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Martin Powers

Martin Powers has written three books examining the theory and practice of administration in China. Two of these won the Levenson Prize for best book in pre-1900 Chinese Studies. Formerly Sally Michelson Davidson Professor and Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, he is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. His most recent book is China and England: the preindustrial struggle for justice in word and image, Routledge, 2019.

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Asian-Americans
How the Media Sugar-coats Anti-Chinese Racism

How the Media Sugar-coats Anti-Chinese Racism

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Recently the Brookings Institute held a panel on “The national security implications of anti-Asian racism.” Noting that Asian peoples worldwide tend to link U.S. China policy with anti-Asian violence, Brookings scholars explained how those policies can weaken U.S. influence abroad. But those views are not mainstream. In the […]

China
Americans may think they have nothing to learn about Justice from the old Empires like China’s: They’re Wrong

Americans may think they have nothing to learn about Justice from the old Empires like China’s: They’re Wrong

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – A year ago, last September Jennifer Rubin wrote in the Washington Post: “The wanton disregard for the lives of helpless citizens, for the fair application of the law and for our democracy is what we would expect in dictatorships around the world where might makes right.” She was […]

China
On China, Biden is continuing Trump’s Zero-Sum Vision of the World when our Crises demand a Win-Win Approach

On China, Biden is continuing Trump’s Zero-Sum Vision of the World when our Crises demand a Win-Win Approach

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Regarding China, Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Team has embraced the zero-sum rhetoric of the Trump administration. That approach could bifurcate the globe politically and technologically along racial lines, but instead of race, the project has been marketed as a contest of values. Zero-sum rhetoric didn’t begin with Trump. […]

Asia
Yes, Anti-China invective in Foreign Policy puts a Target on Asian-Americans’ Backs

Yes, Anti-China invective in Foreign Policy puts a Target on Asian-Americans’ Backs

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Chrissy Teigen is right. Anti-China invectives “put a target on Asian people’s backs,” yet the rhetoric gets more hysterical by the day, spanning the full spectrum from QAnon to the Democratic Party, and from city streets to the halls of state. What’s going on? The earliest Asia-bashing in the West […]

Bill of Rights
Presidents are Paid Public Servants, Not Aristocrats above the Law:  Lessons from Rousseau, Jefferson and Tang China

Presidents are Paid Public Servants, Not Aristocrats above the Law: Lessons from Rousseau, Jefferson and Tang China

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – “Let the constitution of a government be what it will, if there is but one man in it exempt from the laws, all the other members must necessarily be at his discretion.” Perhaps we should thank Donald Trump for demonstrating the truth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s insight. No sooner […]

Authoritarianism
Covid Lies: Why Your life Hangs on the Deranged Whims of One Man

Covid Lies: Why Your life Hangs on the Deranged Whims of One Man

Martin Powers

A Declaration of Independence from Donald Trump

China
When is China-Bashing Racist?

When is China-Bashing Racist?

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – On the left, there is widespread agreement that Trump’s immigration policies are informed by white supremacist doctrines. His travel ban on Middle Eastern nations was racially charged, not to mention restricting aid to Puerto Ricans ravaged by a hurricane. Combined with the utter absence of sympathy for families […]

Authoritarianism
Colonizing Portland:  How Trump’s tactics Recall Worst Excesses of British Empire in places like Hong Kong

Colonizing Portland: How Trump’s tactics Recall Worst Excesses of British Empire in places like Hong Kong

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – When Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in1997, the Western press loudly bemoaned the death of Democracy, but those of us who had lived there knew better. In times of stress colonial rule more closely resembled Trump’s Portland than a citadel of law, with the use of militarized […]

Donald Trump
Trump vs Fauci? Undermining Science for Cult of Personality Politics is Taking America Down

Trump vs Fauci? Undermining Science for Cult of Personality Politics is Taking America Down

Martin Powers

The Washington Post reports that Trump team is focused on undermining Dr. Fauci’s credibility, leading me to wonder how that should even be possible? The Post took it seriously though, suggesting to me that Americans have a serious problem with authority. No, I don’t mean Americans have a problem taking orders. Countless anti-maskers are very […]

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