China’s antitrust regulator has officially started investigations into Alibaba Group Holding over alleged monopolistic business practices including a requirement for e-commerce merchants to pick only one platform as their exclusive distribution channel. Read Here | South China Morning Post
Mr. Xi’s swift reversal of more than three decades of apparent movement toward collective leadership and a less intrusive party has surprised both U.S. officials and much of the Chinese elite. In hindsight, though, the roots of his approach are visible in key episodes of his life. Read Here | The Wall Street Journal
This time last year, concepts such as “lockdowns,” “mask mandates” and “social distancing” were unknown to most of us. Today they are part of our everyday language as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact all aspects of our lives. The following 12 charts and graphics attempt to quantify and provide an overview of research in the […]
As 2020 draws to a close, many of us cannot wait for this annus horribilis to end. And for good reason: this year has seen more than a million and a half COVID-19 deaths; an economic collapse far greater than that of the 2008 financial crisis; a boiling-over of resentment against decades of racial and social injustice; […]
Even after Asia’s economies climb out of the COVID-19 recession, China’s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. Read Here | Project Syndicate
Deng, when he was in charge, warmed to USSR again. In fact, he brought Gorbachev to Beijing in 1989. We don’t know if Xi will follow Deng and eventually change China’s international position, but certainly the global situation for Beijing is far more complicated than 40 years ago. Read Here | Asia Times
Many Pakistanis see the army as the real power behind Khan and the cause of the country’s political and economic woes. Their anger has occasioned a remarkable shift as major political figures speak out for the first time against the military’s dominance of Pakistan—a shift that could eventually threaten the military’s chokehold on political power. […]
We must recognize that world affairs are rarely black and white, that alliances should serve as instruments of U.S. policy rather than as ends in themselves, and that—like it or not—history as we always knew it has returned. Read Here | The National Interest
U.S.-China relations sharply deteriorated in 2020, after three years of steadily declining under the Donald J. Trump administration. Beijing and Washington traded blame over the coronavirus pandemic, remained locked in a trade war, competed over 5G networks and other technologies, and clashed over rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, among other issues. Read Here […]
The act directs the US government to issue economic and visa sanctions against any Chinese official who interferes with the Dalai Lama’s succession. The bill also prohibits China from establishing any new consulates in the US until Washington is granted its own diplomatic outpost in Tibet. Read Here | South China Morning Post
looking beyond borders 