Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to think that China is the one wielding the shovel. The People's Republic is on the march -- economically, militarily, even ideologically. Economists expect its GDP to surpass America's by 2025; its submarine f...

When it comes to the world's game, China is not just the sick man of Asia. We are the sick man of the world.

Been to China lately? There are a lot of new things to see. Avant-garde monoliths -- the China Central Television (CCTV) tower, the National Center for Performing Arts and the National Stadium, to name just three -- rise in Beijing. Shanghai's skyline looks like a fantasy straight out of "The Jet...

In his new memoir, New York Times reporter David Carr describes soaking his arms, with their "pus-filled track marks," in a tub of detergent, as well as other low points in his life as a junkie. But those graphic details aren't the reasons why his addiction memoir makes me nervous. It's because of...

It can't hold as many screaming fans as the football stadium in Denver, where Sen. Barack Obama will address an expected crowd of 75,000 on Aug. 28. Nor is it conveniently located near the scenic Mississippi River, like the arena in St. Paul, Minn., where Sen. John McCain will take the stage a few...

Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in southern China in 1973 and now divides her time between London and Beijing. In both fiction and in film, her work traces the paths that young people from China's countryside take toward the promise of a more glittering future in a city. She is the autho...

In Imperial China, emperors and other high officials sometimes disguised themselves as commoners and mingled with the ordinary folk to learn what they were really thinking. For essentially the same purpose, a government office in the People's Republic now collects shunkouliu, or "slippery jingles...

There's a lot of mindless chatter about China these days, and the fare on U.S. bookstore display tables doesn't do much to elevate the conversation. China is a fire-breathing dragon, the more alarmist writers declare, or a gold mine for entrepreneurs.

The Chandra Levy series , on Page 1 for 13 days, has provoked these kinds of comments: Lurid! Appalling! A waste of time! And these: Fascinating! Totally hooked! Riveting!

We don't need a parallel judicial system to try suspects.

With characteristic self-absorption, Americans are looking at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's recent statements about a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in terms of our 2008 presidential election. We should see this issue instead in terms of Iraqi history.

We shouldn't try to teach them how to recite the Bill of Rights.

John McCain's prisoner-of-war experience is a strong selling point for him in this American election. But it is a powerful drag on his popularity in Europe, where past U.S. involvement in Vietnam still generates intensely negative feelings.

One of the wisest men I ever knew in Washington was the late James H. Rowe Jr. He came out of Montana, went to Harvard Law School and was recruited by Felix Frankfurter for a job on FDR's White House staff. In later years, he became a counselor to Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and other Democrats...

My campaign headquarters in 2006 was in downtown Silver Spring, but all the young people wanted to work out of the Takoma Park field office at the Elektrik Maid, a funky community landmark, popular with punk rockers and slam poets, that sits across from the Takoma Metro Station. So it was startling...

Since the Virginia General Assembly's special session ended early this month, partisan recriminations have dominated our state politics ["Political Gridlock Stalls N.Va. Road Plans," front page, July 13]. Gov. Tim Kaine continues to blast General Assembly Republicans for their unwillingness to...

Michelle A. Rhee, the District's schools chancellor, has made a bold proposal [Metro, July 3] to substitute incentive pay for tenure on a voluntary basis for experienced teachers and to effectively eliminate tenure for new hires. The discussion is largely defined in terms of a crusading new leader...

No single voting rights inequity seems a starker injustice than the plight of people with felony convictions. Those found guilty are not always violent, habitual lawbreakers. Most people with felony convictions -- three out of five -- don't merit or get jail time. These people, of course, aren't...