It appears that China’s leaders are worried that Washington is getting smart, and trying to “westernize and divide China” through a culture war. And President Hu Jintao, who leaves office this year after his five-year term is up, has decided to make an Alamo-like last stand over culture.

Both President Hu Jintao and the PLA undoubtedly understand that China is dealing with the most left-wing, least national-security-oriented, least assertive American president in decades. China will be heavily influenced by its perception of US policies and capabilities.

It is in Beijing's interest for some questions to remain unasked and unanswered.

Google's decision to stop censoring searches on its China-based servers, rerouting search requests instead to its uncensored Hong Kong facilities, is historic.

Deng Xiaoping saw George H. W. Bush as an American who some day would lead his country, and Bush saw in Deng a major force in China's future.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (also known as the DPRK, and North Korea) is a special case in the annals of modern economic development, and not a good one: for it is an economy that once achieved a relatively advanced level of modernization, but then proceeded into prolonged, even catastrophic decline.

The debate over the accuracy of China's growth figures for the past few years marks the beginning of a long-overdue reassessment of the successes and failures of Beijing's reform era.

Kathy Boudin walked free from the Bedford Hills correctional facility last week, but the debate over the parole granted to the one-time "Weather Underground" fugitive continues.