Environmental disaster is the gravest threat to China's continued development. That's according to me, but it is not some wacko view.

The worst kind of management seeks a single optimum, a one-scale index of efficiency, like the mindless scales of 1 to 10 for grading a woman's beauty or one to four stars for a movie's appeal.

Racial prejudice boils down to the deeply anti-American message that some people are born to fail.

Chinese emissions are a problem not just for its own people but also for the world. It has now overtaken the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter; most of the coal that is burned anywhere on Earth is burned in China.

It is not widely known that, ever since the end of the Korean War, the United States has spent essentially the same amount of money on defense, in real terms, every single year.

It seems to be the case that for the people who actually are all in with Donald Trump - which is who knows: 35, 38, 40 per cent of the electorate - apparently nothing can dissuade them.

For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.