19 October 2007 How Many Chinese Are Enough? By Gwynne Dyer Even before the 17th congress of the Chinese Communist Party began last week in Beijing, it was clear that at least one policy was not going to change: the one-child policy. “Because China has worked hard over the last 30 years, we have 400 …
2 October 2007 Burmese Tragedy By Gwynne Dyer Empty monasteries, severed telecommunications, and a sullen, beaten silence that seems to envelop the whole country. It doesn’t just feel like a defeat for the Burmese people; it feels like the end of an era. It was an era that began at the other end of South-East …
24 July 2005 Closing the Ring on China By Gwynne Dyer Scarcely a word was said in public about military matters during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Washington (18-20 July). The rhetoric was all about how the world’s oldest democracy and its biggest democracy could come together to develop agriculture, fight terrorism …
14 October 2004 Cold Shower in Taiwan By Gwynne Dyer The rhetoric had been getting harsher for months, as Taiwan’s leaders stoked popular fears of Communist China’s intentions in an attempt to push through a controversial $18 billion arms purchase from the United States. It reached a peak on 30 September, when President Chen Sui-bian …
21 March 2004 Taiwan: The Best Possible Outcome By Gwynne Dyer “If Chen loses, the chances of war are about 20 percent,”said Arthur Ting of Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, only days before the vote on 20 March in which President Chen Shui-bian was seeking re-election. “If he wins, the risk rises to 40 percent.” …
10 December 2003 Triple Bluff over Taiwan By Gwynne Dyer Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian is bluffing when he hints at holding a referendum on independence from China. US President George W. Bush was bluffing three years ago when he promised to do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan, though he was serious last Tuesday when …
10 July 2003 Hong Kong: A Very Instructive Cock-Up By Gwynne Dyer Historians generally divide into two schools: the paranoids, who believe that there is a secret plot behind everything that happens, and the realists, who think that most large events are the result of a cock-up somewhere. The remarkable events in Hong Kong over …
17 April 2003 SARS and China: Get It Right Next Time By Gwynne Dyer The virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was identified on 15 April in a ten-country collaboration between 13 laboratories as a corona virus related to those that cause the common cold. “Now we can move away from methods like …
8 April 1997 Uighurs’ Independence By Gwynne Dyer “We think Deng’s death will bring a power struggle within the Chinese elite,” said Sargari Tarym, spokesman for the Uighur independence movement, in Moscow in late February. “If that happens, the independence movement in Turkestant will intensify.” In fact, it is already pretty intense. Given the tightness …