Though much has been written of China's imminent rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: how China uses soft power--diplomacy, trade, cultural and educational exchange opportunities, and other techniques--to project a benign national image.
Though much has been written of China's imminent rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: how China uses soft power--...
How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war--and the steep price he paid for failing
Jim Thompson landed in Thailand at the end of World War II, a former American society dilettante who became an Asian legend as a spy and silk magnate with access to Thai worlds outsiders never saw. As the Cold War reached Thailand, America had a choice: Should it, as Thompson believed, help other nations build democracies from their traditional cultures or, as his ex-OSS friend Willis Bird argued, remake the world through deception and self-serving alliances? In a...
How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war--and the steep price he paid for failing
The end of the Cold War ushered in an age of American triumphalism best characterized by the "Washington Consensus: " the idea that free markets, democratic institutions, limitations on government involvement in the economy, and the rule of law were the foundations of prosperity and stability. The last fifteen years, starting with the Asian financial crisis, have seen the gradual erosion of that consensus. Many commentators have pointed to the emergence of a powerful new rival model: state capitalism. In state capitalist regimes, the government typically owns firms in strategic industries....
The end of the Cold War ushered in an age of American triumphalism best characterized by the "Washington Consensus: " the idea that free markets, demo...
How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war--and the steep price he paid for failing
Jim Thompson landed in Thailand at the end of World War II, a former American society dilettante who became an Asian legend as a spy and silk magnate with access to Thai worlds outsiders never saw. As the Cold War reached Thailand, America had a choice: Should it, as Thompson believed, help other nations build democracies from their traditional cultures or, as his ex-OSS friend Willis Bird argued, remake the world through deception and self-serving alliances? In a...
How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war--and the steep price he paid for failing
