About
Transpacifica is primarily written by me, Graham Webster. I'm an analyst, journalist, and consultant on East Asian politics and technology. Here, I write about East Asian politics mostly in China and Japan, the Internet and society, the environment, and contemporary art. Unavoidably, I sometimes veer off topic—even with a topic as large as the Pacific.
By day, I work at the EastWest Institute in New York City, but all opinions are my own and do not represent EWI or any of my other clients or employers.
Twitter: @gwbstr.
Website: gwbstr.com.-
Recent Posts
- Key U.S.–Japan meeting overshadowed by U.S.–China diplomacy
- ‘National interests’ and dealing with U.S.–China distrust
- A great paragraph: Wen Jiabao as prodding CCP rule
- Some notes on This American Life’s retraction episode #Apple #China
- The rise and fall of a migrant food cart in China, from Tricia Wang
Pages
Archives
Blogs by Academics
- 冷知识 Cool Knowledge – Hu Yong
- China Rhyming
- Elite Chinese Politics and Political Economy – Victor Shih
- 花崗齋雜記 Jottings from the Granite Studio
- Frog in a Well – The China History Group Blog
- Frog in a Well – The Japan History Group Blog
- Japan Focus
- RConversation
- The China Beat
- YouMeiTi 有媒体 – Tricia Wang
China
- 两元文化奇物 (biculturalfreak.net)
- China and the World – Ella Chou
- China Digital Times
- China Financial Markets – Michael Pettis
- China Law Blog
- China Media Project at HKU
- Dance to the Revolution – Ella Chou
- Danwei.org
- EastSouthWestNorth
- James Fallows
- Letters from China – Evan Osnos, The New Yorker
- See China
- Shanghaiist
- Sinocentric
- The China Game
- The China Reader – Lyle Morris
- The China Tracker – Forbes
- The China Vortex
- The Opposite End of China
- Wangjianshuo’s Blog
Environment
Friends (non-Transpacific)
Internet and Society
Japan
Me Elsewhere
License
This work by Transpacifica is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Tag Archives: China
Huntsman and fear of China – ‘the new expat message’?
Noted, from ChinaSolved (emphasis mine): When Huntsman says, “America First” he means “and not China”. His message is that he’s seen what can happen if the global status quo doesn’t shift – and that this is scary to the US. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, China-U.S., ChinaSolved, expatriates, expats, Jon Huntsman, U.S. Election 2012
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Why talk of a U.S.–China ‘Cyber Cold War’ is nonsense
When anti-China rhetoric combines with computer security paranoia, we get outlandish statements and alarmism. In my first piece for Al Jazeera English, I argue that the idea of a “Cyber Cold War” is a hallucination: In January 2010, a Google … Continue reading
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Tagged Al Jazeera, China, China-U.S., cybersecurity, Work Published Elsewhere
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China cutting under-employed college majors: paranoid or good policy?
Laurie Burkitt for the WSJ reports the Chinese Ministry of Education has announced plans to phase out college majors that don’t get people employed. Emphasis mine: Yet the government’s decision to curb majors is facing resistance. Many university professors in China … Continue reading
Ma Jun and the motivation boomerang: clever environmental advocacy
This evening I went to an event discussing human rights and the environment in China.* The big draw was Ma Jun, one of the most recognized names in Chinese environmental protection and the director of the Institute for Public & … Continue reading
China’s more ‘constructive’ and ‘outspoken’ role on Afghanistan
A report emerged today that China is taking a more active role in international discussions about the situation in Afghanistan. This minor diplomatic news is a case study in China’s role in the international community. Reuters reports that Chinese Deputy … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Afghanistan, Amitai Etzioni, China, China's Rise, diplomacy, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, sovereignty
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China citizen database proposal is nothing radically new
A Chinese official proposed the creation of a database of every citizen in China, reports The New York Times. Zhou Yongkang, a former head of the Public Security Bureau Ministry, “said the system should be based on the resident identity … Continue reading
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Tagged China, e-government, informatization, journalism, Zhou Yongkang
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Amartya Sen on Quality of Life in India and China
In the New York Review of Books, Amartya Sen describes several ways we can assess the differences in quality of life in China and India. He points to China’s economic and public goods strength, but argues that other values, including … Continue reading
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Tagged Amartya Sen, China, development, India, quality of life
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Three great paragraphs on the internet and Chinese ‘revolution’
This from Guobin Yang of Barnard College, Columbia University, in The New York Times: Protest is also increasingly common on the Internet. I recently counted 60 major cases of online activism, ranging from extensive blogging to heavily trafficked forums to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, contention, Guobin Yang, protest, revolution, The New York Times, Yang Guobin
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