CMC In The News

The New York Times quoted Prof. Minxin Pei reflecting on China’s rhetoric during the Cuban Missile Crisis. “The official line referred to the U.S. and the Soviet Union as one imperialist fighting another imperialist, each one a threat to the world,” Pei said. “It was a case of ‘dog biting dog.’”

The Bharat Express News also published the story.

In his op-ed for The Globe and Mail, “Xi’s inevitable third term will add a new tier to the Communist Party’s house of cards,” Prof. Minxin Pei analyzed the prospects of the Chinese president’s third term.

The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Prof. Minxin Pei about the economic and societal consequences of isolationism faced by China. “Before 2018 and the trade war, their goal was aspirational. Today, it is existential,” he said, adding that China’s leaders “have elevated self-sufficiency to a level China has not seen since the end of the Mao era” in 1976.

Prof. Manfred Keil, associate director of the Lowe Institute of Political Economy, and Muxi Li ’23, a Lowe Institute research analyst, published an op-ed in The San Bernardino Sun, “National recession vs. Inland Empire recession, where do we stand?” They wrote: “… whether the list of pundits declaring that the U.S. economy is in recession are right or wrong, the IE region is not.”

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Prof. Minxin Pei measured the impact of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. “Even if (Pelosi) had decided to skip Taipei on her tour of Asia, China’s bellicosity toward Taiwan would have continued to intensify, possibly triggering another Taiwan Strait crisis in the near future,” he wrote.

Prof. Pei also explored this topic in an op-ed for Bloomberg.

Prof. Frederick Lynch was interviewed by the Daily Bulletin about people who have avoided being infected by COVID-19 and are weighing the tradeoffs of easing their precautions. “The decision a lot of Americans are thinking about is, how long do you want to put your life on hold? It’s the third summer of COVID. … A lot of people are basically saying, ‘The hell with it,’” he said. Lynch, who teaches a course on health care policy, noted that the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths have been among people 65 and older.

Prof. Andrew Sinclair was interviewed by The New York Times about California’s election system, which allows all candidates from all political parties to be listed on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters then face off in the general election regardless of party affiliation. The Times asked Prof. Sinclair if California’s “open” primary system is a possible solution to hyperpartisanship.

“I think it’s probably the case that it can produce more moderate legislators,” Prof. Sinclair said. “But it’s hard to sort out, and there’s a fairly robust debate about it.”

Prof. Hilary Appel, an expert on Russian Politics and West and East European Politics, was interviewed by Spectrum News 1 SoCal about the Russian-Ukraine War, how long the war may last, the role of the US, and Putin’s health.

In his Cutting-Edge Leadership column for Psychology Today, Prof. Ronald E. Riggio discussed grit and its relationship to leadership. “For leaders, it’s not enough to just possess grit,” he said, “they need to also develop the ability to inspire and motivate others.”

Multiple media outlets published news stories about the George R. Roberts ’66 P’93 $140 million gift, detailing how the gift will fund new construction and double the campus footprint, while highlighting Roberts’ philanthropy. In addition to Forbes, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Bloomberg, Inside Higher Education, and the Orange County Register ran stories about the gift.

Eleanor Clift quoted Prof. Jack Pitney in a The Daily Beast op-ed about how the Democrats are finally learning to fight the GOP’s fire with fire: “They’re clearly latching on to libertarian rhetoric trying to limit the power of the government. That may win them more support than some invocation of ‘woke’ values.”

Prof. Jack Pitney was quoted in a Washington Examiner story about the Democrats’ mask mandate dilemma. Even if the Justice Department wins its appeal of a federal court’s decision to strike down the CDC’s public transportation mask mandate, the fact that the TSA stopped enforcing it will make it difficult to reverse. “Reimposing a mandate after it has been lifted is likely to be unpopular,” he said. “People dislike uncertainty and inconsistency.”

Prof. Lily Geismer was interviewed by The Nation about her new book, Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality. In regard to the Clinton administration’s small, market-based reforms as solutions to poverty and inequality, Geismer said: “In the end, these micro-solutions both reinforce the power of the market—because they’re based on the techniques of consulting and especially of the emerging high-tech sector—and at the same time they don’t require much expenditure of political or economic capital. They don’t require rich and powerful people to give very much over.”

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Prof. Minxin Pei explored the costs of deglobalization for China in a world divided by Putin’s war: reduced access to major Western markets, loss of access to the technologies it needs to build a knowledge economy, and the loss of efficiency gains from dynamic competition. “Although the coming deglobalization process will leave everyone worse off, China stands to lose the most,” he said. Taipei Times and The Japan Times also published this piece.

In this New York Times opinion piece, Prof. Jon Shields, co-director of CMC’s Open Academy, explains how he gets students to engage in open inquiry with a mix of classroom norms and guidelines. “While robust defenses of free expression and debate, like the ‘Chicago Principles’ ... are important,” he writes, “they do little to soften the climate of fear that has gripped our campuses.” This is because they “neglect the concrete social norms necessary to facilitate and regulate the collective search for truth in college classrooms.”