Reads of the Week: China’s Growing Influence, Improving Telehealth Laws, and Counterproductive Tobacco Bans

Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Learn more about how the Writing Fellows Program can help boost your writing career!

Wolf Warrior Diplomacy: Why Beijing’s Aggression in Bhutan is Working by Georgia Leatherdale-Gilholy (Spring 2021) in the National Interest

Bhutan is the last standing Buddhist Kingdom in the world. It has one of the fastest growing economies and is consistently ranked as the happiest country in Asia. It is a small country with a remarkable past and present, but its future is threatened by the aggression of neighboring China.

China’s 1951 annexation of Tibet brought Beijing closer to Bhutan’s doorstep than ever before, and successive Chinese administrations have since laid ever-expanding claims on areas integral to the kingdom’s historic and strategic territory. Unlike neighboring Tibet, Bhutan has no history of being under China’s suzerainty, nor that of the former British Raj in India. Before 1959, there were pre-existing pockets of disputed land between Tibet and its smaller neighbor, but nothing that—in part due to both territories’ strong historical and cultural ties—was not handled amicably…

After pandemic experiment, lawmakers should support easier access to telehealth by Eric Peterson (Fall 2014) in The Advocate

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans had to innovate and rely on technology more than in any period in recent history. But just because the pandemic is mercifully coming to an end doesn’t mean we should stop innovating, especially when it comes to telehealth.

Louisianians often have trouble accessing quality health care. Louisiana only has 26 physicians per 10,000 residents, ranking right about in the middle of states. However this statistic is skewed, as the rate of physicians is higher in densely populated areas. St. Tammany, Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Orleans parishes each have more than 35 physicians per 10,000 residents. By contrast, 15 parishes have fewer than five physicians per 10,000 residents…

State Bans on Tobacco Products Are a Disaster by Katherine Revello (Fall 2020) in the Inside Sources

Attempts by regulators to modify behavior rarely have their intended effect.

That’s what New England is finding out, as residents exploit the region’s geography and skirt state bans on tobacco by purchasing their preferred products in neighboring states. As part of an initiative to end juvenile smoking, Massachusetts banned menthol cigarettes and flavored vape products last June 1. And, by that state’s data, the policy worked: Between June and September 2020, tax stamp sales declined 24 percent from the same period in 2019…