The Useless Tree

Politics

  • The Form and Content of Soft Power

    I am working on a paper, which I will present in Beijing and Shanghai in March, on the limitations to using Confucianism as a tool of the PRCs “soft power.” (I am building upon, and extending beyond, this post from… Continue reading

  • How Important is Confucius to the CCP?

    It seems that the movie Confucius has produced an anti-Confucius backlash in China.  At least this is what is being reported in the China Daily.  Here's Raymond Zhou: The wave of anti-Confucius sentiment following the removal of Avatar from 2D… Continue reading

  • How can you govern by killing?

    A bit of blog silence the last few days.  I have been busy trying to write a paper and following the disastrous Massachusetts Senate election.  For the past twenty years, I have lived in Massachusetts and this has got to… Continue reading

  • Google and The Power of the Internet in China

    I have been meaning to blog about Guobin Yang's book, The Power of the Internet in China, (which I used in my class on Chinese politics) and yesterday's news of Google's travails with Chinese hackers makes this a good moment… Continue reading

  • In Defense of Profanity

    In my Chinese politics class we are reading and discussing the new book by Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China.  It is a thorough and valuable analysis which I will review in greater detail in another post… Continue reading

  • Chuang Tzu and Oakeshott

    Andrew Sullivan has two posts today on Chuang Tzu.  He uses them to suggests some parallels between Chuang Tzu and Michael Oakeshott, the British conservative political philosopher who is Sullivan's inspiration.  Sullivan picks up on Chuang Tzu's skepticism regarding the… Continue reading

  • Obama in China: So, what did you expect?

    I've been reading some of the commentary about Obama's trip to China and I am struck by the negative tone of much of what I've seen.  This piece in the NYT pretty well sums it up: And then, Mr. Obama… Continue reading

  • Confucius in Congress

    The US House of Representatives filed a resolution (H. Res. 784) on September 29 honoring the 2,560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius. I'm really not sure of the politics here, but it would seem, to me, that this has… Continue reading

  • Another Sad Reminder: Bush Lost the War

    Massive, coordinated car bomb attacks in Baghdad. The loud right-wing Obama haters will no doubt jump on this to argue that Obama is losing the war in Iraq.  But that is not true.  Iraq was lost long ago and it… Continue reading

  • William Safire and Singapore and Williams College

    I noticed today that Williams Safire died.  So, perhaps it is an appropriate time to recount the time, twelve years ago, that our paths crossed politically. That crossing was rather unexpected.  Safire was, famously, a libertarian, conservative Republican, who had… Continue reading