AKYA
Pointless pontification in Davos
The recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, produced more than its fair share of howlers from the assembled ranks of has-beens and wanna-bes. With financial markets proving more adept at transferring risks across a wider group of investors, policymakers simply have much less influence than they used to. Asian participants were embarrassing representatives of this status quo ante.
(Feb 02, '07)Who's who at NATO's banquet
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization isn't inviting any Tom, Dick or Harry of a nation to its summit this weekend in Chicago, where war in Afghanistan dominates a banquet that also features the alliance's "smart strategy" and a gravy train moving into the Central Asian steppes. But with no hint of Iranian spice, China and India absent from the gilded guest list, and Russia having sent a nyet RSVP, it promises to be a bland affair anyway.
(May 17, '12)Rupee slide puts India in quandary
India's central bank has blown billions of dollars trying to halt the rupee's decline to record lows, while government fumbling is driving away foreign investors still interested in the country. Yet the currency crisis could lead to an economic revival to match that of the 1990s.
(May 17, '12)Speaking Freely
ASEAN shows "The Way" to Myanmar
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was vilified in 1997 with its decision to bring Myanmar, then a pariah state, into the fold, and again when it showed the way in November by handing it chairmanship of the group for 2014, based on "encouraging signs" of reform. Reasons for the sudden change in Myanmar are still open to debate, but the expectations of stakeholders have risen exponentially.
(May 17, '12)
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IIF Talks Its Book
The world will come to an end if the Greek default is disorderly, warns the Institute for International Finance. Must be Purim if the bankers are trying to star ... -
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Social Media, Not Manufacturing: This Can't Be Good
Reinforcing the conclusions of our March 1 survey of venture capital and entrepreneurship, today's Wall Street Journal cites a number of studies showing that US ... -
It's not often that a country of 80 million people goes belly up, but that's what I've been predicting in Asia TImes for the past year. Today the New York Times ...
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The Financial Times' "Beyond Brics" blog quotes a Price Waterhouse report on China's move into Europe: The old adage of China using the same word for crisis ...
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(Jan 18, '12)
Roaring Good Start for Our Miners' Trade
Our main 2012 recommendation was to take profits on utilities and dive into basic materials, especially the mining issues that got beaten up so badly last year. ...
Notes and Quotes
Top Tweets from Friday March 30, 2012
Tipping Points
Japan's lost libido and America's asexual future
I'm sorry Spengler, but this one's wrong. Women absolutely DO want to be seen as sexual and real, not as goddesses on a sterile pedestal. The latter describes Japan's view of women perfectly. Modern vulgarity with regards to sex is a response to an unsatisfied libido, the last storm before America turns into Japan or Germany. Frustrated women can be brash and aggressive, so hungry for a dominant man that they tolerate and eventually love perverted sex, while docile men wonder why the flowers and poems are brushed aside. Proper seduction and romance are now lost skills, so lost that an emotionally stunted fool has an advantage over miseducated normal people. Even homosexuals are seen as attractive and interesting by modern women!
Freud was an amusing charlatan; he did not ruin the sexual culture of the West. Second wave feminism did, brainwashing boys (occasionally literally, with chemicals) and leaving them unprepared for the game of love. Women hook up because courtship can end in heartbreak because relationships are now much harder to figure out than mere sex. They weren't easy to begin with! Wealth, socialism, the pill, and sedentary lives have also made it much more difficult for women to find soft "provider" men attractive. Their hormones are too warped to love a nice guy; they now perceive his behavior as creepy and passive, and the aggressive man as honest and straightforward.
Higher Game
is to be expected."Adolescent boys are monsters, as anyone who has been one, or known one, can attest, and to require adolescent girls to engage in sexual activity of any kind with such creatures is horrifying."
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.
King Lear 4.6.176-181, Lear to Gloucester
Ubu Hex
Reviews
Cherry-picking from China's success
What the US Can Learn from China by Ann Lee
This book forces the reader to confront China's growth in the midst of America's decline, drawing attention to the reasons US politics became too self-serving, too short-sighted and too partisan. The author doesn't argue the Chinese approach is flawless, but she does hold up China's single-minded fixation on economic growth and a leadership process based on experience as examples US policymakers must consider.
- Benjamin A Shobert
(May 18, '12)
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Speaking Freely
ASEAN shows "The Way" to Myanmar
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was vilified in 1997 with its decision to bring Myanmar, then a pariah state, into the fold, and again when it showed the way in November by handing it chairmanship of the group for 2014, based on "encouraging signs" of reform. Reasons for the sudden change in Myanmar are still open to debate, but the expectations of stakeholders have risen exponentially.
(May 17 '12)
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