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Tom Plate

Tom Plate, distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, is the Pacific Century Institute's vice-president. His first book ― "Understanding Doomsday, on the nuclear arms race" ― was published in 1971. His article was distributed by the South China Morning Post.

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Tom Plate

China, the Pope and the Dalai Lama

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, brings a much-needed freshness to the stale air of international relations. Where many nasty geopolitical arguments in world politics seem deeply encrusted, this Jesuit priest heading the Roman Catholic Church relentlessly crusades for new approaches to old stalemates.As one looks at President Barack Obama’s epochal decision to begin warming relations with Cuba, and then reflects on the Pope’s significant role in helping make that happen, you do have to wonder whether this humble, articulate Argentinian isn’t some kind of gift from God. In a manner of speaking, of course: Many people who do believe in God worship what would certainly appear to be a different God from that of the Pope and his flock; and of course there are many people who don’t believe in any God at all.  Among them, presumably, would be all 87 or so million members of the Communist Party of China. Their view is that this business about the Almighty and the after-life is, to trot out Karl Marx’s phrase, a

Jan 4, 2015By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

A studio reels and American president wails

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― In its latest angry shout-out, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea looks to be emerging as something of a computer wonk, the teen crashing and trashing a Hollywood movie-studio’s Christmas Day launch-party plans, embarrassing its movie execs by hacking into and spamming out their private emails, and threatening to return like the evil Freddie Krueger if the movie ("The Interview”, with James Franco and Seth Rogan) about a mock assassination of their leader ever sees the light of day ― not to mention the dark of a movie theater.The plot thickens: Instead of standing up to Freddie like the normal Hollywood hero, Sony Pictures Entertainment, mega-studio here in Los Angeles, though accounting for but 10 percent of sales overall of the parent colossus in Tokyo, runs in the other direction – the shrieking coed scared out of her mind. Cowardly act or smart business? On Friday the studio puts the blame on frightened distributors and theater chains scared off by the turmoil and uncertainty.It gets better: At the president’s end-of-t

Dec 24, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

No celebration: an election without elation

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― There will be little rejoicing over last weekend’s Japanese election. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains leader of his party and his country, but who can imagine him winning a single popularity contest anywhere else in the neighborhood of East Asia? Nor are the Japanese people themselves exactly reacting in wild kanpai-yelling celebrations. This was an election without elation. And yet the all-but-predictable result does provide Japan’s neighbors with something they haven’t seen lately (whether they want it or not): continuity at the top of Japan’s polity. Abe does look to provide that; and this determined patrician politician does not give up easily. In 2007 he became Japan’s youngest PM, serving for only 12 months, but then reemerged in 2012 for a second chance at it.  Now, with a total of three years under this shogun’s belt, and a presumed four years more to go, history may record him as a longer-serving premier than Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) or Yasuhiro Nakasone (1982-1987) ― past mega-stars of

Dec 18, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Triumphant Indonesia vs. tragic Thailand

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― History never comes to a halt but snakes its way into the future as it wishes ― often in unexpected and sometimes tragic ways. Whether via revolution or a counter-revolution, any abrupt change in citizen participation and political structure will shove nations onto trajectories that, for better or for worse, are difficult to reverse.  At the moment no spot on our troubled planet offers a better illustration of this dynamic than Southeast Asia, with triumphant Indonesia and tragic Thailand.  In sum, the former has put its military back into the barracks, and the latter has put it in charge of the country.        In the important archipelago nation of Indonesia, citizen participation in the polity has been growing since the fall of the Suharto authoritarian regime. This was back in 1998, and to me ― and maybe it’s just me ― the land of 18,000 islands first glued together by European imperialism now looks like the coming star of Southeast Asia.Its elected president, Joko Widowo, known as Jokowi, has taken the natio

Dec 12, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Treaties on which policy will have to pivot

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Perhaps the so-called U.S. “pivot” to Asia is an immense self-delusion; perhaps America is hopelessly glued to its 20th century past ― yes, the oft-labeled American century; and so perhaps this Western “world power” is in effect emotionally handicapped ― unable to prioritize geographically and always needing to have it all: the global addiction. It is in this way, here on the U.S. West Coast ― which is the east coast of the Pacific Rim, it should be noted ― that we so often fret and tend to seek solace in the solitude of books that make us feel less provincial than the rest of America. “The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power” (Oxford University Press) is simply a great book. Period. If I had as much power in America as President Xi allegedly does in China, I would absolutely require people in the U.S. to read it before being permitted to open their mouths and say anything one way or the other about the Sino-U.S. relationship. Please join me in applauding Professor Hugh White of the Australian National

Dec 4, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Why I am rooting for Japan in the election

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― I don’t know whether I am rooting against Shinzo Abe in the sudden election the incumbent Prime Minister teed up for next month. It’s a hard call. After all, Japanese culture has given to the world reason to be grateful for some of the best electronics, the healthiest food, the cleverest anime, the neatest cars, the most fabulous novelists, the most subtle and daring film directors ― and at the same time it has bequeathed itself (and to us) some of the least worthy prime ministers ever ― anywhere. The gap between its general culture and its political culture seems about the dimensions of Mount Fuji.  Japanese politics, often mired in mediocrity, occasionally has the capacity to make you wish this planet could get along entirely without politics. Alas, the truth is that giant Japan, the world’s third largest economy and America’s lead ally in the Pacific, tends to produce prime ministers who are such lemons, they are almost constantly being recalled, in effect.  Since 1990, Japan has suffered through no less than 16 PMs

Nov 23, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Listening to what Asia might have to say

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― If our future is not to be dulled by the dead weight of the past, then a clear-headed prioritization of the issues of the 21st century needs to be undertaken. This means keeping Asia ― and thus China ― in the top spot of the global conversation. President Barack Obama’s diplomatic trip this week to Asia is welcome indeed. President Obama has only two years of his eight-year presidency left but that’s enough time for a more original, deeper contribution to the Sino-U.S. history book than he has made so far. An eventual hot war between the two would not only be unaffordable but would be injurious to everyone’s health. A brilliant U.S.-China policy could prove a kind of global affordable care act.  Up to now the much-hyped U.S. “pivot” to Asia has been almost a self-deception, with Washington’s mental energies glued to Syria far more than, for example, strategically situated Singapore. For understandable reasons of all-consuming domestic political pressures ― more than any lack of international common sense ―

Nov 11, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Hong Kong must stop self-flagellation

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― History rarely moves in ways simple enough to be wholly comprehensible at the time.  Even our best journalism takes but close-up snapshots ― never the long view. What observers and commentators make of what is happening in Hong Kong is not, in any complete sense, what history will eventually make of it.  Historical meaning is elusive without the perspective of time, which is precisely what we don’t have at the very moment we need it most. The inescapable flaw of history’s future judgment is its inability to offer current value.So the question becomes what is to be concluded about Hong Kong right now, in the unfocused, semi-darkness of the moment? Some observers view the struggle of the “pro-democracy” street protestors as the classic diorama of good guys against bad guys.  This is obviously simplistic but emotionally appealing. Others view the recent turmoil as the breakdown of law and order and the erosion of a decent respect for legitimate authority. This is factually correct, but is emotionally unappealing. And

Nov 4, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Who elected Aemerican news media?

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― Benjamin C. Bradlee, who has died at 93, was a far more thoughtful editor than he appeared to be. Sure, the Harvard graduate and friend of John F. Kennedy was well caricatured by the virtuoso stage and screen actor Jason Robards in the 1976 film ``All the President’s Men.” Hilariously, a joke then making the rounds in The Washington Post newsroom was that the flamboyant Roberts, known as one of the great stage scene-stealers of all time, had in fact underplayed the newspaper editor, who as everyone in the media world knew was the very definition of macho flamboyance and gung-ho decisiveness. Bradlee’s most famous success as the storied editor of the U.S. capital’s most politically influential media force was of course the paper’s role in the Watergate Scandal of 1974. The Post’s coverage of the affair brought about the abject resignation of Richard M. Nixon as the United States’ 37th U.S. president, but in Bradlee’s mind, the gold dust of Pulitzer recognition and worldwide renown hid potential pitfalls.&

Oct 29, 2014By Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Going for the least will get us the worst

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― If you wanted to make a huge point that would explode inside the mind and indeed soul of your reader, would you do a kind of Beethoven, or a kind of literary Mozart? Come make the decision to come right at the theme and hit you over the head with it; or have it sneak up on you quietly, logically, inexorably. In the invaluable sections about China in his new book “World Order,” Henry Kissinger goes for the Mozart. He wants you to accept what he believes is the 21st reality of China in its relationship with the United States, but he wishes to reason with you before bringing in the brass and the timpani. He seems intellectually programmed toward the subtle. His complex prose style hovers in a steady state of cosmopolitan patience and even preternatural forbearance. The result is sentences that drip over with startling originality, or dense metaphysical miasma. The overall effect, as in his essential work, is judicious, truly knowing assessments about the world that bears serious attention, notwithstanding his own blunders while

Sep 30, 2014By Tom Plate
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