I would recommend that readers who have not yet done so create a Twitter account and subscribe to my feed (@chinahand).  To my embarrassment and surprise, I’ve churned out over 800 tweets since I started up my feed last November. Some of it is meaningless ephemera, of course.  But sometimes the twitter stream carries in... Read More

I have an article up at Asia Times entitled China fine-tunes its Iran strategy. I read the Chinese tea leaves (People’s Daily and Global Times) to come to the conclusion that China wishes to avoid a UN Security Council vote on Iran sanctions. Beijing fears that any UN vote, with a Chinese yea vote or... Read More

At the invitation of Japan Focus, I wrote an article about the alleged nuclear facility in Syria. Since the Syrians steadfastly deny that there was a reactor at al Kibar and the physical evidence has been bombed, buried, and dismantled into oblivion, I ended up writing more about the creaky Non-Proliferation Treaty regime that the... Read More

Update: After Iran's PressTV reported--in no less than four articles but without any basis in the AP story or, apparently, any reporting of its own--that Chinese diplomats had leaked the IAEA story, their version has finally caught up with reporting from other outlets. In the latest article reporting the Chinese government denial, the characterization "The... Read More

China’s response to the new UN Security Council sanctions on Iran provide a useful perspective on Chinese policy and its movement toward a new, post-Bush and post-terror alternative doctrine for managing international crises. The story of the Iran nuclear crisis can be summed up with the acronym SSDD: Same Sanctions Different Day There is certainly... Read More