Beyond Ishihara Shintaro & Halford Mackinder: William E. Deming – 2012 to 1979
This article was first published in New View magazine, Winter 2012. This is a slightly expanded version of that published article Time has been much on my mind this year, as I turned the round and weighty number of 60 in the Chinese Year of the Dragon, and my first grandchild arrived on Earth. Time has clearly been on the minds of millions of others this year too. The reason of course is the various expectations surrounding the completion of a supposedly particularly significant cycle in the ancient Mayan Calendar at the winter solstice, 21st...
read moreChina vs Japan: The Danger of War – 100 years on, it’s the same story
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569740-risks-clash-between-china-and-japan-are-risingand-consequences-could-be “CHINA and Japan are sliding towards war……America is obliged to come to Japan’s aid if it is attacked, and being sucked into a conflict with China is almost too unbearable to contemplate. But in the face of repeated Chinese incursions, a Japanese reaction is understandable.” It’s quite clear where The Economist, one of the prime propagandists of Anglo-American global imperialism, ...
read moreThe 21st Century: American Dreams? European Imagination? Asian Contempt?
© Terry Boardman September 1997 The recent death of Diana, Princess of Wales has led many in the media to claim that ‘a quiet revolution’ has been taking place in Britain, and that Diana was a symbol of this. We now have a chance to consider Britain’s identity, they say, where we want to go as a people in the 21st century, and they reflect on how we are becoming more...
read moreDesert Islands – The Three Historical Temptations of England and Japan
by Terry Boardman This essay first appeared in New View magazine Summer 2011 In my life, music has been the art that has touched me the most, and music has about it much of the element of dream in that – especially if one is not a trained musician who thinks about music in terms of scores, crotchets, quavers, minims and the aspects of musical technique etc. – one experiences music as it enters one’s feeling life. This is above all the case in one’s teens and twenties. I grew up with Anglo-American pop, rock and jazz music, much...
read moreInto the Bleak Midwinter? The Indian Ocean and Korea
© Terry Boardman This article first appeared in New View magazine Issue 58 Winter 2010/2011 Here in the Northern hemisphere as we approach the darkest time of year I can only say that the omens for peace in 2011 do not look good and that is without even thinking about America, Israel and Iran. First, it is well to be aware of some East Asian anniversaries. There will be many in that region who will be very conscious of the 60 year cycle completed in 2008 when North Korea celebrated its 60th anniversary and also the 60 year cycle...
read moreWar in Eurasia 2011 ? Adbusters and The Economist
This essay is about a couple of articles that appeared recently (May) in Adbusters magazine, and their relation to something that appeared in The Economist in Dec. 1992 “Adbusters Media Foundation is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The foundation describes itself as “a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the...
read more1908 and 2008: Earth Monkey, Earth Rat
© Terry Boardman This article first appeared in New View magazine 1st Quarter Winter 2008/09 There are particularly momentous years in the biographies of individuals and in the histories of nations. For example, 2008 has clearly turned out to be one such year in the modern history of China . Against a background of increasing concern in the western media about the consequences of China’s growth, its use of natural resources to support its massive economic appetite, its successful economic diplomacy...
read moreTibet and Its Guardians – between China and the West (2)
This article was first published in New View magazine Issue 49 - 4th Quarter Autumn 2008 Following on from part 1 (New View 3rd Quarter Summer 2008) this article will consider the question: “Why are China and the West so concerned to be the guardians of Tibet and its people?” from three aspects: economic, political and spiritual. Tibet on the Economic Chessboard In April 1904 the British geographer, Halford J. Mackinder, wrote a hugely influential essay in The Geographical Journal (Vol. 23, No. 4) titled “The Geographical...
read moreTibet and its Guardians – between China and the West (1)
This article was first published in New View magazine Issue 48 3rd Quarter July – Sept 2008 It’s a paradox. The more we human beings are willing to hear one another’s differences, the more hope there is that we can cooperate toward truly human ends. The more we accept our divergences, the greater the hope for convergence. For we cannot arrive at the truth of love without working through our various versions of the love of truth. This was the project which the American monk Thomas Merton was about when he died, in 1968, while on a...
read moreThe US-China Relationship in the 21st Century and the Spectres of 1776 (2)
© Terry Boardman This article first appeared in New View magazine 2nd Quarter Spring 2007 The year 1776 saw four developments of crucial importance which are all in a sense related: the American Declaration of Independence from Britain, the publications of Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations and the first part of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the foundation of by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) of his conspiratorial group, the Order of the Illuminati, dedicated to the...
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