menu_open
Richard Cullen

Richard Cullen

Pearls and Irritations

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Will America ever curb its love of warfare?

yesterday 6

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Manufacturing consent with a pivotal signifier

09.12.2024 5

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Chomsky is right says Professor Walt

06.12.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Western democracy now finds itself in a parlous state

In 1947, former British prime minister Winston Churchill famously observed that: “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in...

05.12.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Foolish anxiety in the global west

Around 18 months ago, The Economist applied uncommon energy to advance the narrative that the US economy was in outstandingly good shape. Very...

15.11.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

“An integral part of China”: America, Taiwan and Elon Musk

The outcome in the recent US presidential election may yet push Taiwan in directions at variance with those advocated in a new article published in...

15.11.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Remarkable Australian comparative analysis supports BDS

A very long line has been drawn between two dots: Israel and China, across what looks like a credibility chasm, by the vocal Australian Coalition MP...

03.11.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Lessons for Hong Kong from Australia’s remarkable international education sector

One crucial policy initiative outlined by Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, in his latest annual Policy Address is the project to...

30.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

When the White House goes to war

Michael Hirsh, a prominent columnist for Foreign Policy has just published an instructive review in that journal (partial paywall) of Bob Woodward’s...

27.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Sanitising genocide

The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) has just published “The Most Moral Army”- an excoriating review of Israel’s continuous reliance on...

20.10.2024 8

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

America selects green reverse gear

America was once a marketplace leader in so many areas. Now the US faces a range of pivotal global markets focused on a greener future, dominated by...

18.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

From Guernica to Gaza

The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, in Spain, in 1937 “heralded a terrible new age of warfare” that, almost 90 years later, remains...

14.10.2024 6

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The extraordinary warring states history of the global West

History confirms how the present, destructive militaristic culture of the US-led Atlantic alliance stands on the shoulders of well over a thousand...

07.10.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The impact of China’s rising soft power

A recent article in the US journal Foreign Affairs, written by Daniel Mattingly of Yale University argues persuasively that: “China’s Soft Sell of...

02.10.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Suppose Australia was more independent and less dumb

Look at how favourably situated Australia is in the world. As the foundations were put in place for the Asian Century, most profoundly by China,...

28.09.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Look at who is running Israel

In a recent significant article in the US journal, Foreign Policy, David E Rosenberg, the economics editor of Haaretz, clarifies how a minority of...

12.09.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs confirm mainstream Western media mostly a shabby cabaret

A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current...

04.09.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

American reflections on global hegemony

Some US commentators are advocating a recalibration of America’s full-spectrum global posture, while others, including Condoleezza Rice,...

28.08.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Israel’s perilous decay

Stephen M Walt, Professor of International Relations at Harvard University, recently published an article in the leading US journal, Foreign Policy,...

24.08.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Shocking news: China is kicking more global goals

Is China mired in economic misery while bogged down by old habits- or very successfully developing its exceptional manufacturing prowess as it expands...

13.08.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The ill-starred consequences of America’s Chinese chip war

An interesting new article in the prominent American journal, “Foreign Affairs”, by three academics from Georgetown University, argues that...

04.08.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The great reversal: Britain and China

A fundamental reality, which this stimulating book stresses, is how significant British interaction with China pre-dates the British takeover of Hong...

01.08.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

AUKUS submarine deal will damage Australia’s interests

The now-notorious AUKUS agreement was secretly conceived between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States prior to being publicly announced...

18.07.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

What China could teach America

Some years ago, the internationally respected, American academic, Professor Joseph Weiler, argued that there are three types of governance legitimacy:...

30.06.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

America’s anti-China psyop programs a 24/7 menace to the Philippines

Major Western news outlets are currently reporting how the Pentagon ran a secret anti-vaccination campaign in order to undermine China’s life-saving...

19.06.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Could the rise of China eclipse the enlightenment

According to the dominant Western narrative, the history of the entire modern world has been prodigiously shaped by Western historical turning points...

08.06.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Israel’s Gaza hallucination

One reason Israel is constantly criticised, even from within its obedient posse of Global West backers, is that it has failed to articulate what it...

02.06.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Washington’s hope: will rabid penguins eat the BRI and Joe Biden’s uncle?

China keeps building infrastructure in other countries that is needed by those other countries. Surely this is sinister. But all is not lost. As Joe...

26.05.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The New York Times explains how gangsters now Govern Israel

The rather timid headline for a recent aggressive story in the New York Times (NYT) introduced a detailed investigation by that newspaper of how the...

25.05.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

War is Peace

18.05.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Washington’s new man in Manila eases the burden on Canberra

06.05.2024 40

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

China: Beyond socialism and capitalism – LSE Economist Keyu Jin explains the Middle Kingdom

The Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis in the US recently hosted the leading economist, Professor Keyu Jin, from the London School of...

04.05.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

America bombs while China builds

It is sometimes said that America bombs while China builds. What’s the evidence, and where are the statistics? Let’s examine the origin and...

30.04.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Shielding the dollar by bashing China

Ian Bremner argues convincingly that the American Dollar remains embedded as the global reserve currency since: “you can’t replace something with...

15.04.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Morally damaged America still wagging its righteous finger

Very recently, the leading British daily, The Guardian, ran remarkably informing side-by-side stories covering official United States perspectives on...

06.04.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Geopolitical grand larceny and its risks

One of the Ten Commandments says, with awkward bluntness: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Predictably, some are inclined to read certain qualifications in to...

23.03.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Scholar or ideologue?

The Economist, a leading British weekly, enjoys wide global readership. It recently covered the thoughts and written work of two scholars, both...

11.03.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

China and America in the Middle East

An interesting essay that takes a critical but well-informed look at the development of China’s Middle East policy-settings recently appeared in the...

10.03.2024 6

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Thinking intensely about the holocaust, Israel and Gaza

The vengeful, scheming, genocidal response unleashed since October last year in Gaza, by Israel, has prompted a profoundly intensified global review...

09.03.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Pearls and Irritations in the Pearl River Delta

Pearls and Irritations is widely read outside Australia. In particular, its content is now reviewed by certain media writing and presenting in Chinese...

01.03.2024 6

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Amidst RISING AMERICAN POVERTY, $6M per missile in US war on Yemen

In October last year, Time Magazine reported a serious lift in poverty levels across America. You can read the full chilling report here. General...

25.02.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

A remarkable Hong Kong media story

In Hong Kong, a vibrant Chinese media-oasis is forming within the vast territory long staked-out by the exceptionally dominant Mainstream Western...

23.02.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Does China want Trump to win in 2024?

Agathe Demarais is a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a Foreign Policy columnist. She recently...

17.02.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

What’s ruining America?

David Brooks describes himself as a moderate-conservative. Born in Canada but long resident in America, he is a respected, outspoken columnist for the...

12.02.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The BRI gets it right

China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) operates on a huge scale and is the focus of rarely received negative coverage across many prominent outlets...

04.02.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The state of Israel: A critical Swedish assessment

Around two decades ago, the Swedish writer, Henning Mankell, took an increasingly close interest in the wretched condition of Palestinians living...

03.02.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The remarkable global impact of the Chinese car industry: Trade beats war every time

Around 25 years ago, wise commentators said China may, in due course, be able to produce acceptable basic, manufactured white-goods but making motor...

16.01.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

Henry George: more comebacks than Dame Nelly Melba

Henry George (1839 – 1897) was a remarkable, self-taught radical American political-economist who developed a theory of land taxation, which evolved...

13.01.2024 8

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

The American war on global capitalism

In January, 2023, Ezra Klein from the New York Times interviewed Yuen Yuen Ang. Professor Ang is a widely published, China scholar at Johns Hopkins...

29.12.2023 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Cullen

35d7139db557463f0b3798d7d21636cc