Sick and Tired of Hearing About Rising China?

Arguments Against the Narrative of China’s Ascendance and America’s Decline

Booming China—and its perils and possibilities—has become a genre all its own in the 21st century. Economists write books about the country’s dragon economy. Environmentalists warn of China’s growing need for water and oil. Political scientists predict a new world order. Meanwhile, the U.S. recession drags on, and pundits on all sides and with all manners of expertise decry America’s falling fortune. But is it inevitable that these nations’ trajectories resemble a seesaw: If one goes up, must the other go down? In advance of the Zócalo event “Is China …

My Living, Yet Lost, Father

The Final Weeks Of South Vietnam Changed Everything Between Us

In the spring of 1975, when I was eight years old, my family, which included my parents and younger sister, moved from Vietnam, our native home, to Singapore. My father …