Ethan Epstein

Is a New Iron Curtain Descending?

Seventy-three years after Winston Churchill visited this small town 100 miles west of St. Louis for less than 24 hours, the residue of his presence still lingers. Black-and-white photographs of the former prime minister's ride through town in the back of a convertible abound. (Ever the showman, Mr. Churchill made sure that he chomped on a cigar as he passed through the town center.)

May 2, 2019

Mania for ‘criminal justice reform’ latest case of Butterfield Effect

Few journalists get an entire social science concept named after them, but former New York Times scribe Fox Butterfield is an exception — though probably not in a way he would hope.

April 28, 2019

North Korea may have done world a favor with weapon test

It's only a flesh wound.

April 18, 2019

TV news’ media blackout on Xinjiang aids Chinese repression

Ten years ago this July, there was a riot in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, the restive northwestern Chinese province that is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Beijing's response to the unrest was brutal. Telephone and internet communications were shuttered across the entire province. More than 1,000 people were summarily rounded up and detained. Scores were executed.

April 11, 2019

Could North Korea’s criminal embassies endanger the regime?

Being a diplomat for the world's most undiplomatic regime must be an odd job. North Korea's foreign service officers posted in the country's embassies abroad don't do much of the feel-good factory tours and rubber chicken dinner hobnobbery that characterize the daily lives of most countries' ambassadors.

April 4, 2019

In Taiwan, the ‘collusion’ narrative returns in a different form

Taiwan, that feisty enclave of Chinese democracy, is being riven by internal politics that rival our own in viciousness.

March 28, 2019

Xi Jinping transforms Beijing into ‘tidy’ city with unspoken authority

In a meeting with Beijing municipal officials in the fall of 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping made what could have seemed like an offhand remark.

March 21, 2019

Xi Jinping corruption crackdown in China cements grip on power

Xi Jinping began asserting his authority before he formally assumed the presidency, putting the fight against official corruption at the heart of his rise to power.

March 20, 2019

China ‘Great Firewall’ protects Communist Party politically, economically

Is China's "Great Firewall," which effectively blocks thousands of sensitive websites here, a political or an economic weapon?

March 20, 2019

Trump trade war slows China economy growth

Since the 2009 global financial crisis hobbled most of the world's developed countries, China has been the economic locomotive pulling the rest of the world behind it.

March 19, 2019

Beijing North Korea restaurants cast doubt on China sanction vow

A small ethnic restaurant in the heart of this sprawling capital city is raising some bigger questions about China's commitment to carry out its promises to the U.S. and the international community.

March 19, 2019

Gavin Newsom’s California death penalty moratorium: Perfectly legal, but wrong

The governor's move, therefore, feels uncomfortably undemocratic. Many families of murder victims expressed shock and outrage at the announcement as did many pundits who, whether or not they support the death penalty, felt the governor's move to be an abuse of power. But while it may strike many as fundamentally wrong, the governor's move appears to be perfectly legal.

March 14, 2019

Carlos Ghosn’s jail time illustrates problems with Japanese ‘hostage justice’

Japanese government's deplorable treatment of former Renault, Mitsubishi and Nissan honcho Carlos Ghosn should elicit sympathy in even the most hardened of Jacobin class warriors.

March 7, 2019

Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un and other summit losers

"Potential" is probably the wrong word to use. When President Trump tries to coax North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to trade nuclear arms for investment, he rhapsodizes often about the great "potential" that he sees in North Korea. (Ever a real estate guy, the president seems particularly fond of North Korea's shoreline.) But to say someone has great "potential" is to imply they're not living up to it. That almost certainly is perceived as an insult by the North Korean regime, whose propaganda bangs on incessantly about the inherent superiority of its system.

February 28, 2019

To help small business, U.S. should reconsider antitrust law

It has become increasingly difficult to start and maintain a small business. While this may have happened by accident, it was the result of policy decisions -- policies that can and should be reversed.

February 13, 2019

Can North Korea become Vietnam? Probably not

President Trump, born in 1946, now has another opportunity to go to Vietnam.

February 6, 2019

Disagree with Howard Schultz? You’re ‘un-American’

Former Starbucks honcho Howard Schultz, very publicly contemplating a run for the presidency and hawking a new book, has a crisp riposte for every policy he disagrees with: "un-American."

January 30, 2019

Who owns your face? Social media mobs raise new privacy concerns

You might own your car, your house, your pet and your 401(k). But you don't own your own photographic image.

January 23, 2019

In the current world climate, nice Canadians finish last

On a recent trip to Montreal, I was disturbed by a billboard that greeted me just outside the city's main train station: an ad for Huawei, the "controversial" Chinese technology company.

January 16, 2019

The Qualcomm court case could damage U.S. national security

Nearly 25 years after the Los Angeles prosecution of O.J. Simpson, the last "Trial of the Century," another vitally important, potentially epoch-defining legal battle is being waged a couple of hundred miles to the north of Judge Lance Ito's courtroom. At stake in this case is not just the fate of a washed-up former football player, but the future of American national security.

January 9, 2019