Ian Buruma

China, of course, is no longer as isolated as it was in the 1950s, Xi is not Mao, and his erratic decision-making will most likely not claim 30 million lives

When political leaders, and their admirers, claim that George Soros, the Hungarian-American-Jewish philanthropist, is pulling the strings of world affairs, we know that anti-Semitism is not far off

Since the end of May, a #MeToo scandal has rocked the German media

Until fairly recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping touted his zero-COVID policy as proof that authoritarian one-party states like China are better equipped to deal with pandemics (or any other crisis) than messy democracies hampered by selfish politicians and fickle electorates

No one seems to know how the United States would react if China were to invade Taiwan

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While history is rife with mass murders, the Nazis’ attempt to eradicate an entire people based on a grotesque racist ideology remains unparalleled

It shouldn’t make sense. Donald Trump has just been indicted on four criminal charges, including defrauding the United States and conspiring to deprive Americans of their voting rights

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman is merely the latest in a long line of far-right agitators seeking to exploit anti-immigrant sentiments for political gain

While Donald Trump holds the dubious distinction of being the first former US president to run for office while facing criminal charges, he is not the first political candidate in American history to have been indicted, convicted, or even incarcerated

It shouldn’t make sense. Donald Trump has just been indicted on four criminal charges, including defrauding the United States and conspiring to deprive Americans of their voting rights

LONDON – Hong Kong is not Beijing. And July 1, 2019, is not June 4, 1989. First of all, in 1989, the violence in China came almost entirely from the side of the government; the weeks of demonstrations in Beijing and other cities had remained remarkably peaceful throughout. This was mostly true in Hong Kong as well, until a small number of young protesters lost their cool and ransacked the Legislative Council chamber with crowbars and hammers

Count on the International Federation of Association Football, better known as FIFA, to come up with a fatuous slogan for the World Cup in Qatar: «Football Unites the World»

China’s massive protest movement in the spring of 1989, centered in (but not confined to) Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, seems to have been the anti-Communist revolt that failed. As the brutal crackdown on and following June 3-4 played out, political freedom was being won in Central Europe – first in Poland and Hungary, and then, beginning that fall, in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and, albeit violently and rather undemocratically, Romania. Within the next two years, the Soviet Union, cracked open by Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, finally imploded

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While Donald Trump holds the dubious distinction of being the first former US president to run for office while facing criminal charges, he is not the first political candidate in American history to have been indicted, convicted, or even incarcerated

Since the end of May, a #MeToo scandal has rocked the German media

Watching a sophisticated democratic society knowingly walk into a predictable and avoidable national disaster is a rare and alarming experience. Most British politicians are well aware that leaving the European Union with no agreement on the post-Brexit relationship will cause enormous damage to their country. They are not sleepwalking into the abyss; their eyes are wide open

NEW YORK – The late Alan Clark, a British politician of the Margaret Thatcher era, chiefly known for his womanizing and his hard-right views, once lamented to me the decline of the British fighting spirit that built empires and won wars. Half in jest, I suggested that this aggressive disposition was still there among British soccer hooligans who ransack stadiums and foreign towns. He replied with a dreamy look in his eyes that this was indeed something that “might be usefully tapped.”

NEW YORK – One month ago, in Myanmar, protesters against the military coup gathered around the United States embassy in Yangon. They called on President Joe Biden to make the generals go back to their barracks and free Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won a big victory in the 2020 general election, which is why the generals, afraid of losing their privileges, seized power