March 15, 2014

Using technology to connect well in an interconnected world

In the last 10 years, the number of students learning the Chinese language in New Zealand universities has halved according to Massey Chinese language lecturer Rosemary Haddon. Does this matter?
December 5, 2013

Fears China Diaoyu/Japan Senkaku Stand-off could lead to World War 3

At worst, the Diaoyu-Senkaku crisis could easily spiral into a (nuclear) World War 3 according to "highly credible" senior diplomats and military planners, including from the United States…
July 15, 2013

A Way Through Cybersecurity Thickets – Open Letter to the New Zealand Government

A way through cybersecurity controversies with the potential to first garner the support of all political parties in New Zealand, and then also international support from the United States, China, and other nations....
July 13, 2013

Fulfilling the promise of new technology unencumbered by security agendas

New Zealand is seen by otherwise friendly nations, including China and others in Latin America and Europe, to be collaborating in a network that spies extensively on them. New Zealand needs to be in a position to communicate comfortably and sustain good diplomatic and trade connections with both...
June 26, 2013

From the Edward Snowden case to a new Switzerland of the Southern Hemisphere?

United States Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel, just a few weeks before Snowden made his public claims about the US hacking Chinese servers, stressed how: "Cyber threats are real, they're terribly dangerous ….They're probably as insidious and real a threat (as there is) to the United States, as well as China, by the way, and every nation."
June 7, 2013

Mai Chen – Connecting Asians and Pakeha to contribute to the Asian Century

Typically in Asian cultures it is in the context of trusted relationships that business-doors are opened. Most in Aotearoa/New Zealand have not had much experience in building up relationships with Asians.
April 15, 2013

Working constructively with China, the United States and North Korea? Open Letter to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key

Will New Zealand assist Korean crisis diplomacy and create a new win-win international trade model?
February 2, 2013

Ladder Award to Chandran Nair for exposing the folly of encouraging a billion Asians to consume like Americans…

If we agree there will be planetary constraints if Asia's consuming class doubles in size, what will ...? What could ...?
November 7, 2012

Local-global connection-building to get through a global economic crisis

Countries previously considered prosperous find themselves mired in debt they cannot repay. The Antipodean Village Blogger argues that understanding some of the basic causes of this problem should help with the identification of realistic proposals to deal with it. The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Australian strategy for the Asian Century is seen as an instructive example of such proposals.
September 1, 2012

The missing conversations

We could start by reducing time and energy focused on we don’t want and focus instead on what we do want. If enough of us do this, then media and politicians will take an interest and follow.
June 12, 2012

Students’ questions arising from lecture “The good life in reflexive communities: Aristotle & Lash”

Questions my students asked: Isn’t a world of good lives in reflexive communities too utopian?.. how does what you are saying...what do you mean by...do you have examples of...?
December 31, 2011

From US-Iran problems to a new, local-global solutions paradigm

New Zealand diplomats with nuclear-free peacemaking credentials based already in Tehran, Washington, London, and Europe could right now begin...