Month: July 2008

  • Keeping up

    The Mexican export sector can’t compete with China’s.  Why? In yet another reminder of the uneven evolution of the Sino-Mexican bilateral relationship, Mexican President Felipe Calderón visited China last week with the goal of encouraging investment in Mexico. The press took the opportunity to rehash the striking change in trade between the two countries since…

  • Beijing Universities Top U.S. Doctorate Feeder List

    Beijing University (aka Peking University) and Qinghua University (Tsinghua) top Science magazine’s list of top undergraduate schools for students obtaining U.S. Ph.D.s. A new study has found that the most likely undergraduate alma mater for those who earned a Ph.D. in 2006 from a U.S. university was … Tsinghua University. Peking University, its neighbor in…

  • Obama Says He Would Hear From Dalai Lama Before Going to Olympic Ceremony

    Without saying definitively he would not attend the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing one month from today, U.S. Senator Barack Obama said as president he would skip the ceremony without hearing from the Dalai Lama that there had been progress on the Tibet issue. “In the absence of some sense of progress, in the absence…

  • When the U.S. Wants to Criticize 'Chinese Art'

    In The New Republic, Jed Perl exercises no economy of words in lambasting art from China and its growing global following. Based on a reading of “Chinese art” that does not apparently leave the island of Manhattan, Perl makes several questionable statements, often abetted by lack of knowledge, and Alan Baumler at Frog in a…

  • Is Venezuela selling oil to China instead of to the U.S.?

    The United States is importing less oil from Venezuela, and China is buying more. Is Venezuela putting its resources where Hugo Chávez’s mouth is and using the country’s major export as a geopolitical lever? Or are U.S. imports just catching up with a 10-year decline in Venezuelan production? The U.S. Energy Information Administration released April…