The Biden administration’s announcement on Monday that it would soon export tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine completed a dramatic policy U-turn. It came after a tumultuous week in which the administration’s carefully constructed pandemic-diplomacy plan fell apart as the COVID-19 crisis in India worsened. Read Here | The Atlantic
If we compare President Biden’s statecraft in his first 100 days with the nine presidents we have seen since John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, objective observers should agree that he has earned high marks. The essence of Biden’s success has been strategic clarity. Read Here | The National Interest
The Chinese government is expected to announce soon that the nation’s population has shrunk for the first time in nearly 60 years, Financial Times reported. According to the FT, the latest census numbers for the world’s most populous nation are expected to show a decline to less than 1.4 billion people, though it is unclear how much less. Read […]
Months after his run-in with Beijing authorities, one that scrapped history’s biggest initial public offering, Jack Ma’s true whereabouts have finally been verified: at the very center of Xi Jinping’s boldest effort yet to modernize China’s economy. Read Here | Asia Times
China, it is often said, has mastered the art of economic statecraft. Observers routinely worry that by throwing around its ever-growing economic weight, the country is managing to buy goodwill and influence. Read Here | Foreign Affairs
The number of infections in India surpassed 17 million in recent days, and the official death toll now exceeds 190,000. How did everything go so wrong so soon after India recovered from the first wave of the pandemic last year, resumed normal life and economic activity, and started exporting vaccines? Read Here | Project Syndicate
Ultimately, both Saudi Arabia and Iran have been responsible for human rights abuses for many years, with the war in Yemen being just the tip of the iceberg. It is evident that Biden hopes to reverse the negative legacy of Trump’s Middle East policy. Read Here | The National Interest
Alarming and outrageous, certainly. The reaction in Washington to reports that China trawls America’s open innovation ecosystem pocketing prized technologies got that much right. AI and quantum computing, to name just two of them, could change the balance of global power. Read Here | WarOnTheRocks
The competing imperatives of democracy promotion, global leadership, and “a foreign policy for the middle class” contain stark, if unrecognized, tensions. In part, those tensions stem from the limited time and attention available to the U.S. president and his senior staff… But to a greater extent, the tension comes from the limited resources and political […]
For most Russians, Putin is associated with the country’s rise as a great power, the revival of its military might and the stabilization of the economy compared with the volatility of the 1990s. He’s also overseen a considerable decline in the risk of terrorist threats in the country. Read Here | Asia Times
looking beyond borders 