Search Results for: China

Head of State

Longreads Pick

How Hilary Clinton carefully negotiated blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s freedom and proved herself to be a tenacious Secretary of State.

“By the time the American diplomats acknowledged what had happened and went back to cut a new deal for Chen, the Chinese were in no mood to talk. In the meantime, Clinton herself was pulled away by the hours of unrelated meetings that had brought her to Beijing in the first place. The two sides had used the dialogue to schedule an intensive series of small discussions with Clinton and Dai on the most pressing — and divisive — issues between the countries, from thorny nuclear talks with Iran and what to do about North Korea’s erratic new leader to the bloody crackdown in Syria and the mounting crisis between the Philippines, a major U.S. ally, and China over disputed waters in the South China Sea. It was quite a performance by both sides; no one mentioned Chen. ‘This was all taking place in the eye of the storm,’ said one Clinton aide.”

Source: Foreign Policy
Published: Jun 18, 2012
Length: 25 minutes (6,325 words)

A look at the complicated afterlife of James Brown, and the battle over his estate among children he did, and did not, acknowledge:

Yet Mr. Brown was not wholly unprepared to die, either. Several years earlier, in August 2000, he’d drawn up a will in which he bequeathed his ‘personal and household effects’—his linens and china and such—to six adult children from two ex-wives and two other women. He was very clear, too, that those were the only heirs he intended to favor. ‘I have intentionally failed to provide for any other relatives or other persons,’ he wrote in the will. ‘Such failure is intentional and not occasioned by accident or mistake.’

“Papa.” — Sean Flynn, GQ, April 2009

More from GQ

Papa

Longreads Pick

A look at the complicated afterlife of James Brown, and the battle over his estate among children he did, and did not, acknowledge:

“Yet Mr. Brown was not wholly unprepared to die, either. Several years earlier, in August 2000, he’d drawn up a will in which he bequeathed his ‘personal and household effects’—his linens and china and such—to six adult children from two ex-wives and two other women. He was very clear, too, that those were the only heirs he intended to favor. ‘I have intentionally failed to provide for any other relatives or other persons,’ he wrote in the will. ‘Such failure is intentional and not occasioned by accident or mistake.'”

Author: Sean Flynn
Source: GQ
Published: Apr 1, 2009
Length: 48 minutes (12,205 words)

Once an enemy of the U.S., Vietnam is growing as a country, and has become a key ally “as a counter to China’s rising power”:

Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western defense expert in Hanoi tells me that the sale makes no logical sense: ‘There is going to be real sticker shock for the Vietnamese when they find out just how much it costs merely to maintain these subs.’ More important, the expert says, the Vietnamese will have to train crews to use them—a generational undertaking. ‘To counter Chinese subs,’ the expert says, ‘they would have been better off concentrating on anti-submarine warfare and littoral defense.’ Clearly, the Vietnamese bought these submarines as prestige items, to say We’re serious.

“The Vietnam Solution.” — Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic

More from Vietnam

The Vietnam Solution

Longreads Pick

Once an enemy of the U.S., Vietnam is growing as a country and has become a key ally “as a counter to China’s rising power”:

“Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western defense expert in Hanoi tells me that the sale makes no logical sense: ‘There is going to be real sticker shock for the Vietnamese when they find out just how much it costs merely to maintain these subs.’ More important, the expert says, the Vietnamese will have to train crews to use them—a generational undertaking. ‘To counter Chinese subs,’ the expert says, ‘they would have been better off concentrating on anti-submarine warfare and littoral defense.’ Clearly, the Vietnamese bought these submarines as prestige items, to say We’re serious.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: May 25, 2012
Length: 17 minutes (4,464 words)

[Not single-page] Brigitte Harris was sexually abused by her father for years, before she decided to stop him from ever doing it to anyone again. She’s now in prison for second degree manslaughter, with a parole hearing this week:

The first thing she learned was that it could be done. ‘Everyone always focuses on Lorena Bobbitt because it’s the most popular. But each and every case I researched, no one died.’ She read about cases in China and in Europe. ‘And I start seeing how to do it without actually killing him.’ On June 26, she bought a package of 50 scalpels on eBay for $6.83, including shipping.

On July 25, Harris had her final argument with Carleen. On her home video, titled ‘My Reasons,’ she mentions Carleen’s children explicitly. ‘We both know what he wants to do with them.’ She talks about what she’s about to do. ‘Somebody’s got to do something,’ she says on the video.

“A Daughter’s Revenge.” — Robert Kolker, New York magazine

See also: “The Living Nightmare.” Barry Bearak, New York Times, Feb. 13, 2012

A Daughter’s Revenge

Longreads Pick

[Not single-page] Brigitte Harris was sexually abused by her father for years, before she decided to stop him from ever doing it to anyone again. She’s now in prison for second degree manslaughter, with a parole hearing this week:

“The first thing she learned was that it could be done. ‘Everyone always focuses on Lorena Bobbitt because it’s the most popular. But each and every case I researched, no one died.’ She read about cases in China and in Europe. ‘And I start seeing how to do it without actually killing him.’ On June 26, she bought a package of 50 scalpels on eBay for $6.83, including shipping.

“On July 25, Harris had her final argument with Carleen. On her home video, titled ‘My Reasons,’ she mentions Carleen’s children explicitly. ‘We both know what he wants to do with them.’ She talks about what she’s about to do. ‘Somebody’s got to do something,’ she says on the video.”

Published: Apr 2, 2012
Length: 14 minutes (3,692 words)

Macau’s rise as the new global gambling capital leads to complications for the Las Vegas casinos that have flocked to China for a piece of the action. Its differences are illustrated in the God of Gamblers case, in which a former barber named Siu Yun Ping won $13 million, setting off a chain of events, including a murder plot:

The files of the God of Gamblers case can be read as a string of accidents, good and bad: Siu’s run at the baccarat table; Wong’s luck to be assigned an assassin with a conscience; Adelson’s misfortune that reporters noticed an obscure murder plot involving his casino. But the tale, viewed another way, depends as little on luck as a casino does. It is, rather, about the fierce collision of self-interests. If Las Vegas is a burlesque of America—the ‘ethos of our time run amok,’ as Hal Rothman, the historian, put it—then Macau is a caricature of China’s boom, its opportunities and rackets, its erratic sorting of winners and losers.

“The God of Gamblers.” — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker

See also: “Online Poker’s Big Winner.” — Jay Caspian Kang, New York Times, March 25, 2011

The God of Gamblers

Longreads Pick

Macau’s rise as the new global gambling capital leads to complications for the Las Vegas casinos that have flocked to China for a piece of the action. Its differences are illustrated in the God of Gamblers case, in which a former barber named Siu Yun Ping won $13 million, setting off a chain of events, including a murder plot:

“The files of the God of Gamblers case can be read as a string of accidents, good and bad: Siu’s run at the baccarat table; Wong’s luck to be assigned an assassin with a conscience; Adelson’s misfortune that reporters noticed an obscure murder plot involving his casino. But the tale, viewed another way, depends as little on luck as a casino does. It is, rather, about the fierce collision of self-interests. If Las Vegas is a burlesque of America—the ‘ethos of our time run amok,’ as Hal Rothman, the historian, put it—then Macau is a caricature of China’s boom, its opportunities and rackets, its erratic sorting of winners and losers.”

Author: Evan Osnos
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 2, 2012
Length: 31 minutes (7,755 words)

What Marx got right—and wrong—about capitalism: 

The most obvious mistake in his version of the world is to do with class. There is something like a classic Marxian proletariat dispersed through the world. But Marx foresaw that this proletariat would be an increasingly centralised and organised force: indeed, this was one of the reasons it would prove so dangerous to capitalism. By creating the conditions in which labour would be sure to organise and assemble collectively capitalism was arranging its own downfall. But there is no organised global conflict between the classes; there is no organised global proletariat. There’s nothing even close. The proletariat is queuing to get into Foxconn, not to organise strikes there, and the great danger facing China, which is in a sense where the world’s proletariat now is, is the inequality caused by fractures within the new urban proletariat and the rural poverty they’re leaving behind.

“Marx at 193.” — John Lanchester, London Review of Books

See more #longreads from John Lanchester