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In this book, Ian Williams tells the terrifying story of China's vampire economy and the single-minded and ruthless policy of the Party to bend economics and business to its own will. All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Map -- Introduction: China's New Cold War -- 1. The Taiwan Strait: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth -- 2. The South China Sea: The Biggest Territorial Grab Since the Second World War -- 3. Southeast Asia: Paying Tribute to the Emperor -- 4. Brawling on the Roof of the World -- 5. From the Frozen Arctic to the Digital World: The Frontiers of China's New Cold War -- 6. Disinformation, Spying and Sabotage: The Cyber Panda Bears Its Claws -- 7. The Awkward Dance of the Panda and the Bear -- 8. Target Taiwan: The Chinese Anaconda Tightens Its Grip -- 9. The Myth of 'One China': Why Taiwan is an Independent Country -- 10. Why Taiwan Matters -- 11. Chips with Everything: A Taiwanese Lynchpin in the Global Economy -- 12. Japan: Asia's Quiet Achiever Steps Out of the Shadows -- 13. The Muddled China Policy of 'Global Britain' -- 14. Standing up to China: Lessons from Aussie 'Scumbags' and 'Tiny, Crazy' Lithuanians -- 15. Peak China: The Future of the Chinese Communist Party -- Epilogue: The Long Shadow of the Ukraine War -- Notes -- Index.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Map -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: 'Love the Party, Protect the Party' -- 1 Xinjiang - Ground Zero -- 2 Mass Surveillance -- 3 Big Brother Logs On -- 4 He Who Controls the Past -- 5 Not So Corporate China -- 6 The West's (Often Willing) Enablers -- 7 From Influence to Interference -- 8 Bulldozers Down the New Silk Road -- 9 Cyber Smash and Grab -- 10 To the Digital Barricades -- 11 The Communist Party Virus -- Epilogue: Rising to the China Challenge -- Notes -- Index -- Plates.

"Disorientation. With that one eloquent word, Ian Williams captures the impact of racial encounters on racialized people - the whiplash of race that occurs while minding one's own business. Sometimes the consequences are only irritating, but sometimes they are deadly. Spurred by the police killings and street protests of 2020, Williams realized he could offer a perspective distinct from the almost exclusively America-centric books on race topping the bestseller lists, because of one salient fact: he has lived in Trinidad (where he was never the only Black person in the room), in Canada (where he often was), and in the United States (where as a Black man from the Caribbean, he was a different kind of "only"). Inspired by the essays of James Baldwin, in which the personal becomes the gateway to larger ideas, Williams explores such things as the unmistakable moment when a child realizes they are Black; the ten characteristics of institutional whiteness; how friendship forms a bulwark against being a target of racism; the meaning and uses of a Black person's smile; and blame culture--or how do we make meaningful change when no one feels responsible for the systemic structures of the past. With these essays, Williams wants to reach a multi-racial audience of people who believe that civil conversation on even the most charged subjects is possible. Examining the past and the present in order to speak to the future, he offers new thinking, honest feeling, and his astonishing, piercing gift of language."--

Abstract
This article uses the work of brand theorists and New Zealand–based cultural critics to examine the circumstances that created the "Hobbit Law," a New Zealand law aimed at busting local film industry unions. Branding logics created a struggle for authenticity around the importance of Middle-earth to New Zealand's national identity in the twenty-first century. This hybrid identity was then articulated as something that stood against labor actions by film industry workers, culminating in citizen marches against local labor. It closes by exploring ways that the importance of the brand as sense-making tool under neoliberalism might be reconfigured as something that might bridge the gap between media consumer and creative industry worker.

It is reported that Washington is trying to persuade the French, in particular, to back-pedal on their attempt to lay down the accepted principles of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. But for once, the Obama administration is not doing this simply as a favor to Israel. It is demeaning, of course, but over the decades not uncommon for American diplomats to plead for forbearance with foreign colleagues so that they can cope with geopolitically illiterate American legislators. Meanwhile, Morocco's continuing occupation of the Western Sahara, with its own separation wall, the Berm, snaking across the desert, continues to get a free pass in Resolution 2218 passed April 28 in New York. While even the US does not insist on praising Israel for its cooperation when it so clearly does not cooperate, the April UN resolution praises Morocco for its progress in the teeth of its flamboyant defiance. Adapted from the source document.

At a massive 104 pages, Security Council Resolution 2231 on the Iran nuclear accord is haunted by the Mother of All Resolutions -- the equally lengthy and detailed Resolution 687 that the US and Britain rushed through the Security Council in the wake of Saddam Hussain's defeat in the first Gulf war. That war, of course, followed Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in order to loot its treasures -- so that he could pay the huge bills that he had run up by having previously invaded Iran -- with the not so covert economic and military support of the Western powers now rounding on Iran in these current negotiations. Taking a step back from the latest Resolution 2231, and the negotiations leading up to it, and indeed the conflicts surrounding it, provides an object lesson in modern realpolitik. Iran under the ayatollahs is not one of the world's most popular countries, and some of its expedient allies, such as Syria, are more of a liability than an asset. Adapted from the source document.

As usual, as 2014 draws to a close, Palestine and Israel dominate the contested part of the UN agenda. And as usual, the debates and diplomatic tussles involve huge amounts of hypocrisy. The US is firmly and vociferously against countries that break international law, and against nuclear proliferation -- unless, of course, one particular member state with too many friends in Congress is on the agenda. In December, the Arab states were about to move a resolution in the Security Council to accept Palestine into full UN membership, which certainly has the backing of most of the UN members in the General Assembly. It also called for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories by 2016. A group of European states reportedly is countering with a procrastinatory resolution calling for a two-year timeline for peace talks. It is insincere and unprincipled, even though it probably will be superficially less sensitive to Israeli standing than American diplomats would dare be. Adapted from the source document.