The dangers of China’s environmental degradation go well beyond the country’s borders, as pollution threatens global health more than ever. Chinese leaders have argued that their country has the right to pollute, claiming that, as a developing nation, it cannot sacrifice economic growth for the sake of the environment. In reality, however, China is holding […]
The 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is fast approaching. China has just over a year before Afghanistan fades from the West’s radar and Western attention toward the country shrinks substantially. However, it is not clear that Beijing has properly considered what it is going to do once NATO forces leave and pass […]
Despite 35 years of rhetoric about China being open to foreign business, and explicit promises China made on its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, foreign companies in practice have no right to operate in China. China’s policy makers — and no small number of its people — still maintain that it is […]
China is on course to overtake the U.S. as the world’s top crude importer by 2014, as the Asian country’s growing refining capacity boosts demand and America’s fracking boom cuts the need for foreign oil, OPEC said today. Imports to China may surpass 6 million barrels a day by the end of this year, according to […]
The most important reason for China’s commitment to supporting the North Korean regime appears to be Pyongyang’s geopolitical value. North Korea could serve as a buffer zone between China and U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. This kind of strategic thinking led China to enter the Korean War in 1950, sending millions of troops across […]
March 10th, the anniversary of the uprising that led to the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet in 1959, has come and gone. While it is not as infamous in the West as the Ides of March, it is a day of great symbolic import in Tibet and has become a focal point for the expression […]
The reason why Xi has chosen Russia as his first state visit is simple and clear: to raise China-Russia cooperation to a new level and inject new vigor into bilateral relations by continuing with the past and opening up the future,or, as Putin put it, to vigorously promote cooperation and people-to-people exchange between the two […]
Chinese are coming to Africa in ever greater numbers and finding it a comfortable place to visit, work in and trade. An estimated 1m are now resident in Africa, up from a few thousand a decade ago, and more keep arriving. Chinese are the fourth-most-numerous visitors to South Africa. Among them will be China’s new […]
Is China having a first lady moment? It would certainly seem so. Peng Liyuan, a.k.a. Mrs. Xi Jinping, the wife of China’s new president, has emerged swiftly and seemingly decisively, into an overtly more prominent first-lady role than we’ve seen for some time in China. To be fair she has the track record to be […]
President Xi Jinping is expected to hold his first meeting as China’s new leader with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this week, along the sidelines of the March 26 BRICS Summit in South Africa. The talks — they are expected to be a brief event according to officials in Beijing, who cited the limitations of Mr. […]
looking beyond borders 