In a 2013 news conference, then-recently inaugurated Pope Francis famously said that, when it comes to sexual orientation, including past homosexual acts,...
Shares in strongman leaders seem to be falling. The market has not yet turned bearish, but autocrats have little reason to feel bullish.Consider China. The...
In the United Kingdom, Brexit looms large, with everyone from government ministers to tabloid newspapers frothing daily about the deal that will be struck...
It has been nearly two years since the United Kingdom narrowly voted in favor of leaving the European Union. As the march toward Brexit – formally set for the...
This spring, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government is being reminded of just how powerful – and long-lasting – the unintended...
Almost exactly 20 years ago, after months of delicate and difficult negotiation, leaders of Northern Ireland’s two main political camps – Catholic...
Imagine that you, like me, are a typical product of Western liberal democracy, and are invited to give a lecture to a group of Chinese students in Beijing or...
Thirty years ago, a colleague of mine in the British government who had ministerial responsibilities in Africa and Asia hung the world map in his office...
After U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to China, it can only be a matter of time before right-wing media outlets like Breitbart News and Fox News...
An anecdote about U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 has long been regarded as confirmation of the long view of history taken by Chinese...
Visiting Hong Kong is a true pleasure. With its modern architecture towering around the busy harbor, that great and exciting city must rank among the world’s...
To the great poet T.S. Eliot, “April is the cruelest month.” But in 2017, the world’s politicians could be forgiven for thinking that September is more...
Nowadays, the West can be described as decadent. That does not mean simply that we are addicted to “bread and circuses,” from welfare programs in Europe...
While I was governor of Hong Kong, from 1992 until the handover of the city to China in 1997, I kept a diary. Consulting that diary over the last few months,...
As I strolled through Paris the other day, the air was warm, the sky was blue, and I felt like I was in the best of all possible worlds. As always, Paris...
British Prime Minister Theresa May doesn’t exactly have a reputation for unpredictability. A cautious and disciplined politician – a vicar’s daughter, no less...
As Britain formally triggers the doleful negotiations to exclude itself from the mainstream of European politics and economics, Prime Minister Theresa May...
I am old enough to remember when the best thing about populism was that it was not popular. Nativism, in any form, did not hit many political bull’s-eyes....
When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month, Americans will be more divided than they have been in years. Never before has an...
The Brexit vote has smashed much of the infrastructure of Britain’s economic and political relations with Europe and the world. Those who campaigned for the...
Thursday night is said to have been momentous for those who campaigned to leave the European Union and turn Britain’s back on the 21st century. On that, at...
In Britain these days, one can’t avoid hearing and seeing more and more about the wretched campaign to spit in the face of the world (and of reality) and quit...
In one of his last essays, the late, great historian Tony Judt asked what we should have learned from the last century, a period in which so many soldiers and...
I used to be considered a pretty good forecaster of British and other countries’ elections. I was, after all, once a party chairman.I can now confess my...
It is difficult to separate some of my personal memories of Margaret Thatcher – mundane but revealing – from the sweeping judgments of history. I...