Al-Jazeera English’s Head to Head program recently featured a debate with Dr. Zhang Weiwei, renowned expert on the Chinese model of development and professor of international relations. It’s not the strongest of debates; AJE host Mehdi Hasan leaps from point to point and doesn’t grant Weiwei much opportunity to address the worldview and grand strategy of the Chinese State. As a result, Weiwei comes off looking weak at points. I’d encourage watching it anyway in addition to Eric Li’s fuller exploration of these topics. Hasan also seems to assume that the results of Chinese democracy would be good and desirable ones, ignoring […]