After the court’s ruling on 12 July 2016, China, not surprisingly, refused to recognise the court’s decision and continued to build military bases on remote islands and reefs with implications that reach far beyond Asia. In all, Beijing now has more than twenty-five militarised outposts with sophisticated weaponry on both sides of a trade route that is central to the global economy. […]
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Musings on democracy in Asia
What do the democracy reforms mean for the people of Hong Kong?’ a London banker friend asked me in 1992 as Britain was preparing to hand back its colony to China. Only three years earlier, China had become a global pariah by its forceful ending of the Tiananmen Square protests. Yet, in five years’ time, Britain was to hand over control of its biggest remaining colony to the Chinese communist dictatorship. […]
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