The Concentration of Power: Book Review

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 2, February 2025

Concentration of Power Cover - Anders Corr.jpg

Concentration of Power Cover.jpg

By John Gardner

The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy & Hegemony
By Anders Corr
291 pp. Optimum Publishing International. $19.95

I believe the present and future are best interpreted through the lens of the past. Dr. Anders Corr’s book, The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy & Hegemony, is that lens for those devoted to a broader understanding of historical hierarchies and their effects on the rise and fall of civilizations. This dissection of the “enduring conflict between those at the bottom who seek freedom, those in the middle who seek to protect the benefits of their own position at the top of sub-hierarchies, and those at the top of meta-hierarchies seeking to institutionalize and aggregate (power),” is worthy brain food for big-thinkers.

Dr. Corr’s work on “the steady institutionalization of power over time” delves deep into how the power structures of civilization, good or bad, form; and acts as a road map and warning for mankind. It is a profound thought on human nature to ask why humans typically seek to expand their institutions and power, even when that power is no longer necessary. Why did the French Revolution, which started with admirable ideals, turn barbaric while the American Revolution did not? Relinquishing the grip on power is the answer from Dr. Corr, but that is antithetical to human nature. Growing up, my dad told me numerous times of how Americans wanted George Washington to be “President for life,” but he declined to, and in that “set an example for future Presidents”. My dad admired his integrity.  Continue reading

Implications of China’s Pacific Dream for the United States, Australia, and Allies

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 6, June 2022

Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, and Solomons Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade. The Solomons Islands and and Chinese flags feature in the background while each minister holds up a red document.

Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, and Solomons Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Jeremiah Manele, 2019. Source: cnsphoto

Yan C. Bennett
Princeton University

John Garrick
Charles Darwin University

It is apparent that Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream now includes the Pacific Ocean where his Foreign Minister Wang Yi has undertaken a Pacific Islands tour of broad scope and ambition. While  China’s economy is stagnating, it nevertheless continues to drive for increasing its world power as Minister Wang aims to finalise the China-Solomons Security agreement and has hosted a Pacific Island Foreign Ministers meeting whilst in Fiji. Wang’s proposals have prompted strong responses from the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific, in particular Australia and New Zealand.

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Politics in the De-politicised: TikTok as a Source of China’s Soft Power

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 11, November 2021

A person's hands are depicted holding a smartphone featuring the TikTik logo on its screen.

TikTok logo. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Zuza Nazaruk

Last year’s “TikTok war” revealed unprecedented hostility of the US government towards the Chinese tech newcomer. The seemingly innocuous software was developed by ByteDance, a Chinese unicorn companyTikTok is a sister app of Douyin, created for the Chinese market. Both apps allow users to share and watch short videos. In July 2020, then-President Donald Trump accused TikTok of a series of breaches, the most serious of which was sharing user data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Levine, 2020). Yet, some experts, including Adam Segal from the Council of Foreign Relations, considered the near-ban a smokescreen to hinder the growth of the most globally successful Chinese app to date (Campbell, 2020). In 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app globally, with 89 million new users just in the US (Geyser, 2021). To date, 23% of Americans use or have watched TikTok, with an average American user having spent 14.3 hours monthly on the app in 2020 (Tankovska, 2021).

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Schumer’s No-Good, Weak-Kneed, Sold-Out, Sorry Excuse For a China Bill

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 2021

The senator is depicted leaning on a marble banister wearing a blue shirt with black blazer and yellow tie.

U.S. Senate Photographic Studio/Jeff McEvoy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

There’s a dump truck of a China bill coming your direction from Congress, and it’s chock-full of cotton balls. Not a pretty sight. Conservatives and some tough-on-China Democrats are not happy. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the symphony conductor driving this cacophonous beast towards a vote in the next few days or weeks, is in bed with big money. Since 2015, he garnered over $14 million from large individual contributors and over $4 million from PACs (including other candidate committees) for his campaigns. Lawyers have given over $1 million, and lobbyists over $600,000. 

Universities spend big on lobbyists, and can have cash-cow satellite campuses in China that they seek to protect. U.S. Education lobbying sometimes reaches over $100 million per year in aggregate. As far back as 2020, companies effectively lobbied against new laws to limit forced Uyghur labor from China in the American supply chains of companies like Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Costco, H&M, Campbell Soup, Patagonia, and Tommy Hilfiger.

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Chinese Communist Party Cooperation with Gangs and Politicians in Canada: Book Review

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 2021

The book cover depicts the words "Wilful blindness" in white against a red backdrop and a world map in black.

The book cover of Wilful Blindness, by Sam Cooper.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.

Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

Wilful Blindness How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP agents Infiltrated the West, by Sam Cooper, Optimum Publishing International, 2021, $28.95 CAD.

An investigative reporter in Canada, Sam Cooper, is at the tip of the spear, where China injects money, drugs, spies, and underage prostitutes into all of North America. Cooper provides us with a front-row seat of China’s espionage, drug supercartels, support to terrorism, money laundering, and, for a pledge of support to Beijing, campaign donations to the politicians who lurk around China’s United Front groups in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa. Add to that investigations of trafficking in weapons. Heads of state, including Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, are linked by the author to the nefarious characters from China who are doing this dirty business.

It sounds too crazy to be true.  

But Cooper’s new book, Wilful Blindness, is nonfiction, and based on five years of his investigative reporting on the topic, and confidential sources in Canadian intelligence and police agencies. It vindicates, and brings up to date, a joint Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report that in 1997 made many of the same claims. That report, called “Sidewinder”, was suppressed by Ottawa, which at time was trying to ink new trade deals with Beijing. 

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