About: William Holstein

Peter Mackler was a pal of mine at the old United Press International and I’m on the board of the non-profit his wife, Catherine Antoine, has created to give an award each year for a journalist showing exceptional courage. The winner this year is Paolo Borrometi, an expert on the Sicilian mafia. He has fascinating […]…

The Democratic presidential hopefuls did not display great sophistication about China in last night’s debate. Joe Biden was right in saying that we need to have real allies who cooperate with us in identifying Chinese practices that we must oppose. But other candidates seemed to think that a “deal” could be struck with Beijing that […]…

I’m getting pop-up ads on my laptop containing video footage from Chinese government television. This most recent one, on YouTube, is clearly marked as being paid for by the Chinese government, but it is nonetheless striking that the government has reached this point of sophistication and is obviously spending heavily to distribute this kind of […]…

I’ve just been made aware of this research by the National Association of Scholars into the existence of roughly 100 Confucius Institutes at American universities. There are hundreds more at the high school level. Their research conclusions align with the Chinese Influence, American Interests report by Orville Schell and the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. […]…

Here’s what I had to say at a gathering of students and young activists from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I tried to establish that all of us, and others, are on the receiving end of a variety of tools that the Chinese party-state is using around the world. We have common ground…