Russia bombards Ukraine. Israel and Hamas are locked in a danse macabre. The threat of outright war between Jerusalem and Tehran grows daily. Beijing and Washington snarl. In a moment like this, David Sanger’s latest book, subtitled China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, is a must-read. Painstakingly researched, New Cold Wars brims with on-record interviews and observations by thinly veiled sources. Officials closest to the president talk with an eye on posterity. The words of the CIA director, Bill Burns, repeatedly appear on the page.…
Tag: Politics books
Beijing Rules by Bethany Allen review – a new world order
It can be a little dizzying to survey the abrupt shifts in Britain’s relationship with China. It is less than eight years since the then chancellor, George Osborne, touted a “golden era” of closer ties, becoming the first serving cabinet minister to visit Xinjiang. That region is now synonymous with the persecution of Uyghurs and other minorities, its vast network of camps a modern-day gulag archipelago. The widely documented atrocities meted out include torture and forced sterilisation. Last month parliament warned that Beijing poses not just a commercial challenge, but…
The New China Playbook by Keyu Jin review – the bright side of Beijing
There is a tone to Chinese official propaganda that is worthy of Professor Pangloss and his irrefutable case that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. Beijing’s favoured phrases, such as “win-win cooperation” and “community of common destiny for all mankind”, are designed to evoke an image of China as the fountainhead of conflict-free benevolence. A similar if much more sophisticated feeling runs through Keyu Jin’s book. Jin teaches economics at the LSE in London. She is the Harvard-educated daughter of a former deputy minister…
Red Memory review – the Cultural Revolution up close
In the 1990s, something odd happened in Beijing’s burgeoning fine dining scene. Among the chic eateries, restaurants emerged with very simple dishes: meat and vegetables cooked in plain style with few frills. The diners were not there just for the cuisine, but to relive the experience of a period generally considered a disaster: the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. The plain dishes were meant to invoke a time of restrained, austere living, when people thought of the collective rather than the individual. Only the sky-high prices reminded diners that they were…
American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court press
The official investigation of Hunter Biden’s dealings in China and elsewhere rests in the hands of David Weiss, a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Delaware, and the US justice department under Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland. Politically speaking, we now have Red-Handed by Peter Schweizer, who would very much like to help us digest the business past of the 46th president’s troublesome son. Schweizer’s works include Clinton Cash, a compendium of opposition research that helped shape the presidential election in 2016. These days, he is president of the Government Accountability…