New China law a recognition of NGO power?
China is moving closer this week to a new law that would strictly control thousands of foreign nongovernmental organizations in the country, The New York Times reports: Foreign governments and… Read more »
Category: Dictatorships
Uighur case highlights most sustained crackdown since Tiananmen
Patriotic chest-thumping over the weekend in India gave way to embarrassment and bitterness as the government made a very public U-turn on issuing a visa to Uighur dissident Dolkun Isa, The Washington… Read more »
Free speech ‘under siege’ in Vietnam
More than 100 Vietnamese – an unprecedented amount – tried to run in the May 22 election as independents, including activists bent on testing the party’s sincerity about fostering inclusiveness… Read more »
Beware illusions about post-Castro Cuba
Under a hegemonic party system, the emerging regime in Cuba will not rely on its revolutionary past or one man’s charisma, but on the institutionalization of a dominant political party,… Read more »
No sign of reform, transparency in Castros’ Cuba
Critics of President Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Cuba are claiming vindication this week as the island nation’s Communist Party hard-liners — cheered on by an 89-year-old Fidel Castro — moved… Read more »
Aylwin, who led Chile’s post-Pinochet transition, dies at 97
Patricio Aylwin, who as president of Chile in 1990 led the country’s transition to democracy from the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, died on Tuesday at his home here. He was… Read more »
Cuba minister calls Obama trip ‘an attack’ as Communists defend ideology
U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Communist-led Cuba was an “attack” on its history and culture aimed at misleading a new business class, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on Monday,… Read more »
Dictators don’t stabilize the Middle East
A number of American politicians have suggested that the Arab Spring was a disaster and that the region needs strongmen to stabilize it, but while working on Middle East policy at the… Read more »
Still a long road ahead for Cuba’s civil society
A leading human rights group has strongly condemned the harassment of Cuban doctor and journalist Eduardo Herrera Duran (above). In March, Herrera — a surgeon at the Calixto García University… Read more »
The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class
Seymour Martin Lipset famously argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would demand democracy. Writing in the latest issue of the Journal of… Read more »