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The following is the English-language version of “The Importance of Being Candid,” a speech delivered by Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger in Mandarin Chinese from the White House during a video conference hosted by Policy Exchange in London. Click here for Mandarin version. I’d like to thank Dean Godson and Policy Exchange for inviting me to deliver the ninth annual Colin Cramphorn lecture. We all look forward to a time when we can gather again in person for events like this. With new vaccines and therapeutics on the near horizon, I’m optimistic that day will soon arrive. In the...

NEW YORK -- A 32-year-old former Wall Street Journal reporter has joined the U.S. Marines. "When people ask why," Matt Pottinger wrote in a column last month, "I usually have a short answer. It felt like the time had come to stop reporting events and get more directly involved. But that's not the whole answer, and how I got to this point wasn't a straight line." Among other assignments, Pottinger covered China for the newspaper for seven years. "Friends ask if I worry about going from a life of independent thought and action to a life of hierarchy and teamwork,"...

Matt Pottinger was a reporter, but he's no longer so sure that the pen is mightier than the sword. The 32-year-old former Wall Street Journal reporter has joined the U.S. Marines. "The life of a reporter versus the life of someone in the military -- it is a radical departure," he mused. Combination of Factors In seven years covering China for The Wall Street Journal, Pottinger got a sense of how American liberties are a rarity in the world -- especially when he got arrested for writing about corruption. "I was standing over a toilet," he recalled, "with a bunch...