Thailand is the most open society in southeast Asia. So why have so many of its governments been overthrown by the military?

Can China and Japan agree a peaceful balance of power without the US playing policeman?

A new documentary reveals Donald Rumsfeld as a man burdened neither by reflection nor remorse

Two decades after the student uprising was crushed, China's rulers have more to fear from the economic crisis than they do from democratic dissidents

Why did Eric Hobsbawm remain loyal to the blood-soaked communist cause for so long?

Modern intellectuals should stand up for outcasts. But not by pretending to be outcasts themselves

Greed and admiration have muted western criticism of Beijing. They are both reasons why this author was not allowed to deliver this lecture to Volkswagen employees in Germany

There are signs of a new religious fever in China. Ten years after Tiananmen, even some of the dissidents exiled in America are finding a new purpose in evangelical Christianity.

Ian Buruma was drawn to the Wodehousean world of the Spectator, but its complacency proved to be too much

Successful nation states have been built not on race, but on liberal political institutions and a dominant language or culture. But the EU is not a nation or a state, and is neither democratic nor...