When Deng Xiaoping launched China’s strategy of “reform and opening up” in 1978, economists in the West had their doubts. In their view, a vibrant market economy was fundamentally incompatible with China’s authoritarian political system. But many in the East – including Koreans like me, who witnessed the East Asian miracle while living under developmental dictatorship – were hopeful.

The Beijing Winter Olympics have closed with International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach hailing a smoothly run event and a "safe Games" in the midst of the COVID pandemic, but the gold medals were overshadowed by a doping controversy.The Games ended on Sunday in the "Bird's Nest" stadium, just as they had when the Chinese capital hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, in a snowflake-themed closing ceremony attended by President Xi Jinping and a socially-distanc

Construction crews from mainland China were helping Hong Kong build two temporary isolation facilities to house thousands of coronavirus patients on Sunday as a senior official declared the city "in full combat mode".The crowded Chinese financial hub is in the throes of its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, registering thousands of confirmed cases a day as hospitals reach breaking point.A strict zero-COVID policy like China uses kept infections at bay for two years but left the city

Hong Kong is in the throes of its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, as residents are suddenly confronted with a severely overstretched healthcare system and a tightening of restrictions even as much of the world opens up.The city's strict but successful "zero-COVID" policy had largely kept the virus out for months.But when the highly transmissible Omicron variant broke through Hong Kong's defences, authorities were caught flat-footed with a dangerously under-vaccinated popu

Outbreaks of Avian influenza (AI), commonly known as bird flu, have been reported to the World Organization for Animal Health across Europe and Asia, causing concern among experts. Whenever avian influenza viruses are circulating in poultry, there is a risk of sporadic infection and small clusters of human cases due to people’s exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments.

In Seize the Hour, her excellent book about the first meeting between United States (US) President Richard Nixon and Communist Party of China (CPC) Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, the historian Margaret MacMillan enumerated some of the profound implications of this extraordinary encounter. The meeting, which took place 50 years ago this month, ended a long political standoff between the United States and communist China, and marked the beginning of a new geopolitical era.

Huddled under blankets and thermal shields, dozens of elderly patients shivered on gurneys outside a hospital serving one of Hong Kong's poorest communities – a grim tableau for the city as its health system buckles under an Omicron-fuelled coronavirus wave.We call this the fever zone," a nurse in full-body protective gear told AFP, declining to be named.

Much of the democratic world would like the United States (US) to remain the preeminent global power. But with the US apparently committed to strategic overreach, that outcome risks becoming unlikely. The problem with America’s global leadership begins at home. Hyper-partisan politics and profound polarization are eroding American democracy and impeding the pursuit of long-term objectives.

A China-style internet gateway scheduled to be imposed in Cambodia this week would grant the government far greater powers to conduct mass surveillance, censor and control the country’s internet, rights groups have warned.Human rights experts and media advocates fear the gateway could be a step towards the kind of censorship enforced through China’s Great Firewall – though some question what technical capacity Cambodia’s systems currently have, and say the process has lacked transparency.Unde

United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts declared their unity on confronting security threats in the Asia-Pacific Saturday, even as Washington was intensely occupied by the possibility of war in Eastern Europe.Blinken, South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa met in Honolulu for a day of talks focused on North Korea's nuclear threat as well as the China challenge.Washington org