Category Archives: Foreign Affairs

Why Didn’t Britain Ever Give Democracy to Hong Kong?

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

Hong Kong’s political system today is a strange thing. People in Hong Kong vote in free and fair elections, they can protest and assembly, but the rules are bent so that ultimately only the Chinese government’s candidate can win. Yet, ironically, Hong Kong today is more democratic than it was during the vast majority (perhaps the totality) of its time under British rule. This is doubly ironic, because Great Britain is a democracy and China is not. Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Asia | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Two Lies the Obama Administration Should Have Told After Osama Bin Laden’s Death

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

The Obama administration will be remembered in history as the one that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. Its handling of the situation was practically flawless.

Nevertheless, there are two things in which the government erred slightly. With respect to these two matters, the Obama administration’s mistake was to tell the truth. In this cases, it would have been better for the United States if the government had told lies. Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, Middle East | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Case Study of the Perils Facing Third-Party Candidates: Taiwan

Posted on January 20, 2012 by

When electorates in the United States and Taiwan are presented with the same situation, they react in the exact same way. This reveals that the effect of a first-past-the-post system is quite universal: the system destroys third party candidacies. Whether the third-party candidate is Ralph Nader or James Soong Chu-yu, the result is the same. Continue reading →

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Europe Hasn’t Been Much In the News Lately…

Posted on January 3, 2012 by

They say that no news is the best news.

There was a lot of news in 2011 about Europe. Continue reading →

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North Korea: A Very Rational Country

Posted on December 25, 2011 by

It’s popular amongst the media to characterize North Korea as an irrational state run by a madman. North Korea continuously provokes the West, it is said, for no apparent reason. Proof that it’s an unpredictable, irrational actor that could do anything. Continue reading →

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