Howard W. French is a columnist at Foreign Policy, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a longtime foreign correspondent. His latest book is Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.
JINING, CHINA - SEPTEMBER 28: (CHINA OUT) People wearing raincoats participate in 2014 Confucius Memorial Ceremony on September 28, 2014 in Jining, Shangdong province of China. Memorial ceremony to mark the 2,565th birthday anniversary of Confucius was held in Jining on Sunday. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)
This picture taken from a Vietnam Coast Guard ship on May 14, 2014 shows a Vietnamese Coast Guard officer taking picture of a China Coast Guard ship moving toward the Vietnamese ship near to the site of a Chinese drilling oil rig (R, background) being installed at the disputed water in the South China Sea off Vietnam's central coast. Vietnam National Assembly's deputies gathered for their summer session are discussing the escalating tension with China over the South China Sea's contested water. AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH Nam (Photo credit should read HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)
