America’s Fifth Column

LONDON – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the 1970s was a product of the Cold War standoff between the liberal...

America’s Tarnished Supreme Court

LONDON – Born in 1944, I grew up in a world largely made – and made pretty well – by America. The post-war settlement established institutions,...

China’s Leaders Can’t Be Trusted

LONDON – When I was governor of Hong Kong, one of my noisiest critics was Sir Percy Cradock, a former British ambassador to China. Cradock always...

Saving Liberal Democracy

LONDON – I belong to a fortunate generation. Born in the United Kingdom in 1944, toward the end of a world war that killed between 70 million and 85...

Democracy and Decency

LONDON – We have long been dangerously slow to recognize, let alone resist, the undermining of liberal democracies by Russian President Vladimir...

The China “Constrainment” Doctrine

LONDON – It is necessary to know some history in order to draw the right lessons from it. All too often, alleged parallels and similarities seem...

We Are Hong Kong

LONDON – In my final speech as Hong Kong’s governor on June 30, 1997, a few hours before I left the city on Britain’s royal yacht, I remarked...

The Lonesome Death of Hong Kong

Dealing with China After COVID-19

LONDON – With the coronavirus continuing its brutal global rampage, it takes a particular sort of malign genius to put the United States in the...