Category Archives: United States of America

Climate Change: Denialism, or Realism?

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 6, June 2017

Three men are photographed in suits standing in front of a large poster with the words "EU-China Summit/Brussels 02.06.2017".

EU-China Summit, Brussels, 2017. Source: European Council President via Flickr.

Dave Schroeder
University of Wisconsin-Madison/Naval Officer

Climate change.

This issue is a lot more complex than people suspect for many deemed to be denying the facts.

What many people disagree on in good faith with respect to climate change is not that it’s occurring, nor what the impacts are, or what they may be in the future. Rather, it is what the collective response of the United States should be, and what other concerns — economic, national security, energy policy, diplomatic, etc. — that response should rightly be weighed against.

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The Three Oppositions: Chinese Dissident Groups Holding Mass Demonstrations Since 2012

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 2, February 2017

Falun Gong practitioners are photographed seated cross legged on the floor.

Falun Gong practitioners before the annual July 1 protest march in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, China. Source: Remko Tanis via Flickr.

Tom Stern

As President Donald Trump takes command 28 Years after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, there are three prominent groups which are considered by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to be dissident and subversive to its ideals, posing a danger to political stability. Each of these could potentially become the backbone necessary for the expansion of freedoms in China.

  1. the Tuidang Movement, [1]
  2. the New Citizens’ Movement [2], and
  3. the practitioners of Falun Gong [3].

Tuidang Movement

The 退黨運動 (Tuìdǎng yùndòng), or Tuidang movement for short, is one that seeks the abolition of the CPC. Literally meaning “to withdraw from the Communist Party,” its members are bound by their desire to end the corruption tied to the Party. Caylan Ford, in his dissertation “Tradition and Dissent in China: The Tuidang Movement and its Challenge to the Communist Party” notes a key difference between the movement and those before it in that, rather than drawing from western principles and ideals of democracy and free expression, it seeks to act as a mirror to the nation’s idealized past. In its reflexive approach, the movement employs exigent and distinct Chinese language and ways of thought, such as Confucianism. Ironically, Ford also notes that the movement views the Communist ideology as a largely foreign and detrimental one, “which is portrayed as antithetical to true Chinese values, human nature, and universal laws.” Rather than using a geopolitically-charged force behind its espoused arguments, the Tuidang movement draws from both history and morality in its efforts to compel the Chinese public to recognize their unified, and wholly unnecessary, suffering under the Communist Party.

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Trump’s Unfair Ban:  An Iranian View 

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 2, February 2017

An urban landscape is photographed from above. Trees are visible in between buildings.

Tehran. Source: Jabiz Raisdana via Flickr.

Nabi Sonboli
Instituted for Political and International Studies

On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Executive Order titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorists”. The order reflects three critical concerns regarding immigrants and those who come to the US in the new administration: Security, ideology, and contribution. These concerns are valid for any country, but the questions remain, which one of these concerns are legitimate with regards to Iran and Iranians? and what is the main target in this order? 

Cuba’s Roller-Coaster Investment Climate — Not for the Faint-Hearted

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 3, No. 4, April 2015.

A white building with a red roof is photographed in a large, green field. Palm trees are visible in the background.

The Club House at Instituto Superior de Arte. The campus is built on the site of an old golf course that was “reclaimed” after the revolution, 2007. The Cuban government has taken increasingly large steps in recent years toward economic liberalization. Cuba issued a pair of surprising free-market decrees on Thursday Aug. 27, 2010, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years, potentially touching off a golf-course building boom, and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables. Source: Flickr.

Vito Echevarria 
Freelance Journalist

Attendees of the “Cuba Opportunity Summit” – held on April 1, 2015 by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City – consisted mainly of American companies and entrepreneurs, who are caught up with the gold rush-like fervor over the prospect of finally doing business with Cuba. That island, which has endured a harsh trade embargo imposed by Washington since its takeover by Fidel Castro and his Communist revolution, is perhaps the ultimate frontier market on the planet, since American companies have been forbidden from conducting any trade with that regime for decades.  The one glaring exception has been the opening of food trade, which Bill Clinton allowed before leaving office in 2000. Cuba has since become a multi-million-dollar market for various U.S. agricultural and food products.

President Obama’s December 2014 announcement to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba, which will presumably increase food export opportunities, travel, as well as openings in areas like banking, telecommunications and building supplies, is being viewed in many circles as a process that will ultimately end the ongoing U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Speakers at the Wharton Cuba Summit, which was covered by CNBC (complete with on-site interviews by its Chief International Correspondent, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera), included top executives from Norwegian Cruise Line, Discovery Networks, Thomas Herzfeld Advisors, and NASDAQ, along with a stream of U.S. government officials (headed by Roberta Jacobson – Asst. Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs – who’s been leading Washington’s negotiations with Cuban officials to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries), as well as think tanks from the Brookings Institute to the Americas Society. In other words, Cuba has finally “arrived” – receiving long overdue “prime-time” attention in the United States. Even some of the Cuban government officials that showed up were overwhelmed by the attention they were getting from fellow attendees.

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China Response to Hacking Indictment Indicates Rash Leadership and Need to Expand NATO to Asia

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2014.

Chinese and Russian joint naval exercise is photographed. One large ship is visible in the background with a smaller one in the foreground.

Chinese and Russian joint naval exercise. In 2013, Russia and China conducted similar exercises near Vladivostok. A Chinese fleet consisting of seven naval vessels participated in the “Joint Sea-2013” Sino-Russian joint naval drills scheduled for July 5 to 12. The eight-day maneuvers focus on joint maritime air defense, joint escorts and marine search and rescue operations. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

China is using a very blunt and escalatory instrument — threatening general deterioration in military relations — to respond to a limited issue of Chinese individuals stealing trade secrets. On May 20, the United States Justice Department indicted five People’s Liberation Army members for hacking United States commercial data.  The remarkable speed with which China responded the following day, and at the highest level, suggests that commercial hacking is an officially-approved state policy on the part of China. The Chinese threat of reduced military cooperation and thereby deteriorating military relations is clumsy in that the Chinese would look better had they simply launched an investigation of the individuals — an investigation that they could later claim shows the indictment as baseless. The broad Chinese threat of deteriorating military relations invites an increase in US military attention to Asia — exactly what the Chinese should be trying to avoid. The clumsiness of the Chinese response to the indictments indicates a rash Chinese leadership prone to irrational military strategies, with consequent market volatility and political instability. The US and its Asian allies should respond with a measured forward deployment of military forces, and redoubled diplomatic energy towards greater alliance cooperation, including between Asian allies and NATO.

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