June 2019

At year end, Foreign Affairs presented one of its best of 2018 essays to its readers, The End of the Democratic Century – Autocracy’s Global Ascendance, by Yoscha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, which was originally published in Foreign Affairs May/June 2018 Issue. This article made an observation and concluded that the Democratic Century (of 20th Century) has ended. The authors attributed the...

At year end, Foreign Affairs presented one of its best of 2018 essays to its readers, The End of the Democratic Century – Autocracy’s Global Ascendance, by Yoscha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, which was originally published in Foreign Affairs May/June 2018 Issue. This article made an observation and concluded that the Democratic Century (of 20th Century) has ended. The authors attributed the...

Recently I came across two opinion articles in the Organic Media (Quora), one entitled, Can the U.S. “Win” a trade war with China? (May 22, 2019), by Alfonso Liances, who has a Master Degree in International Development. He has quoted generously from Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International economics, on pitfalls of US-China trade conflicts. Another opinion, entitled,...

Recently I came across two opinion articles in the Organic Media (Quora), one entitled, Can the U.S. “Win” a trade war with China? (May 22, 2019), by Alfonso Liances, who has a Master Degree in International Development. He has quoted generously from Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International economics, on pitfalls of US-China trade conflicts. Another opinion, entitled,...

​My readers may wonder why is Dr. Wordman interested in the title topic? Is it important and related to world politics and US-China relations? Singles Day Event did not exist when Dr. Wordman built his first e-Commerce website, osmart.us (originally started as osmart.com but that name was first used by a department store). OSMART stands for Online Shopping Mart or O! Smart! with...

​My readers may wonder why is Dr. Wordman interested in the title topic? Is it important and related to world politics and US-China relations? Singles Day Event did not exist when Dr. Wordman built his first e-Commerce website, osmart.us (originally started as osmart.com but that name was first used by a department store). OSMART stands for Online Shopping Mart or O! Smart! with...

​ The U.S.-China trade war counting from 3-1-2018, the date the U.S. declared tariff on steel and aluminum imports (including metal imports from China), has been over one year. The first 10% tariff on $16B Chinese imports and China’s reciprocal retaliation had begun since 8/23/2018. The anted-up tariff of 25% on $200B Chinese goods (effective 1-1-2019) pressuring China to accept a trade deal had...

 Abstract The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a grand vision. Its implementation is full of challenges. Looking at the slow progress made by the United Nations in the past 74 years, one might get discouraged by the project like BRI. There is plenty of nay-sayers in its start but progress has silenced many and encouraged new joiners. This paper makes a brief review on the criticisms and achievements...