What I'm Reading ...

- China's Way Forward, James Follows, The Atlantic: "You never know which statistics to believe in China, but in January a local official in Dongguan told me that at least 1 million factory workers had recently lost their jobs within five miles of where I was ... If China does not keep moving forward and growing, will it tear itself apart?"

- Obama Seeking A Channel To Khamenei?, The Wonk Room, Think Progress: "'The key issue is now to find a channel to Khamenei,' said a senior Western diplomat briefed on the Obama administration’s policy review in recent days. 'If the supreme leader moves, he’s going to do it in a very prudent and incremental way' ... The Obama administration’s first direct contact with Iranian officials is expected to come later this month at a UN-sanctioned conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands."

- Six Questions for Juan Cole, Scott Horton, Harper's: "Many Americans seem to view the Muslim world as the new Soviet Union, as a relatively monolithic and uniformly hostile bloc of nations. This point of view seems to me oddly detached from reality."

- Alan Watkins, "Voting reform? Too late, Mr. Brown," The Independent, "In the 1997 government, the two leading proponents of the alternative vote were Robin Cook and Peter Mandelson. Mr Cook is, sadly, dead, while Lord Mandelson has quite enough on his plate with which to keep himself occupied."