It was a stifling hot July day in 1992 when Qian Qichen, China’s foreign minister, took a helicopter to the lakeside villa of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s leader. Qian was used to uncomfortable situations — he had sparred with Brent Scowcroft three years earlier after the massacre at Tiananmen Square — but this trip was uniquely sensitive. Qian’s task was to deliver a message to Kim from his boss, Jiang Zemin, explaining that China had decided to establish diplomatic relations with South Korea — a country that, at that point, wasn’t even shown on the maps produced in China.
It was a shocking betrayal. The Korean War enemies didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye: China saw South Korea as the traitorous neighbor that had resisted communism and fled into the arms of America, and South Korea saw China as an aggressive invader that should not be trusted. But following the end of the Cold War, China and South Korea emerged as awkward trading partners. And as South Korea’s ec
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Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans believe that climate change and China pose a single interconnected challenge. As a result — and for the first time ever — a window is opening for bipartisan cooperation on climate policy. Historically progressive ideas like a 'carbon border adjustment mechanism' now have conservative champions, for instance. But with Washington's main focus on the Warming War with China, can it still save the planet?
A look at China’s electricity grid: how it works, who foots the bill, and how its structure leads to power crunches and expensive prices despite the relative abundance of energy in China.
The academic talks about the changing understanding of Leninist regimes; common misperceptions of the post-Mao era; and what the collapse of the Soviet Union means for China today.
