University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln The hinC a Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012 China Beat Archive 11-21-2008 Playing Politics with Cats and Dogs Jeff aW sserstrom University of California, Irvine,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/chinabeatarchive Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Chinese Studies Commons, and the International Relations Commons Wasserstrom, Jeff, "Playing Politics with Cats and Dogs" (2008). The China Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012. 266. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/chinabeatarchive/266 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the China Beat Archive at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in The hinC a Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012 by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Playing Politics with Cats and Dogs November 21, 2008 in Frivolous Friday by The China Beat | 3 comments By Jeffrey Wasserstrom As regular readers of this blog already know, I recently crossed the Pacific to take part in the Beijing Forum, a fascinating if sometimes hard to figure out event that was valuable in part simply because of how many different countries were represented by at least one presenter. How often, after all, does an American academic find himself or herself in a room where there is an exchange of opinions going on between a scholar based in Moscow and a scholar based in Cairo, or hears an administrator from a university in Nairobi respond to comments his counterparts from Sri Lankan and Australian institutions h ave been making? (I know that dog and cat lovers may be getting impatient with this lead-up, but I promise I will get to animals and politics eventually, so feel free to skip to the final paragraphs.) After the Forum concluded on November 9, as followers ofChina Beat also know, I had the opportunity to give a talk at the Beijing Foreign Correspondents Club of China.