While sitting in Istanbul‘s Attaturk International Airport waiting for a flight, I was stunned to hear a BBC announcer report that my colleague and friend U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had just died. I knew that he had been rushed to…
Category: Articles
The Message from the Glaciers New York Review of Books
It was not so long ago that the parts of the globe covered permanently with ice and snow, the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greater Himalayas (“the abode of the snows” in Sanskrit), were viewed as distant, frigid climes of little consequence.…
China: Defending its Core Interest in the World – Part I Yale Global
BEIJING: After speculation to the contrary, President Hu Jintao confirmed that he’s coming to Washington for upcoming nuclear proliferation talks. Not long after, Washington announced a delay in announcing any decision on whether China has been judged a “currency manipulator,” a…
China’s Magic Melting Mountain Condé Nast Traveler
All that is visible across the succession of deep, folding valleys hidden in darkness before me is the faintest outline of a sawtooth silhouette lancing up into a dazzling array of stars. I am standing alone on the rooftop of…
The Melting of America The Nation
Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change-induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering…
China’s Boom: The Dark Side in Photos NYRBlog
I have seen some woeful scenes of industrial apocalypse and pollution in my travels throughout China, but there are very few images that remain vividly in my mind. This is why the photographs of Lu Guang are so important. A…
China Reluctant To Lead Yale Global
NEW YORK: On her recent whirlwind trip to Asia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed not only set on bringing the US out of the global leadership wilderness in which it had fallen, but on bringing China into a…
A Fresh Start for the U.S. and China Time
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is headed to China. The inclusion of Beijing on her first trip overseas suggests that she and the new U.S. President intend to make the People’s Republic of China a keystone in the arch of…
China’s Quest for Moral Authority The Nation
The Beijing Summer Olympic Games are long since over, and the vortex of criticism, demonstrations, ceremonies, pollution concerns, acclaim and gold medals that swirled around China for months has subsided. In the process China’s world image was changed. By deftly…
The U.S. and China: Common Ground on Climate Yale Environment 360
The crackdown on dissent surrounding the Beijing Olympics has been a reminder of China’s lingering authoritarianism. Yet for all our differences, the U.S. and China — the world’s two largest emitters of carbon dioxide — have no choice but to…